Find Fast Relief from Painful Canker Sores with Laser Treatment

Canker sores are a common problem affecting more than half the population at some point, causing considerable pain and making even simple activities uncomfortable. Unfortunately, cankers can be difficult to treat on your own, especially because experts aren’t completely sure why they happen.

It might be tempting to try to manage the pain with over-the-counter (OTC) rinses or numbing gels, but these only provide temporary comfort. Waiting for a sore to heal naturally can take a week or more, which can feel like forever when every conversation or meal causes pain.

Luckily, laser therapy can help. At Morris Dental Associates in Abilene, Texas, Amy Morris, DDS, and our team offer the most advanced laser treatments for patients in Abilene, Sweetwater, Brownwood, Eastland, and the surrounding areas. Here’s how this state-of-the-art therapy could help you find relief from canker sores in just one quick treatment.

Understanding canker sores

Also called aphthous ulcers or aphthous stomatitis, cankers are sores that form on the soft tissues of your mouth — specifically, your tongue, gums, or inner cheeks. While people often confuse these sores with cold sores, aphthous ulcers are not contagious, and they don’t form on the outside of your lips, either. 

Canker sores can cause a lot of discomfort when you chew or talk. That’s because your mouth is filled with sensitive nerve endings. When your mouth moves while speaking or chewing, these nerve endings are irritated. Spicy foods or foods high in acids, like citrus fruits or tomato products, can make the irritation feel even worse.

Many factors can cause or contribute to canker sore formation, including:

• Mouth injuries, like biting your cheek
• Chronic or acute stress
• Immune system problems
• Bacterial overgrowth
• Certain medications
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Hormonal fluctuations
• Allergies
• Genetic predisposition

Sometimes, though, they form for no apparent reason, making them even more difficult to manage. 

Laser treatment for fast, lasting relief

When it comes to cankers, many people reach for OTC products to provide relief. But while these products may temporarily numb the area, they don’t heal the canker itself — and that means those painful symptoms are likely to return.

Lasers are used in many areas of dentistry to help promote healing and destroy harmful bacteria that can lead to infection. In canker treatment, the highly-focused, targeted energy beams sterilize the area to help reduce inflammation and prevent complications. Even better: The focused heat helps seal off nerve endings for nearly immediate pain relief.

Laser treatment is also extremely quick. Each burst lasts less than a second, and the entire treatment takes just a few minutes. Afterward, there’s no downtime either, jump-starting the healing process without requiring a complicated recovery routine.

In fact, laser treatment is so effective at managing cankers, it can be an ideal solution for people with recurrent canker sores, providing long-term relief and potentially reducing sore formation in the future.

Find relief for painful cankers

If you suffer from frequent, painful canker sores, laser treatment could be the solution you’ve been looking for. To find out more, request an appointment online or over the phone with the team at Morris Dental Associates in Abilene, Texas, today.