If you’ve got persistent canker sores, your dentist has probably told you that they are totally normal and nothing to worry about.
‘Don’t worry, bucko. Those painful sores that come back for no apparent reason are just part of life, so get used to it!’
Canker sores are red, inflamed, prone to infection, and can be quite painful. They come in a range of colors from red, to white, to yellow- almost like a traffic light- and can take as much as three weeks to heal. They are not triggered by injury and are not contagious like cold sores are.
So what are they, and what causes them? If you ask your dentist, he will shrug and then hand you a bill. If you Google it, you get that same shrug in the form of a list of unhelpful articles. They will tell you all the normal meaningless things like if your parents had them you might too. They may attribute it to cheek biting or a vitamin deficiency. But they still don’t know what they are or why they show up.
Well, gosh Wally, I guess no one knows what these things really are.
Here’s how you can tell your doctor or dentist is pretending to know something he doesn’t. The causal factors he sites don’t predict the recurrence of the problem, and then he tells you it’s just part of life.
Can you think of another example of wounds that just appear for no reason? Pimples, ulcers, hemorrhoids, bed sores and the like all have causes. But canker sores- well, that’s a medical mystery.
Give me a break!
The good news is that you’re about to learn something your doctor and dentist either refuse to acknowledge, or just can’t understand. There is a lot of good research out there that explains what these annoying sores are.
Canker sores are caused by Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), one of the main active ingredients in toothpaste. The study we found indicated that people who used toothpaste with SLS developed an average of 14 canker sores within three months.
The researchers took those same people and gave them a non SLS toothpaste. Within the same period of time, their canker sores went down to an average of 5.
Not everyone who uses an SLS toothpaste will get canker sores, so there is a sensitivity issue behind it. But over time, even those who are prone to getting canker sores will stop getting them after they quit using their SLS toothpaste.
So what is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate?
You might be surprised to learn that SLS actually has nothing to do with cleaning teeth. All it does is create the sudsy soap-like action that you get when you scrub your teeth with it. It’s a marketing gimmick. You do not need your toothpaste to become foamy when you brush in order to clean your teeth.
But foaming toothpaste makes people feel like its doing an especially good job. SLS is the same substance that makes shampoo get sudsy when you rub it into wet hair. Toothpastes that do not have SLS tend to get a bit lumpy, like wet baking soda in your mouth. If you’re used to foamy toothpaste that lumpy, dry feeling can feel a bit strange.
But we pay a high price for that sudsy feeling. Studies show SLS comes with a host of unpleasant side effects. Worse yet, it comes under a couple of different names. It can be called Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES) or Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate (ALS).
There are also a number of different so-called “natural” toothpastes that have it. We’re looking at you Tom’s of Maine!
If you think about what this substance does, it’s not hard to imagine why some people’s mouths would react to it to violently. The suds making action is really quite dramatic, and the tissues of the mouth are very soft and permeable. The mouth is the beginning of the digestive tract, and substances can permeate the cheeks and sub-lingual area very easily.
Should a thing that suds up as dramatically as SLS does get under your skin, it’s bound to cause some very uncomfortable sores. It’s like an exploding chemical pimple inside your mouth.
There are a number of alternatives to SLS toothpastes, like Doterra On Guard Natural Whitening Toothpaste which you should be able to find online if your local stores don’t carry it. Good toothpastes use xylitol as a sweetener- and they don’t contain fluoride, an industrial byproduct from alloy manufacturing.
You’ll know the difference when it doesn’t foam up like some kind of crazy science experiment. And you’ll feel better too.
~ Health Scams Exposed
