How I fell for the gel (Anbesol Adult Strength Gel)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Anbesol Adult Strength Gel
Date:	30/10/09 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quite effective, cheap, safe

Disadvantages: That oh-so-easily misheard name...

(Note: when I originally wrote this review, the title was given as " Anbesol Adult Strenght Gel". This has now been fixed - well done, Dooyoo - but I'll leave the wording of my review unchanged.)

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"Strenght"? Oh dear. We sometimes ask other reviewers to take a moment to use a spellchecker on their work, so we can hardly let Dooyoo themselves get away with a howler like that one in the very category title! Right; now that's off my chest, let's move up the body a bit and consider my mouth. It's not a bad mouth, as mouths go. Tongue, lips, gums, teeth, all the usual things you find in a mouth. (Well, rather fewer teeth in mine than in some, thanks to the close attentions of an orthodontist many years ago, but enough to get by.)

Anbesol Adult Strength Gel is intended, so the box tells us, for "mouth pain relief from mouth ulcers and denture pain", which is perhaps a slightly clunky bit of prose but makes what it claims to do clear enough. I don't wear dentures, so can't comment on Anbesol's efficacy in that area, but I do suffer from mouth ulcers from time to time, and have often found the first port of call - Bonjela - to be disappointingly ineffective, Anbesol seemed to be at least worth a try.

Anbesol is easy to buy, as it's sold over the counter with no special restrictions on its sale. You can even pick it up in the likes of Tesco, though I bought my tube from Superdrug, where it cost what seems to be a pretty typical £3. The packaging design is very simple: a rather plain cardboard box, inside which is a small tube (10g) of the gel itself, which is also in the simple white-backed design of the box. I rather liked this: it makes a refreshing change from the screamingly multicoloured packs a lot of over-the-counter medicine comes in these days.

Inside you also get the dreaded information leaflet, of course, though for once this doesn't contain a vast collection of appalling side-effects you might suffer for having the temerity to try to make yourself better. In fact, apart from a somewhat ironic warning that one possible side-effect is ulceration(!) even the "Overdose" section is reassuring, mentioning as it does that "unless more than one [whole] tube" is taken, there should be no need to worry - and you really aren't going to do that by mistake! One really important point is that this product is not for use by anyone under 12 years of age - hence "Adult Strength"! You should also not use the product more than four times a day, or for more than seven days at a time, without consulting a professional.

The tube dispenses the gel - which is a slightly unattractive light pink colour, though this is hardly going to matter since it won't be visible inside your mouth! - in just the toothpaste-like way you would expect. The directions tell you to squeeze out a small amount on to a clean fingertip, then apply it to the painful area. This is perhaps the fiddliest part of the whole process, since the gel is quite slippery and is apt not to stay where it's supposed to be, sliding back and forth around your gum! A little perseverance will pay dividends, though.

The best thing about Anbesol is that it really does work, and work fast. One of its active ingredients is lidocaine hydrochloride, which is a local anaesthetic, and as soon as you apply the gel you can feel it getting to work with a pleasant tingling sensation and slight numbness on your gum. The taste is slightly "medicinal", and vaguely reminiscent of a dentist's mouthwash. The pain does not instantly shut off completely, but after just a few minutes it is noticeably less severe than when the application was made. The other active ingredients are chlorocresol and cetylpyridinium chloride, both antiseptics.

I've been very pleased with Anbesol Adult Strength Gel, and would certainly recommend it above Bonjela for moderating mouth ulcer pain. It can't work miracles, but it's a lot better than nothing, and because you only need a tiny amount for each application that £3 tube can last quite a long time. Definitely one for your medicine cabinet... but do be very clear about the name. You really don't want to get it mixed up with Anusol haemorrhoid cream!

Summary: Simple and effective at calming mouth ulcer pain