New years eve, I bit a huge chunk out of my lip while eating lunch. New years morning, I bit it again making it even bigger. Since then, I've had a canker sore the size of a dime on my lip that has been driving me crazy. It's just now starting to heal. Thank God. I'm looking at changing my goals a bit for 2017. I'm gonna focus less on job hunting and try to focus more on developing a meaningful social network where I can try and be a more positive member in my local community. The wife and I are at the point where we need a sixth bookcase. I've given away pretty much all of the comics I'm comfortable with giving away and try as I might, I still can't seem to get around to.selling my antique books. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty certain this is how hoarding starts. Except, you know, we're organized. :P
TL;DR zilactin. It's basically crazy glue with a base in it to piss off the pH of canker sores. Covers 'em up, heals 'em up, best stuff there is. longer: I started getting what my parents called "herpes sores" when I was about eight. My parents set me aside and told me the tragedy of how they'd contracted oral herpes while in the Peace Corps in Brazil, likely from a shady dentist, and that it was truly unfortunate, but it could be treated and I was a big boy now so I had to be tough. The treatment they'd learned for "herpes sores" in the Peace Corps in the '60s is to take a bamboo skewer, like what you use for barbecues, and wrap the tip in about a q-tips' worth of cotton. You then dip this in battery acid. Literally, you pop a maintenance cap off an automotive battery, eyedropper out about 50ml of sulfuric acid and keep it in a glass bottle in the medicine cabinet. The pokey, cottony, acidy spear is then lanced into the "herpes sore" until it bleeds. You repeat this until there is no white left, just angry, raw, bleeding-black (because of the acid) flesh. Fortunately, the eradication of the sore coincides with the sensory overload of being stabbed in the gums with a bamboo skewer dipped in battery acid so by the 3rd, 4th 30-second session you no longer feel much pain. (which is okay the previous treatments are more than enough) My father proudly told me about the age of 12 about the friend of his he treated who had "a couple hundred" "herpes sores" in his mouth, all of which my father treated, such that the man could again eat a sandwich without pain. I learned that they come out with stress and by the time I was 12 or so I was treating my own "herpes sores" - wrap the spear, dip the acid, bleed black, perhaps repeat the next day, perhaps the next, but eventually it goes away. So life continued until I went off to college. The first canker sore I got in college was under my tongue. I didn't have a car at the time. I had to ask around in the dorms until I found a guy willing to let me siphon off some of his battery with a soda straw taken from the cafeteria. I kept the acid in a Jack Daniels miniature bottle. I can't recall what i did for the bamboo skewer. It's possible I just bought some, more likely I stole one out of a package at the grocery store (who steals a single bamboo skewer, after all? They keep them in ziploc bags for like a dollar). A problem with stabbing yourself with an acid-dipped bamboo skewer, of course, is you need something to stab against. Gums are easy; there's bone. You push until you can't push anymore. Under the tongue? Another matter. Suffice it to say that one day, two days, three days, four days, five days, six days the damn thing kept getting bigger. It was like a cancer no chemo could cure. So after about ten days of agony, with this "herpes sore" under my tongue roughly the size of a dime, I capitulated and hoped that Student Health could help me out. I sit down with the nurse, embarrassedly relate my family history of "herpes" and our "treatment." She looks at me, impressively stone-faced, then asks to see under my tongue. I open my mouth. "That's the biggest canker sore I've ever seen," she says. "Canker... sore?" "Canker sore. Herpes sores are on your lips. They're external. You have a canker sores. Everyone has canker sores. I've never heard of them being treated by stabbing yourself with battery acid." "Uh..." "Go to Walgreens and buy this stuff called Zilactin. It's about four bucks." "Canker...sore?" "Hurry." And that is why, dear rd95, I can endorse Zilactin with no hesitation. I have been to hell and back treating canker sores and in LA, you can't get Zilactin. Kanka, anbesol, all the rest of them are glue with anesthetic in it. Zilactin actually has a "battery acid" component (which disturbs the pH of the canker sore, which promotes healilng) without requiring a "battery acid" sacrifice. Collecting starts when there's a reason for each item and each item is unique. Hoarding starts when you just want more.
... that is some of the craziest shit I have ever heard, up there with Black Salve.
my jaw was definitely on the floor. this is redonkulous
The dude who I linked to ended up dying of stage 4 cancer. As far as I can tell, the black salve didn't help. People do crazy shit, man, especially when they're facing death. Also when they're not facing death - Look up breatharians
oh i was referring to kb's story sorry. i got about 4 seconds into the black salve video and noped the fuck out when i saw the massive tumors not cured (obviously) in subsequent videos.
When I was living in my car, I learned that battery acid and cotton is a great way to stop gangrene and other bad stuff from infecting wounds. Way cheaper than Hydrogen Peroxide and it is great on cleaning and cauterizing stab wounds. Typing that out the next thought in my head is OH THANK CAPITALISM I DON'T LIVE LIKE THAT ANY MORE.
I used to get canker sores a lot when I was younger ( big surprise there ) and I remember once having at least 8 at once. Sometimes I gargled salt water but mostly I just wait for them to heal eventually and that pretty much sums up my approach to health care. I had a wart on one of my fingers for years until I realized what it was and that I could just fix it with some cheap stuff from the store.
I'll look into that Zilactin the next time I get a canker sore. If you had said, with a straight face, "What you need is some cotton, a bamboo skewer, and some battery acid" I'd have responded back "Fuck no. I'll just deal with the canker sore." Oh, good. I'm not a hoarder yet. Though, incidentally, I have found that I've started to buy books I already own, to give to others on a whim. All of Valiant's #1 TPBs are $10 bucks each, which make them a great deal to get. Edit: Also, I read some people discussing decompressed vs. compressed story telling in comics and it makes me long for the day when a story was told in a single issue. I think I'm gonna actually write to some editors and let them know I miss that story telling format.Collecting starts when there's a reason for each item and each item is unique. Hoarding starts when you just want more.