I watched Doug's video 3 years ago when worried about the beginnings of decay in my teeth and found his herbal knowledge quite useful. Careful with the horsetail: too much of it can cause headaches or hurt your kidneys.
I've done a
lot of research and digging about tooth and gum health over the years and am still learning. ...it's actually the topic that got me into seeing the beauty of exploring the entire health and permaculture and such world.
Some thoughts.
Correcting modern jaw structure and crowded teeth/deformities (another subject he touches upon briefly in the DVD) is a really fascinating subject. Some of the images from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration showing peoples living traditionally and on traditional diets and their characteristic wide faces and dental arches are fascinating, too. (
Google Images link, from a quick search of mine, if you're interested. The pictures are beautiful.)
Doug touches briefly on nutrition by simply saying that good nutrition and rest is important, but not precisely
how to go about nourishing oneself.
I have found that making sure my vitamin K2 and animal-based vitamin A and D intakes were high, particularly with enough K2, it's helped a lot. Getting a bottle of vitamin K2 drops when my teeth were decaying helped.
Drinking a lot of bone broth - interestingly enough, and avoiding acidic foods - including tomatoes, sauerkraut, etc. while my teeth remineralize and heal has helped me a lot, too.
Three years later, my decaying teeth are arrested and haven't gotten worse. I still have all of them. I'm still doing plenty of research into how to care for and remineralize them, and change my jaw structure (crowded), but these are some of the basic first things I tried, and most have tried.
Two more very useful links, the first from a young woman who healed and remineralized her teeth when they were in danger of falling out, the second with some alternative dentistry and brushing techniques.
I'm still making my way through the info on the second site.
Beyond Sugar and Soda: Nutritional Cures for Damaged Teeth (
How I Un-Ruined My Teeth)
Orawellness
Another thing: if you don't want to make your own tooth powder with, say, activated charcoal/clay/baking soda, you can buy tooth powders online from all sorts of places. I've been using "The Dirt" and like it.
Another other thing: if you're worried about teeth staining, or just want to add some actual cleaning to a process, look into using activated charcoal for whitening and removing stains. Here's
one page with some information. Careful not to inhale the activated charcoal!
I linked some toothbrushing sites, but I don't currently brush - at all. I have some severe sensitivities, so having a plastic or chemically treated brush in hand and mouth can be problematic for me, but I am looking into whether using tooth powder by itself is sufficient, or whether using a tooth brush or other tooth care method is really necessary.
I also eat a very low-carb diet currently* because I have some severe carbohydrate intolerance issues in my health that are getting worked on (not diabetes, but similar in function), but I find that when I increase my carbohydrate intake - like eating beets or carrots - I notice a noticeable amount more plaque or decay-ish feeling the next day than usual.
*(This is just of note, by the way: low-carb long-term has a lot of its own issues, and I'm not recommending you drop your beets, carrots, potatoes, etc. I'd like to be able to tolerate some of these foods, because I'm missing out on a lot of really nutrient dense vegetables and benefits from easily digestible glucose, like in potatoes or yams or white rice.)
**(In fact, since I haven't clarified, and this post could be misconstrued, this is an invitation to explore this information - key interesting points in caring for one's teeth/gums that I've dug up over the years for those who might not have done as much digging yet, and my personal experiences are meant simply as data from another person out there. I certainly don't intend any of these resources as authoritative and don't treat them as such myself - that's why I'm still exploring this whole, complex topic.)
I also find that eating more fats - coconut oil, MCT oil, broths, some nice meats from pastured animals, etc. tends to feel like it gives my teeth a high-quality coating and make them more resistant to sensitivity or damage.
And, finally, I find that stresses - emotional and life stresses inclusive, not just physical/health stresses - really impact the quality of my teeth. Without getting into too much detail, I suspect this has something to do with the body's complex workings -- the adrenals and that whole hormonal axis -- needing calcium and magnesium (oh - magnesium intake is another thing that strongly impacted my calcium absorption and bone/tooth density/strength), and that particularly with my somewhat fragile state of health, those minerals are drawn from the teeth and bones.
I'm not sure whether Doug goes into this in the Alternatives to Dentists DVD (I don't recall now), but the body does have mechanisms for drawing minerals from the teeth and bones, or storing them in the teeth and bones. So, something else to consider, perhaps.
I found that I couldn't heal my teeth for a year or so when my physical health was very frail, and I was very emotionally stressed. When my life situation calmed down a lot, my teeth began remineralizing -- filling in -- immediately. They stopped aching and felt much stronger within a day or two.
My best to everyone, especially anyone worried about their teeth, and I hope that this information helps.
There is a plethora of information out there on tooth care and what was done a couple hundred to thousands of years ago, when toothbrushes and floss didn't exist.
(And lots of recent, inventive thoughts and ideas added to the mix of "alternative methods" for caring for your teeth.
...it's really actually not that "alternative" when you get into it. Most people just seem so used to buying store-made, chemically toothpaste, and store-made toothbrushes, and store-made waxed floss, and viewing that as the One True Path to tooth care. ...there are lots of paths out there, and lots of ideas, so here's some of what I've discovered.)
Enjoy!
