Comment on YSK that SLS, an ingredient added to most commercial toothpastes, causes canker sores
viralJ@lemmy.world 7 months agoI get the point of your gun analogy, but I don’t think it’s an apt one. It’s not like only people *sensitive *to gunshot wounds die from gunshot wounds. If you shoot a person with a gun the damage is pretty certain. If cankers were as certain to be caused by SLS then everyone using SLS-containing toothpaste would have cankers. We don’t. The bottom line is that the article linked to by OP is making misleading claims.
But I despite me not agreeing that the gunshot wound analogy is apt here, I get what you mean, so maybe the title of the lemmy post would be better phrased as something like “YSK that SLS […] can be the cause of cankers in sensitive people”. Which is also kinda the point I was trying to make in the last paragraph of my original reply.
voracitude@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m speaking on the mechanics is the problem: it’s more akin to an otherwise nonfatal shot causing someone to bleed out because they have haemophilia. Sometimes, people without haemophilia will die of a gunshot that should not have been fatal, due to infection or similar.
Aphthous ulcers are caused by damage to the mucous membranes in the mouth which then gets infected. While the article could be more clear that people without the sensitivity are at much lower risk, the mechanics of it would suggest it can affect anyone. As someone with the sensitivity and having tested it by occasionally using SLS toothpaste (not always voluntarily), I can tell you that if I use toothpaste containing SLS, it’s a guarantee I will develop mouth ulcers within a day. I get them sometimes even without because there are a heap of causes, but sticking to non-SLS toothpaste is the surest way to avoid them.
Without the sensitivity, it might just be “the straw that breaks the donkey’s back”. Maybe you’re dehydrated already, and stressed or malnourished, and because the SLS dried out the mucous membranes in your mouth just enough so some damage turns into an ulcer. That damage can be caused by biting your lip, a fragment of potato chip stabbing your gum, etc etc.
The fact is that it’s plenty possible to make effective toothpaste without SLS, so there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to keep using it in toothpastes when it’s demonstrably a problem. Soaps are a different question; I haven’t found SLS-free soap to alleviate any skin or hair problems for me, nor seen any research on the subject, so it may well be fine. “Not for internal use” kind of warning label.
Side note: at one point I had thirteen or fourteen ulcers at least half a centimetre in diameter each. They got so big they started to merge. I couldn’t eat or drink anything, the pain made me nauseous, and that lasted three days. Five was a pretty common number for me, but since cutting out SLS I only occasionally get one or two. It sucks so bad when it’s bad, I just hope these posts help someone who’s suffering figure it out for themselves.