MWM: CANKER Help? (or Roadkill with Mustard)

Monday was our biggest Mondays with Marge so far with a wide range of questions posed, including EO chemistry, pet care, hormones, teenage body odor, and much more.

Tiffany wondered what might help heal canker sores.  

Tiffany:  I'm hoping this question falls into the healthy lifestyle category and not medical :) ... I have a tendency to get canker sores from accidentally biting wrong, especially if I get rundown. Would you have any recommendation for something to soothe and help heal? Seems I've found plant oils to help me with just about everything but this is one I haven't figured out. Many thanks and I hope I'm sending my question ahead correctly.

Marge: This is...this is where I share my guilty secret... Because, for all my talk, and all my warnings about using the oils undiluted; what I have done for YEARS for any sort of sore inside the mouth,

Myrrh Resin, before harvesting

including canker sores, inflamed gums, or any 'soft tissue' sore, is put a dab of neat Myrrh Oil on the sore. In most cases it's better by morning. Now, I KNOW our Myrrh oil. It is from a distiller who has been distilling Frankincense, Myrrh, Cistus, and other resins for decades. I hear rumors of some "maybe-not-just Myrrh" essential oil floating around and I am cautious. But this has worked for me. (Wondering if the Myrrh CO2 might not be even more effective…)

My CCAP instructor suggested diluting the Myrrh in some Calophyllum inophyllum (Tamanu) rather than using it undiluted. Myrrh, all by itself, tastes extraordinarily bitter. Combined with Calophyllum, it is even worse tasting—but—it's not using undiluted EO, and, it works.   

Also, we recently got in an oil that is recommended specifically for oral infections: Javanese Turmeric CO2 (sometimes called Javanese Ginger). I had a "Thing" coming out of my lower gum. It was hard and pointy... (oversharing???) and felt like a shard of a tooth might have been left after an extraction and was trying to work its way out, possibly! It had been there for a few days and was getting irritated. It hurt.

So I mixed some of the Javanese Turmeric CO2 into some Calophyllum inophyllum. And, Tiffany, I am here to tell you, NOTHING I have ever tasted in my entire LIFE tasted as bad as that... NOTHING. Think week-old Roadkill, with mustard! Think distilled skunk! Think of the worst possible taste you can imagine. BUT the next morning, that hard, pointy sore that had been there for perhaps 2 weeks or so, was gone. POOF. Vanished. And has not come back. I have no idea what it was. But it was irritating enough and painful enough that I was actually contemplating calling my dentist to say, "What IS this?"  Whatever it was, gone, poof, overnight.

So for canker sores, first Myrrh and possibly Javanese Turmeric CO2.  Just remember to be fore-warned that both taste terribly bitter.

Hope this helps. (and don't tell anyone that for years I have put neat Myrrh oil on canker sores.)

Tiffany: Thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Marge! I was thinking Myrrh and possibly your new Javanese Tumeric :) and Calophyllum taking care of your umm little monster sounds like one of those things that makes one in awe of the power of plant oils!! (Reminds me of the huge lump and horrible colors I was expecting after walking into the lid of a wood box that hit me smack in the shin and hard. POOF, overnight, nothing the next day, not even a little discoloration!) But roadkill with mustard, ahem, well, that sounds like something to look forward ;) I laughed so hard my husband thought I'd flipped. In any case, the little sores are so irritating, I'd look forward to the roadkill with mustard!

Tiffany: And I won't tell anyone about that neat thing that you do ... shhhhhhhhhh ;)

Need an aromatherapy question answered? Mondays with Marge resumes on the Summer’s Solstice, Monday, June 20, 2016, 8:00 p.m. CDT.