Mucocele? I had one. I JUST LEFT IT ALONE AND IT WENT AWAY!!!!!!
It varied in size for a couple of weeks. Bigger , smaller but never extremely large. Then started to steadily shrink for two or three more weeks and disappeared. Been a few months and no recurrence.
You are one of the lucky ones. Hope it never comes back!
I've had too many to keep track of... ranging from painful bulging ones, to ones that were small and easily to live with. I have have two ops to remove them (back when I was clueless and cared more about getting rid of them, rather than focusing on finding out the cause of them, and how to minimise the risks of getting them). I now have a huge scar, 1.5cm long, on my bottom lip, which is not that visible, luckily! I was getting at least 1-3 a year for around 10 years.
The good new is they do self heal in around four months... IF (and this is crucial) you DO NOT interfere with them... just let them be and the tissue that's damaged WILL heal itself. There's NO magical cure for mucoceles in my opinion, apart from leaving them alone and waiting.
The cause, which was the case of all of mine, was trauma to the inner lining of the mouth or inside of the lips. Plain and simple. I had either bitten hard on the skin whilst eating, or the worst time, in my sleep, when I was unware of what I was doing (this was quite possibly caused by stress). They have never 'just' appeared out of the blue!
The cure/s for me were, chewing food more carefully, which took some time and practice. I also changed the way I slept (instead of squishing my face into the pillow I sleep with it on the edge, or I just sleep on my back), again it took a while to break the old habits, but I have not had the misfortune of biting my inner mouth lining or lips since.
To all the people who have burst their mucoceles, all you are doing is making the healing process last longer. When trauma damages the cells that produce saliva in the lips and inner mouth, somewhere during the healing process the tiny tubes which the saliva flows through become blocked, that is when the mucocele forms. The healing times vary in everyone, but normally take around 3 months on average to sort out. Those cells are highly complex and very fragile. So by breaking the 'blister' that appears you are only queuing up another wound to heal, which is completely unnecessary! It's almost the same as picking a scab off a cut that has only just healed, although with the mucocele you have a higher chance of infecting the wound further, again prolonging the healing time. Chances are if you have burst it, it will get bigger (I know cause the ones I burst did), however are a week or two they do get smaller, and in time heal.
If you have just found out you have one and are reading this (and hopefully have not interfered with it) , I really sympathise with you... I know it sucks big time, but seriously...just leave it alone, think positive, and know that you will have to wait a littler longer for it to go away, compared to the average cut or scrape... but it will go!
I agree with smirnofred who posted above, I've had a ranula on the floor of my mouth for about 2 months now. I got it on a plane journey and it popped as the plane was coming in to land. My dentist has seen it and has referred me for surgery, but after reading some posts on here about what can go wrong I decided to try the salt water, sea salt crystals and baking powder (I couldn't get any alum) and they only made my mouth sore and the ranula bigger. I also tried tea tree oil and evening primrose oil but no luck. All that happened was the ranula would shrink but the moment I ate something it would swell again.
Last week I had an operation that requires me to sleep on my back until I recover fully, in the past week I have cut down on fizzy drinks, sugary foods and I have also been drinking lots of tea and orange juice whilst off work. I don't know which of these has played a part but the ranula has shrunk, not drastically but my mouth has started to feel like it did when it was normal. The ranula does not swell when I chew food like it did before.
It may just be the case that leaving the ranula alone and resting has let it take it's course or it could be the tea and orange juice have played a part, I would definitely give them a try. Less painfull than salt and mouthwash and less hassle! I hope this helps anyone who is looking for another method.
