Braces Round 2.. Cankers suck.

[wiredbee]

Hi all. I first had braces about 20 years ago. I had a lot more issues then, so had needed a palate expander and an appliance that was attached to both sides of my jaw (maybe Herbst, but forsus also looks familiar) in addition to a full set of braces. Unfortunately I wasn’t very compliant with my retainer after, partly because my lips were constantly dry as the retainer was one piece for both sets of teeth.

20 years later and one erupted and crowded wisdom tooth later, my upper teeth are no longer properly at the midline and my bottom teeth have also shifted a bit (the bottom perhaps in part due to getting a dental implant). I just spent the last 4.5 months with a carriere distalizer attached to my upper left molars - boy was that unpleasant. It was removed yesterday and I’m now wearing a full set of braces again. A little sore but so far not as bad as the discomfort I experienced from the carriere retainer. The main annoyance is that I’m very prone to cankers - I wasn’t expecting my first one to show up on day 2. Any favourite strategies to deal with cankers? I had this problem during braces round one, but mostly just toughed it out. The cankers I suspect will be worst around my upper lip as I have a bit of lip incompetence and so need to stretch it more to close my mouth or lick my lips. Got some ortho dots and dental wax but found I wasn’t the best at keeping either attached to the carriere for long. They said my overall treatment would be about 1.5 years (and I got the carriere off a bit early, so hopefully less if I’m lucky).

[djspeece]

Welcome to the board! I don't have any great answers, but I did search this forum on "cankers", results = https://www.archwired.com/phpbb2/searc ... 5B0%5D=13 . Hopefully you'll find some helpful advise amongst the results. Sounds like you have really been through the mill -- best of luck to you!

[wiredbee]

Thanks.. It seems like the worst of the cankers is over (for now). Not sure if it helped, but I did a lot of salt water rinses. Ortho dots were probably the biggest pain reducer, though they didn't stay on particularly long (long enough I think to help some of the healing). Now hoping the braces work relatively quickly, if only on the canine that the carriere pulled down (it has affected my ability to chew quite a bit).

[djspeece]

Good to hear, and best of luck to you!

[trifecta]

Glad to hear that you are doing better, Cankers do suck. Salt rinses help but they kind of condense the pain temporarily then some temporary relief.
In case you get a recurrence, most general dental offices have some variation of a "Magic Mouthwash" Has lidocaine viscous and sometimes some
kaolin and occasionally some steroids for severe ulcers. The mouthwash is typically made up by a compounding pharmacy. Can be helpful providing
some coating action and pain relief but not a cure.

[djspeece]

Glad to hear that you are doing better, Cankers do suck. Salt rinses help but they kind of condense the pain temporarily then some temporary relief.
In case you get a recurrence, most general dental offices have some variation of a "Magic Mouthwash" Has lidocaine viscous and sometimes some
kaolin and occasionally some steroids for severe ulcers. The mouthwash is typically made up by a compounding pharmacy. Can be helpful providing
some coating action and pain relief but not a cure.

Great advice (Trifecta is a dentist)! Lynne, can this be made a stickie at the top of the board?

[bbsadmin]

Made it a sticky. Good suggestion!!!

[djspeece]

Thank you!

[wiredbee]

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll ask about the mouthwash if I’m still having canker issues by my first braces follow up. I had at least 6 cankers by the end of week one of braces (most I could deal with, but one was huge and on my salivary gland - it liked to hook onto my braces and so I really needed those ortho dots).

I have actually been given steroids in the past for my cankers as I’ll occasionally get more severe ones. That was a godsend (I still have the tube but it’s expired and I can’t recall the directions anyway).

[lsmith22]

I know what you mean just got metal braces again two weeks ago for the second time at age 64 I forgot about canker sores but salt water rinse seems to help with me.

[Ross]

Hello,

One strategy to alleviate this discomfort is to use ortho wax. You can also find free images or diagrams of proper application techniques online.