My mouth. In great pain it was. Thank you silver nitrate.

So if you're like me, as soon as you start really digging deep into your vocal practice you wake up a week later with a canker the size of Lake Erie sitting right on one of those skin folds next to your uvula. The flap that ALL your food touches and all air grazes as it passes through.

Every

Single

Time.


It's the worst. And it gets bigger, your head feels like it's about to explode, you forget everything, you start walking into stuff. And before you know it, your whole mouth is consumed by the most annoying and least life-threatening virus of all time. What's worse, if you like all things citrus and sip any quantity of orange juice exceeding half a teaspoon, a nuclear war erupts inside your face, leaving no survivors in its wake. It's the most brutal apocalyptic experience your mouth can feel, aside from gingivitis, certain types of fungal infection, herpes, blisters, pizza burns, cavities, root canals, any trip to the dentist that doesn't have to do purely with aesthetics, and so on.

So maybe it's not the worst, but it's pretty far up there. Especially if you sing, or like to eat three times the quantity of food your recommended daily intake suggests. Every time I ate something I could hear Alec Guiness muttering,"It's as if millions of nerve endings cried out, and were suddenly silenced...I fear something terrible has...-" Then me interrupting with an inflectionless but strongly pronounced, "OW."

I was going to just wait it out like I always do and bask in the misery, but the planets aligned this week and I found myself sitting in a chair while an experienced individual basically burned a small crater in my mouth where the canker was and left me feeling remarkably relaxed, at ease, and without symptoms (six hours later, mind you. Five and a half for me, cause' genes. Thanks Mom&Dad <3). I was even more surprised at how little it hurt. I've felt some remarkably painful things in my life, but this was not one of them. It didn't feel hot really, or sharp like a needle. It just felt like a little more pressure on a painful spot for like, two seconds. That was it. Barely as bad as popping a pimple.

I'd post pictures, but since I know one of my readers is already feeling woozy because of the above description, we'll have to forgo that happy opportunity. Sorry!


Anyway, yeah. Have the worst canker in the world? BURN that sucker! With a licensed professional, y'know. See a doctor, it's easy. They all know how to do it.


Cheers!


-Merk