OUCH!! IT'S AN ULCER!!

Ouch!! It's an ulcer on my mouth!!

Ever wonder why on Earth there are always been ulcer here and there on your mouth? Ulcer as defined as the loss of epithelium (skin cells outermost layer) integrity, continuity and thickness, is one of the most annoying things any patient can complained to a dentist. I'm sure you still remember that toothache (pain) as I featured before is quite a common complaint. (Lost? Click here and here)

Scary, annoying but true, ulcer in mouth caused by many reasons. Oral ulcer also known as canker sores in some dictionary. If you are having lichen planus, anemia, immune defect, some hand-foot-and-mouth disease or simply you accidently bite on any part of your mouth (trauma), you are likely to develop ulcer in your mouth. There are a lot more reasons that can cause it, too many that deriving a diagnosis based on causes can be difficult.

Most commonly, ulcers in mouth can be due to these several diagnosis in general:

(1) Traumatic ulcer
As the name suggests, it is caused by accidental biting on any parts of you mouth, let says your tongue or maybe due to eating hot stuff and you get your tongue burned. Usually it heals in within 10 days. You know how to get it heal by yourself - Bonjela!!

(2) Recurrent aphthous ulcer or RAU in short
This is way too common. The annoying thing is that in this features, the ulcer tends to recur again and again, although not on same site all the time, but the recurrence can give a bad experience. Ulcers are painful, no doubt! Therefore pain can persists long enough and may disturbs patient's daily routine.

It doesn't have imminent causes, but likely due to stress, hypersensitivity, autoimmune, hormonal changes and etc. This ulcers can manifest in three forms: minor (small) in a few numbers, major (big) that most likely to be single sore or herpetic (smaller but can fused to become one). Depending on types of RAU, healing can take longer than normal traumatic ulcers.

Treatment of ulcers can be done in many regiments. Steroids, antiseptic mouthwash or antibiotic mouthwash, or even local anaethestic can work to relieve the pain and other symptoms..

And last but not least, some studies say that you can ry to prevent mouth ulcer by taking these food: orange, lime, tomato, nuts, barley, soy and vinegar. Yes, kind of true.