THE EFFECT OF HONEY SUPPLEMENTATION ON APHTHOUS UL-CERS IN EGYPTIAN CHILDREN

Abstract

Background: Aphthous ulcers are the most common oral lesions among children. These lesions are usually recurrent, painful, and in-terfere with eating and drinking ability. Honey, as a natural product of honey bees, is a well-known wound/ulcer healer. Aim of work: To test the effect of honey supplementation on the recovery time of aphthous oral ulcers in a group of Egyptian children. Patients and Methods: This was a randomized case control clin-ical study, conducted on 50 children recruited from the outpatient clinic of pediatric hospital of Ain Shams University. All patients were subjected to history taking especially as regards the onset and duration of oral lesions; physical examination especially the number of oral lesions. The pain severity was assessed by the pain score (VAS-10), the number of daily doses of acetaminophen and the eating and drinking ability. All patients were tested for blood HSV1 IgM. Patients were di-vided into 2 groups; each consisted of 25 patients; Group (A), in which the patients received honey; both orally and topically, in addition to acetaminophen as a pain killer, and Group (B), who received only ac-etaminophen. Follow up of patients was done every other day until complete healing. Results: Aphthous stomatitis was more common among males, and HSV1 IgM was positive in only 6% of the patients. The recovery time, defined as the time interval, in days, between the start of treat-ment and complete healing, with no pain, no fever, no drooling and no eating or drinking difficulty, was significantly shorter in the honey treated group (A) [mean ± SD = 8.72 ± 0.61days], as compared to the no-honey (control) group (B) [mean ± SD = 12.84 ± 1.62 days] (P=0.000). None of the patients in the honey group reported any ad-verse effect to honey supplementation. Conclusion: Honey was found to be an effective and safe thera-peutic agent in the treatment of aphthous stomatitis in a group of chil-dren suffering from aphthous oral ulcers.