Mouth sores – What can you do yourself?

To keep from irritating inflamed parts of your mouth more, and to prevent them from getting worse or new sores from forming, it’s better to avoid the following foods and drinks until the wounds have healed:

• Alcoholic drinks
• Carbonated ("fizzy") drinks
• Hot foods and drinks
• Very spicy foods
• Acidic foods like tomatoes or citrus fruits
• Hard and sharp-edged foods like bread rolls, raw vegetables or chips (crisps)

When you chew, the mucous membranes lining your mouth move. This stretches the sore areas, which can hurt. Eating soups or soft food can help to prevent this pain.

During cancer treatment, people may have inflammations in their mouth as well as nausea, loss of appetite or loss of taste. As a result, they may eat less and lose too much weight. Adding things like butter or cream to soups and puréed food may help. This keeps the meals easy to eat and ensures that you have more calories even when you eat smaller portions. The higher fat content also enhances the taste of the food, making it easier to avoid using a lot of spices.

It is also important to let cooked food cool down enough before you eat – or to simply eat cool meals. There are various dishes that taste good despite being cold – like savory soups made with buttermilk, or sweet foods like custard, mild quark cheese, yogurts or shakes. If you like it sweeter, you could add honey instead of sugar or eat a spoonful of pure honey every now and then. Some studies have shown that honey helps to relieve the pain caused by inflammations of the membranes lining the mouth in people who have cancer.

Thorough oral and dental hygiene is important – not only to prevent inflammations in the mouth, but also when mouth sores have already developed. This means:

• Brushing your teeth after meals and before going to bed with a soft brush
• Rinsing your toothbrush carefully after brushing, letting it dry and replacing it regularly (every month)
• Cleaning dentures and wearing them less for as long as the inflammation lasts
• Cleaning the spaces between your teeth as you usually do, for instance with special interdental brushes (but if that's not part of your normal routine, you shouldn't start when you have an acute inflammation)
• Using non-alcoholic mouthwashes

It is also important to drink enough fluids, not smoke and regularly check the lining of your mouth in the mirror. If the pain gets worse, or if the mucous membranes swell, change color or bleed heavily, it's a good idea to see a doctor or dentist.