Canker sores!! Who likes them? Nobody. Who gets them? Probably most people. Me? Yep, I've had my share of them. Always in the front of my mouth and on the outside of my gums or opposite the gums. They have always been small and usually gone away in a couple of days with some medicinal help. As far as canker sores have gone, I've had it pretty easy. Not too irritating or painful and very short lived.
NOT ANYMORE!!! My last 2 canker sores have changed my perceptions about the little beasts. A couple weeks ago my mouth hurt, way in the back of my mouth, on the inside of my gums. I thought I had strep throat or some other illness. I looked and guess what I found? Yep, you guessed it: a canker sore, back where I have never had one before. It was pretty painful because my tongue rubbed up against it ALL THE TIME!! Not a great place if you don't want to irritate the canker sore. The saving grace was it was short lived. A little bit of medicine, a few sloshes of warm and very salty water and poof! It was gone.
Now back to last Friday. The left side of my mouth started to hurt, way back on the inside of my gums. I looked and guess what I saw? I know so hard to guess I had another canker sore!!! But that is where the similarities end my friends. This gargantuin canker sore will not go away. And it is gargantuin. It's the biggest one I've ever had or seen! I've only ever seen mine so I can't compare and I refuse to look at any pictures online because really, who wants to look at a canker sore in someone else's mouth?
Because this brute won't go away after multiple applications of topical medicine, a few cupfulls of salty water being swished around and throat drops (which do help a bit) I decided to look online for help. One thing mentioned was getting a microbial mouthwash or for bad cases, a prescription mouthwash. I was intrigued. I had never imagined there was a mouthwash out there that wasn't over the counter. So at Nick's allergy appointment today I did a little conversing with his doctor. I asked her about microbial mouthwashes and this prescription one I learned about. I decided I needed to call my doctor to see if she could call in a prescription for this Miracle Mouthwash, as it is called or if I had to go in. My doctor is 45 minutes away or more, so I was hoping for the "call it in" outcome. I recieved word a prescription was waiting for me at our local Walgreens and was ecstatic.
What was that prescription you might wonder? What is in this Miracle Mouthwash? The answer: LIDOCAINE! The actual name on the prescription is: Lidocaine Viscous 2% Oral Solution. The directions for use: Swish and Sit with 15 ML (1 Tbsp) ever 3 hours as needed.
Now some of you who are more astute than I when reading this are probably saying to yourself, "Lidocaine is a numbing agent" and you would be correct. It is a numbing agent. I wasn't thinking about that at all. I was thinking, "I hope this makes the pain go away!" So we arrived home, I got a tablespoon and went straight to the bathroom. First, the stuff is pretty thick, so swishing was difficult. Second, the taste, while not the worst tasting medicine I've ever had, it was pretty close. So I swish this gag inducing semi-solid glob in my mouth trying my hardest to get the canker sore. For the next 5 minutes I had my head hanging over the sink spitting and "rinsing" the taste out of my mouth. I finally left and thought, "I hope this works."
I'm sure you can all imagine what happened. My entire mouth went numb. Yep, my tongue felt huge, my lips felt huge and it seemed my mouth was full of cotton. And to make all the matters worse, because of the location of my canker sore and my beyond superb gag reflex, I was unable to swish on the actual canker sore. While the rest of my mouth was numb and could feel nothing, my canker sore was mostly untouched and only slightly less painful. A very small portion of lidocaine/spit mix did get my canker sore but not enough to make the pain go entirely away.
Jake and I then took a nap because we got no sleep last night. Poor boy is sick, so he didn't sleep therefore, I didn't sleep either. We woke-up around 2 hours after I swished the lidocaine cocktail and you know what, my canker sore hurt worse than before!! I ended up putting the cheap, over-the-counter drug on it. I learned that although my entire mouth went numb, lidocaine, even a small amount, works much better than the "cheap" stuff. So now I am sure you are wondering if I sucked it up and did another swish with the cocktail. The answer is: do you think I am crazy? I put some on a q-tip and applied directly to the canker sore. However, as sad as it sounds, it doesn't work nearly as well as the gag-inducing swish the directions call for. Maybe it needs to mix with saliva to acheive full functionality or something but I am tossing around the idea of trying the cocktail swish again.
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