Canker sore woes

Canker sore. A pair of words that I associate with excruciating pain. (If you already know what they are, you may want to skip the following paragraph.)

I find it socially awkward to explain what a canker sore is to someone who has never encountered them, so instead, I will have my trusty friend, Wikipedia, help out:

An aphthous ulcer (pronounced /ˈæpθəs/) also known as a canker sore, is a type of oral ulcer, which presents as a painful open sore inside the mouth or upper throat characterized by a break in the mucous membrane. Its cause is unknown, but they are not contagious. The condition is also known as aphthous stomatitis, and alternatively as Sutton's Disease, especially in the case of major, multiple, or recurring ulcers.

Maybe that wasn't the best way to describe it, but then again, how do you describe something that causes so much discomfort and pain, that people cannot see without asking you to open your mouth and peer inside?

Canker sores can affect one’s social life in several ways. When one gets a canker sore, depending on the location and severity, it can be unbearably painful to speak. Sometimes speaking is unavoidable. I work in an office-type workplace and luckily for me, I can use e-mail to explain to a co-worker why I was so withdrawn earlier. My work is also related to public health, so at least half of the staff may have some idea. But this is not always the case.

Sometimes I have to pay for food at the convenience store. If a friendly cashier tries to strike up a conversation with me, in most cases, I try my best to speak a moderate amount—not too little to give the impression that I am rude, and not too much to give the impression that I am talkative—and try my very hardest to bear the pain.

It is situations like these that explaining the circumstances—that I have a canker sore—that causes social awkwardness. What if he or she doesn’t know what a canker sore is? That would lead to more questions, or even worse, he or she may think I have some horrible contagious disease, and it is too painful to try to explain it isn’t so.