Canker sores make everything less funny

I really hate canker sores. For whatever reason, I tend to get a lot of them in my mouth a lot of the time that I exist. This has been a thing since as long as I can remember.

I finally went to a doctor when I had about five of them in my mouth at the time. If you've never had one of these things (and I know some weird people who claim they've never had one!), they hurt a lot. The pain is kind of a dull ache with a chance to suddenly stab anytime you move your mouth. So, you know, when you naturally swallow the saliva that builds up in your mouth, it hurts. Or when you try to talk, it hurts. Or when someone makes you smile and that hurts too which makes you frown and guess what? That hurts too! It's like winning the pain lottery.

So despite the fact that my ability to talk was roughly on par with someone in speech therapy for every sound, I managed to convey to the doctor that I was a) in a lot of pain, b) unable to eat solid foods and since swallowing hurt, I couldn't really drink anything either and c) really annoyed by these things.

She responded by grabbing a swabbing q tip and pressing it firmly into one of the sores while I held back all but a single tear.

Her response was, admittedly, what doctors do in these sort of situations, but still. Ouch. She explained that she was sending it to be tested for viral components. She also prescribed a paste to put over them but besides that, repeated what I already knew from the internet and dashed my hopes of being able to eat something that night.

Sadly, the tests all came back negative, so I still don't know why I get these sores. I know they typically appear if I bite my mouth, which happens more often than I care to admit. But I have heard from people who say that if they bite their mouths, it just heals up in a day or two.

Me? Well, I bit my cheek the other Tuesday during my first bite of dinner and resigned myself to my fate. A full week later, I still had a canker sore messing up my mouth.

I guess my point is that you should never tell someone that it doesn't hurt to smile because sometimes (based solely off of my own personal experience) it does hurt to smile.

Ouch. That just made me smile.