Dental Makeover - Part 2

Here is my log I kept to mark my dental progress and really just to see if it made any difference. And then my personal findings are at the end.

One of the things I mentioned in the first post is that diet has an effect on your teeth. I have been taking vitamins and supplements (when I remember to). I generally am a very healthy eater (hopefully this will rub off on my kids one day). But since I started cooking from scratch and doing more research (YEA internet!) I have changed several things. Besides the obvious benefits of cooking from scratch rather than eating processed foods, the big change has to do with the oil I am using. Coconut oil and Grape seed oil were foreign to me until fairly recently and now that is mostly what I cook with because they can withstand high temperatures. Maybe that makes a difference?

So now on to oil pulling. I battled with the question of whether to do it on a daily basis? Twice a day? Every other day? I really had no clue and it seems that it has to do with the general health a person is in. So I think I am safe if I skip a day but I am generally going to try to do this daily as I am getting ready to meet the day. I had to put a container of oil upstairs to remember. I planned to alternate weeks using olive oil and coconut oil. However, I found olive oil a bit nasty – I think the smell made me gag- so a little into it I decided to stick with the coconut oil. I keep a jar in my bathroom with a baby spoon to dish it out.

Day 1 – This is actually my second time. I tried it about a week ago. But now that I’ve written about it, I am committed! I used olive oil and besides having a rather active gag reflex whenever the oil made it to the back of my mouth, I was good. My kids found it rather amusing that I was miming to them to “get dressed” and “get going”.
What was very interesting to me was the amount of mucus I felt in the back of my throat for the next couple hours. Is this normal?

Day 2 – Surprisingly it was super easy and not as gross today. I accidently swallowed flem that came up – need to remember to spit it out. I didn’t make it the whole 20 minutes since I somehow managed to get air in my mouth. I had to get to the sink quick to spit the oil out. I had to change my shirt – don’t ask. But the stuff I spit out was of a milky consistency. My teeth are strangely sensitive.

Day 3 – I had a headache tonight.

Day 4 – I realized that my teeth have never felt this clean before All Day.

Day 5 – I woke up with a cold. Throat and headache… I didn’t oil pull this morning. But I don’t think this is going to turn into anything major, so I will be at it again tomorrow.

Day 6 – Back at it. I realized today that my teeth haven’t been sensitive for a day or so.

Day 7 – I used Coconut Oil this morning. I think the reason my gag reflex was working the last couple days had to do with the smell of the olive oil. No problems with the coconut. Love this oil! I might just stick to it the rest of the experiment. The only thing is the initial melting of the oil, which is odd. But I figured out that if you keep it at the front of your mouth it melts quickly and then you don’t have to chew it. 20 minutes went by quickly and my teeth still felt really clean throughout the day.

Day 9 – I looked in my mouth (duh!) and noticed that the gums around my teeth look healthy and not dark pink or red. That seems to be a positive.

I really didn’t keep up on the log for very long. Partly because I’m lazy and partly because every day was about the same. But I kept it up!
I find it strangely therapeutic at this point (day like 15). Partly because it is a quiet time for me; my kids can talk all they want but I can’t respond verbally. When I was a teenager, I would roll out of bed get ready and go to school and say as little as possible. I have never been a morning person… enter kids and then you have to be the driving force to get them dressed, fed and out the door. Mornings are forced on you. So this has actually given me 10-20 minutes of quiet time I have always needed to wake up. Bonus for me.

I am flossing right after oil pulling and I seem to get more on my floss in the morning than I do even in the evening. I have noticed that even at 4 in the afternoon, my teeth still feel clean—as clean as if I just went to the hygienist. I really like that!

The other thing I have noticed is that I regularly have mucus coming up to spit out (not normal for me) and on an even more gross (and personal) side my BM have actually been more regular which makes sense if this is technically a whole-body detox. I have always had issues with irregularity in that department unless I exercise on a very regular basis, but that certainly isn’t happening.

Day 26 - the Verdict:
Today I saw the hygienist (I am on a 4 month schedule) today. I didn’t get x-rays so I’m not sure about those cavities so I will have to see about that one in May. But the hygienist was amazed at my mouth – that sure sounds funny. She said that my gums are no longer bleeding. The gum pockets on the side of my teeth are not as deep or full of grime. I had hardly any plaque to remove. “What have you been doing? Flossing more?” ummm, no. So I told her about the oil pulling that I was trying; which she wrote down to research since she hadn’t heard of it before. In fact if my teeth look this good at my next appointment I get to go to a normal 6 month schedule. Woo hoo! Success.

I am so making my husband try this