Wednesday, April 05, 2006

A mix of East and West.

I have canker sores. There is one right behind my tongue. This makes swallowing not enjoyable. Then there is two in my lower lip. Muffles my speech. Makes it harder to work when right now I am doing temporary front desk. "aello..this is liff.. ow may I help you..."

I did a little look up on canker sores (click here). At the question "How do I prevent canker sores", they recommend to avoiding hard, crunchy or spicy foods and chewing gum may help reduce mouth irritation. This is from western medicine.

What really interesting is that in eastern medicine, we believe in the same thing. Eastern medicine, there is a believe that every type of food is "wet" and "heat". Canker sores are from eating too much "heat" foods. Fries, chips, chocolate, cookies, oily foods are considered as "heat" foods. I notice I have more canker sores lately. I suspect the Clif bar, gel shots are "heat" foods as well.

Lastly, when i don't get enough sleep, I get more canker sores. Sun and Mon, I average about 6 hours of sleep. Definitely not enough.

I was surprise to see that western medicine believe canker sore is cause by the same type of foods that eastern medicine described. I mean, I should be surprise. After all, human being react to the same way whether you believe in western or eastern medicine.

What is the solution? Well, in western medicine, the doctor can give u an anti-inflammatory or collagenase inhibitor. In eastern medicine, the best bet is to avoid "heat" foods. Remember the pringles from my ironman diet? Well, I chuck down half of that on Mon night. So now I am paying for it.

I start drinking more water. There is some chinese white flaky stuff at home that I boil in water to drink. No, it ain't crack. :O. At best I can describe it is that the drink is bitter. I know the name in Chinese. For sure, I am having some of that tonight.

11 comments:

William said...

Or, you could try a tonguectomy. Works like a charm. No more cankers EVER.

Or try the tiger balm.

Unknown said...

benny gets canker sores all the time. i'd never heard that about the soda. he should try that next time.

Habeela said...

Ok, so I'm assuming you grew up learning all of this cool Eastern medicine. Do you know of any good references on it? The silly westerners seem to be taking the Eastern philosophy more seriously these days.

qcmier said...

Wish Eastern medicine was more readily available here. So what's the white crack, er flakes you use? I don't think I've used that stuff.

Mike said...

Canker sores...ugh! They are definitely a buzzkill on one of my fave activities- eating!!
I'll have to try mipper's soda burn next time I get one..hopefully in the distant future!

Thomas said...

Eeek. I don't envy you. I might be a western person, but I'd opt for a diet change over some pills any time.

Holly said...

Jim ( my SO) gets canker sores. We attribute them to stress and spicy diet. Somebody once told me that taking a vitamin with B complex would make a difference and for Jim it has ...

How is your Vitamin B intake?

Anonymous said...

I always thought canker sores were a sign that your body was sick. Start popping some Vitamin C!

*jeanne* said...

My husband gets canker sores all the time. I have never had one, except sometimes (rarely) I've gotten what I call cold sores.

I've heard if you hold an icecube on the sore when it FIRST starts to develop, it helps keep it from growing worse.

Rae said...

That's so interesting, but I hate that you had to have canker sores to share it with us! Hope they're better soon, those little buggers are such a pain!

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