You might have heard of the negative effects smoking and tobacco use can have on your heart, lungs, and overall health. But do you know how detrimental substance abuse can be to your oral health? You can get mouth ulcers and sores from chewing and smoking tobacco. 

Smoking goods and tobacco use might harm your mouth's soft mucosal tissues. Not only can these substances cause mouth sores and ulcers, but they also heighten your risk of mouth cancer. 

This article will explain how smoking and tobacco use can cause mouth ulcers, sores, and cancer, other effects of chewing tobacco on your oral health, and treatment options.

How Can Smoking Cause Mouth Ulcers? 

Many people indulge in continuous smoking mainly to relieve their stress. However, not many know that stress and anxiety are two major causes of mouth ulcers, especially cancer sores and aphthous ulcers. It’s why you might have heard your dentist recommending you to manage stress and anxiety as an optimal recourse to prevent mouth ulcers from developing frequently.

Some other smoking effects entail increased layers of keratin over your sensitive oral skin, i.e., mucosa. The build-up of keratin layer over mucosa creates thicker skin in your mouth, just like a thicker callous. 

You will be surprised to learn that rather than causing detrimental effects on your oral health, the keratin layers protect the mucosa and can prevent mouth ulcers and sores. Hence, this is the reason why some individuals believe that smoking doesn’t cause ulcers, but paradoxically, it helps reduce their occurrence.

However, high levels of smoking and nicotine use can be dangerous. Instead of causing harmless mouth ulcers, they can increase your risk of developing cancerous lesions. 

How Can Tobacco Use Cause Mouth Ulcers? 

Irritants and traumatic injuries, like accidentally poking your tongue with sharp food edges or biting your cheeks, can commonly trigger mouth ulcers to develop. Besides these causes, dipping snuff and smoking side effects can also lead to the occurrence of mouth ulcers and sores. It’s reported that a significant percentage of smokeless tobacco users tend to suffer from oral ulcers within a few days of chewing tobacco for the first time.

Now that smokeless tobacco entails small irritants to boost the uptake of nicotine, it can also cause irritation to the sensitive skin inside your mouth. Different types of oral ulcers, from canker sores and oral thrush to leukoplakia and erythroplakia, can develop inside your mouth due to the continuous use of tobacco products. 

Can Smoking and Chewing Tobacco Cause Mouth Cancer?

Smoking and tobacco use are the major risk factors for mouth cancers. All smoking and tobacco products, such as cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars, and snuff, contain nicotine, toxins, and carcinogens (cancer-causing agents).

According to researchers, smoking and chewing tobacco for years can lead to the development of squamous cell carcinoma in your mouth, regardless of the location. Furthermore, oral cancers can develop in different areas of your mouth, such as gums, lips, the tongue, hard palate, and the inner cheeks.

How Does Smoking and Tobacco Use Affect Your Oral Health?

In addition to increasing the risk of developing mouth ulcers, sores, and cancer, smoking and chewing tobacco can cause the following oral health issues:

• Gum Disease or Periodontal Disease

Gum disease, also known as periodontal disease, is an infection that can damage the bone surrounding and supporting your teeth. This bone helps keep your teeth in place on the jawbone, enabling you to chew food properly. 

However, smoking and tobacco use can develop plaque on your teeth, which is a breeding ground for debris and bacteria. Not removing plaque from your teeth and gums can lead to the development of tartar, which could irritate your gums and surrounding teeth.

• Smoker’s Melanosis

Increased pigmentation or darkening of tissues because of the inflammatory response to tobacco smoke is referred to as a smoker’s melanosis. This pigmentation mostly affects the gum around your upper lower front teeth. 

The more you chew tobacco, the higher the degree of pigmentation rises. More prevalent in women, smoker’s melanosis affects 5% of cigarette smokers and 22% of pipe smokers. 

• Nicotinic Stomatitis

People suffering from nicotinic stomatitis have a white roof of the mouth (hard palate) rather than pink. In addition, multiple tiny raised spots with red centres develop on the hard palate. The heat produced by tobacco products leads to irritated small salivary glands by making its duct apertures inflamed, which triggers red nicotine patches.

Older men indulged in pipe smoking usually are at a higher risk of developing this oral lesion. Furthermore, smokers who have nicotinic stomatitis can more likely suffer from mouth, posterior, lung, or tonsils cancer.

• Gingival Recession and Tooth Abrasion

Besides altering your oral tissues, smokeless tobacco can damage your teeth in the region where it’s kept in your mouth. The sweetness in the smokeless tobacco can lead to localised gum recession, increasing the risk of decay for your exposed teeth. 

How Can Smokers and Tobacco Users Treat Mouth Ulcers?

Some mouth ulcers cause, such as genetics, age, or mutations can't be controlled. But you can reduce the risk of developing oral ulcers and cancer by:

• Quitting smoking and the use of tobacco
• Avoiding second-hand smoke
• Limiting alcohol consumption

If quitting isn’t an option, consider rotating where you hold snuff in your mouth to reduce overall irritation. In addition, rather than using harsh toothpaste and mouthwash, use gentle ones to soothe mouth ulcers and sores. 

All-in-All

The combination of dangerous chemicals and excessive heat can irritate the mucous membrane of a habitual smoker and tobacco user, resulting in painful ulcers, sores, and cancerous lesions in your mouth.