Magazine Health Books. To send a link and summary of this article to a friend, click here . Perhaps second only to unidentified vaginal discharges, canker sores are truly among the most vexing maladies known to women. Tiny as they may be to the eye, the crater-shaped sores inside your cheeks or along your gums or tongue can send you reeling with pain and make eating and talking difficult. Kissing, of course, is out of the question.
Women doctors offer some surprising but effective tactics against vexing canker sores.
Apply an antihistamine. When canker sore pain gets too much to bear, duck into your local drugstore and buy a bottle of Benadryl liquid, an antihistamine commonly taken for allergies or colds, suggests Lenore S. Kakita, M.D., clinical assistant professor of dermatology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an adviser to the American Academy of Dermatology. Place the drenched cotton directly on your sore for five to ten minutes. Apply the Benadryl three or four times a day, making sure that you don't swallow more than the precautions on the bottle advise. It tends to numb the area, so you can eat.