Then I tried the Johns Hopkins Medical Handbook and found something on
canker sores and fever blisters.  Under the section headed sore throats-
viruses was the short statement that canker sores and fever blisters often
accompany viral infections.  These lesions can be very painful but usually
disappear once the viral infection has ended.  Big help!  I'm glad that I
didn't have to pay for any of these textbooks(one of the perks of the job
that I have is that I get a lot of complimentary textbooks).

I then decided to look through two books that I actually paid for.
Prevention Magazine's Vitamins and Minerals for Health(no canker sores but
lysine for cold sores) and then Mark Bricklin's book "Natural Healing".
Finally, I hit paydirt, a whole section on cold sores, canker sores and
fever blisters(3 and 1/2 pages!).

Before telling you what advise was given I want to point out that my advise
for mouth lesions and {*filter*} lesions that are caused by the herpes virus
is what I gave in my original response to the request for help by Andy Chan
in dealing with his canker sores(lysine, methionine, zinc and vitamin C).  
I cover the role that each of these play in fighting viral infections in my
human nutrition course and I feel pretty comfortable about teaching my students
about these nutrients and prescribing them for patients who are fighting
viral infections.  Some of the stuff that Bricklin proposes is pretty off-
the-wall to me because I can't understand why it should work.  But since
mouth sores are a very common problem, I thought I'd share this information
with the netters who are interested in this subject.

Canker sores usually appear inside the mouth while fever blisters and cold
sores usually appear on the lips or outside the mouth(borders of the lips
or the nostril area).  Cold sores and fever blisters are caused by the
herpes simplex virus while canker sores are of unknown etiology(doctors
don't know what causes them).  A canker sore is a tiny ulcer or open sore,
whitish in the center with a red border(inflammation).  Eruptions are often
associated with allergies, emotional stress, mild local injury or
irritation(hot or very spicy food), antibiotic use and menstruation.  These
lesions can be quite debilitating when they flair up and they make it
difficult for the sufferer to eat or drink.  

The remedy(according to Bricklin) has been ignored by the medical
profession.  The response of doctors is to tough it out(it will eventually
go away) or like Steve Dyer said, try a topical application of cortisone.

Here is the "natural" remedy for canker sores - yogurt culture(the
beneficial bacteria found in yogurt).  While fresh cultured yogurt is
benefical, the best response is obtained when 8 to 16 tablets of
Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus are taken with a
glass of milk.  The milk is needed to serve as an activating culture medium
for the bacteria in the pills.  With each glass of milk, 3-4 pills should be
taken so you can see that you need to do this routine several times a day.
This needs to be done on an empty stomach.  Supposedly about 80% of all
canker sore suffers can end their suffering by using this natural remedy.
Those that don't respond usually have an iron, folate or B12 deficiency
that has to be corrected(according to Bricklin).  Cold and fever blister
suffers had an even better response to bacterial supplementation with 95%
getting relief from the herpes mouth lesions.

There is no explanation of why this should work, only that it does work.
Since these bacteria aren't going to hurt you and if you use skim milk you
will not load yourself up with saturated fat and cholesterol, I don't see
any reason not to try it.  But, you would be drinking 3-4 cups of milk
each day while trying this natural remedy to knock down your canker sores.  
There are a few things that I don't like about milk beside the fat and
cholesterol problem.  Skim milk will have vitamin D (2.7 ug per cup) and
calcium(302mg per cup).  Four cups of skim milk will give you 10.8ug of
vitamin D(over 2 times the RDA for an {*filter*}) and 1,208mg of calcium(RDA of
800mg per day for an {*filter*}).  Taking 150mg of magnesium with each glass of
milk will take care of the calcium problem and watching your sun exposure
should keep you from going over the 5 times the RDA for vitamin D toxicity
limit.  Needless to say, I would not be giving this advise in Sci. Med. and
I don't teach my students about this "natural" remedy for canker sores,
cold sores and fever blisters.  

Again, I have no earthly idea why this should work for mouth lesions,
especially lesions that are know to be caused by a virus.  I can't imagine
that you can really change the intestinal flora by doing this(your
digestive enzymes take out most of the bacteria and then when the survivors
get to the large intestine, they have to fight the already established
bacteria that live there.  Yogurt may change the bacterial flora in your
mouth but taking the pills by-passes your mouth.

Maybe bacteria have a lot of iron and zinc(they need both of these to
divide and they try to steal ours when the pathogenic bacteria start
infections in our body).  Zinc is deficient in the diet of most Americans
(you need to have a lot of whole grains in your diet to get the 15mg RDA,
average intake in the U.S. is only 13.2 mg per day).  Zinc is critical in
fighting viral infections and the zinc requirement is increased during a
viral infection.  If this was the explanation for feeding yourself a lot of
bacteria(zinc supplementation) I could buy it, but as I said, the reason why
this works isn't apparently known.  But remember that we were chewing on
willow bark(to get aspirin) when we had a headache for thousands of years
before we finally figured out why this "natural" remedy for a headache worked.

Marty B.

My only working cure so far has been time and pain.
Andy Chan

...

Poor excuse for a scientfic study, but better than nothing I suppose...

--
netcom!proto!joe

Sounds like wart remedies to me.  Can't hurt to try.

--
Steve Dyer