Epic Fail – Aphthasol

My latest round of ulcers has seemingly cleared up – thankfully – and I can give the full report on the last experiment with Aphthasol.  The “too long, didn’t read” version…

It sucked.

Don't believe the hype.

As I wrote before, Aphthasol is a prescription paste that contains Amlexanox as the active ingredient.  I’d read that several studies have shown that amlexanox helps reduce the length of the ulcers by 30%.  I had tried it once before and didn’t quite see the difference I was hoping for, but thought I’d try it again just for good measure.  The result was the same.

I had a breakout of three ulcers on the 3rd of August and began treating them with Aphthasol.  Two of them went away fairly quickly while one stuck around and became the “big baddie,” a phenomenon that is not uncommon with me.  I continued medicating the bad one 4x a day throughout the life cycle, which ended on the 11th.

So, the ulcer lasted 8 days while being medicated with Aphthasol.  Not significantly shorter by any means.  Generally I expect them to go away between 7-10 days.

Ryan Reynolds on amlexanox

But here’s the real kicker.  While I was using this medication, the inflammation and pain were FAR WORSE than normal.  It is seriously the only medicine I’ve ever used that actually made the ulcer hurt worse.  Especially in the morning, I woke up barely able to talk or eat breakfast.  I’ve used many treatments over the years and I’ve never experienced one that actually made the pain and inflammation worse.

Reading about amlexanox, it’s described as an anti-allergy medication.  So maybe it helped people in the clinical trials because some people’s ulcers are allergy-based.  Or maybe the clinical trials were all BS.

I dunno.  I know I’m a clinical trial of one, so take this with a grain of salt, but my advice would be to avoid Aphthasol.  If it shortens the length of ulcers at all, it’s not worth the increased pain.

The downside of experimenting

I think this website may have been my calling.  RAS is my curse, but maybe my blessing…

I may be the perfect person to be writing this blog and doing this project because I get canker sores on such a regular basis.  Some people are lucky enough to only get them every once in a while, I’ve had them pretty much constantly throughout my life.  So when it comes to experimenting and testing different products and treatments, I don’t have to wait for months to move to a new one and get results.  I can go directly from one to another.

There’s a reason why scientists test on fruit flies.

So it is right now that I have a few new spots trying to pop up, and I’ve started a new test.  I’m trying out a product called Aphthasol, a prescription paste I got from my dentist.  The active ingredient is amlexanox, which I found in some research was more effective than most products at treating ulcers. I’m applying it four times a day – after meals during the day and when I go to bed.

Here’s the downside:  This isn’t the first time I’ve tested this crap.*

The first time I tried it I was so underwhelmed I only made it a few days before I stopped using it.  Literally did nothing, in fact I was wondering if it wasn’t making it worse.  With these ulcers, inflammation is everything.  Control inflammation, you control the pain.  A good paste will have you waking up with less swelling than when you went to bed.  But with this stuff, I was waking up with massive swelling and very, VERY sensitive ulcers.

But, in the interest of the blog and the experiment, I’m testing it again, and this time I’m going to let it run its course.  Using a product I know isn’t working and suffering because of it is… well… not fun.  But I’m going to stick it out and track the results.  Wish me luck.

By the way, any readers out there with an iPad, check out the site there.  I brought it up inadvertently the other day and it blew my mind.  A very, very cool blog reading experience on the iPad thanks to WordPress’ Onswipe plugin.  Give it a look, or any WordPress blog.  I’m a fan.

*In fairness, I linked to this article to some very positive conclusions about Aphthasol because who knows, my conclusions could just be me.  Apparently it did very well in a test involving 1335 test subjects, so who knows…  I’ll keep up the experiment.