I have been dealing with these symptoms the past week and am now recovering, and thought I would post in here to provide some support. I did not visit a doctor while ill but I am quite certain that the condition is Herpetic Gingivostomatitis, which is a form of herpes caused by the HSV1 virus. This is the same virus that causes cold sores, it is very common and not some form of serious infection (the numbers range but a common figure is that 80% of people carry the virus).
The entire infection has lasted approximately 10 days. The flu/fever symptoms hit me very badly and I could barely get out of bed. These subsided after approximately six or seven days. The ulcers mainly affected my tongue (probably had close to 10 on my tongue, and another 5-10 spread on my lips/gums, with a very bad cluster on the inside of my top lip) however after eight days the pain from them began to minimise and now on the tenth day they are barely noticeable. Considering the sores persisted for the entirety of my symptoms, they healed quite rapidly overnight on the ninth night, with many of the tongue ulcers having already completely disappeared.
A small amount of my gums swelled up on the second day I believe. I wear an orthodontics retainer/nightguard to sleep and wore it on the second night. On the third day my entire gums were badly swollen, so I did not wear the retainer the next night. I found that not wearing the retainer in conjunction with the swelling caused a quite significant shift in my teeth (I have had my braces off for a long time now and usually a night or two without will cause very little change, however my teeth had after only one night moved quite a lot so that there were noticeable gaps. This was quite painful). In seeking to limit the shifting I wore the retainer to bed up until the seventh night. I could not find much information on whether it is okay to wear a retainer while having swollen gums, and perhaps a doctor/dentist would be better suited to give an answer for this, but from my experience I found it is quite painful however does seem to limit the amount your teeth shift and has not caused any lasting problems for myself. On the seventh day I noticed a small area of my gums where the swelling had reduced so did not wear the retainer that night. The next morning there was a larger reduction in swelling. I am now on the tenth day and have continued not wearing my retainer, however there is still some small areas of gum which are inflamed, however the majority of it has cleared and I expect it will be completely clear by tomorrow at the rate it has been clearing.
Throughout my symptoms I brushed my teeth twice a day and flossed. A brushing technique I used (the following is for brushing the top row) was to have the bristles parallel with my teeth, start with the bristles touching my gum and then pull the brush downwards and twist it a little towards myself as the bristles touch my teeth. I would then repeat the motion multiple times over all areas of my mouth, it had the appearance of continually wiping down on the teeth. Of course for the bottom row you do the same technique however just while pulling the brush up. It may look and feel very weird however it was the only technique I could use that did not cause unbearable pain.
My diet consisted heavily of scrambled eggs, oats mixed with honey, jelly, custard, noodles. If you can chew lightly, steaming carrots and then squishing them with a fork was a useful trick for being able to swallow them. Making a milkshake/smoothie may be a way to get some nutrients into yourself, I found using a straw to avoid the liquid touching certain ulcers helped. It really does suck but try to force yourself to eat through the pain, otherwise you will feel lightheaded and uneasy. Make sure you drink plenty of water as well.
This has been quite long but I hope it helps somebody get through this, it was without doubt the worst week of pain I have experienced, but it does eventually go!
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