Canker sores are a real pain especially when badly located in the mouth. Canker sores are classified into 3 categories : minor canker sore, major canker sore and herpetiform canker sore. The minor form of canker sore is the most common one. It affects between 20-50% of the population but fortunately, most people get one canker sore every year or so. Women get canker sore more often than Men (55% versus 45%). Theses mouth canker sores (also known as mouth ulcers) become a real plague when people get them chronically. In the USA, about 4 million people get canker sores more than once a month. And usually, people who get chronic canker sores also get several canker sores per outbreaks (1-5 sores for the minor form, 1-10 sores for the major form, 5-100 sores for the herpetiform canker sore!).
A canker sore takes about 1-2 weeks to heal so people who get more than 2 outbreaks per month have continuously canker sores in their mouth. The pain is then very high and canker sores may lead to difficulties in speaking, eating or swallowing.
The causes of canker sores are still unclear. People tend to confound precipitating factors such as stress, food, oral trauma, etc… and the real causes who remain unknown. This is an important point to understand if you want to get rid of canker sores: the illnesses that cause canker sores are unknown but each one can experience his own precipitating factors and should try to avoid them. For some people it would be some special food (tomatoes, pineapple, nuts,…), for others gluten allergy, toothpaste ingredients, stress, ….
Now, the problem is: do you know a canker sore treatment that works? If you are looking for an effective canker sore treatment, it all depends on how often you get canker sores:
- If you have canker sore less than 6 times a year, local topical treatments are likely to be a good choice. These canker sore treatments will help your canker sore to heal faster and to hurt less.
- If you have canker sores more than 6 times a year, a preventive treatment might be a better choice or at least a combination of both a topical treatment (so when you have outbreaks it lower the pain) and a systemic treatment that we help you to STOP having canker sores.
You also need to know that because canker sore causes vary from one individual to another, a canker sore cure that works for one person might not work for another. So the best thing to do is to try to find out what canker sore remedies work the best for you.