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Gum recession reversal?
Has anyone achieved gum recession reversal by following the anti vA diet?
This is one symptom to which I can definitely say NO!, quite the opposite. Of all the things that happened after I went on a low Vitamin A diet, my gum recession is one of the worst and probably the one thing that is still progressively worsening after 3 years on a low Vitamin A diet. Additionally, the roof of my mouth (hard palate) and rugae at the front have felt sore the entire time, as if they've been burned, and I believe this is linked with the gum issues.
I've been on a mostly skeletal muscle meat and fat carnivore diet for those 3 years with intermittent experiments with white rice and other low Vitamin A and low plant toxin carbs (parsnip, rutabaga, turnip, berries, banana, etc.) and fiber/binders (shredded coconut, psyllium husk, acacia gum, cellulose, charcoal, clay). I've also experimented with just about every nutrient supplement that could be related to gum recession with no clear success. I feel very strongly at this point that my gum recession is not the result of a nutrient deficiency.
I've had several very sudden surges of recession and gum inflammation that I'm pretty sure happened after I ate shredded coconut in the first year or two of my low Vitamin A diet, but this no longer happens when I eat coconut in the past year or so. I believe something similar happened when I took psyllium husk at the same time as eating a lot of animal fat, and to a lesser extent when eating bananas. From all of these experiences, I have concluded that my gum recession is most likely related to Vitamin A coming out of storage in my head/face (I suppose by being converted to retinoic acid and subsequently causing tissue damage at elevated concentrations). Many of my worst symptoms seem like they might stem from the Central Nervous System, and I often get this transient blockage of a single nasal passage/sinus in the middle of the night that is gone the next morning, which I interpret as some kind of inflammatory process occurring in my head during the night.
I am aware that other people like Grant report improved gum health on a low Vitamin A diet, and many people doing a carnivore diet report improved gum health. This is another reason I hypothesize that my personal problems stem from storage of Vitamin A in the fatty tissues of the head, and that these other people did not experience such storage. I was a very active athlete for most of my life eating a very high carb diet low in fat. I never had my body fat measured but I believe it to be extremely low based on my physique and constant hunger on a high carb diet. I believe that the excessive amounts of Vitamin A I was getting from multivitamins, cod liver oil, liver, and other organs, eventually went into storage in my nervous system and fatty tissues around my eyes due to an absence of adipose fat for storage, and that the depletion of these peripheral stores outside the liver is what has caused the majority of my symptoms on a low Vitamin A diet.
@wavygravygadzooks Hi! Weird story for ya. I went on one of my unplanned experiments and ate spicy chicken curry for lunch and dinner for about 5 meals in a row for 3 days. It's what I had around and I was too busy to care. At first it burned my mouth (and butt), but then that settled down but voila I ended up with a 3 day headache. So much fun. Strangely a few days later, after recovering on bland food, I realized one of my front teeth wasn't as receded.
In my opinion, the reason our gums get dislodged from the teeth is because the teeth are rough, they are the bones that show, and we've been told about the fact that bones do become damaged from VA poisoning. I think this is also why white plaque forms. (and why food sticks) They get stuck in the nooks and crannies. When the teeth finish smoothing out, the gums will glom back on, I think.
Don't know why curry would help with smoothing a tooth. But I do have a close hindu friend with awesome white teeth.
I suppose best guess might be that some germs on the teeth or gums were killed, helping the process. Perhaps there is a role for some sort of herbal rinse.
Is it related that I took antibiotics recently and also came down with headache?
It might be worth it to ask those here who are having better luck if they use germ-killing mouth rinses. I don't. I hate those things. However, I have heard of people who have had benefits from them.
I wonder what would be a good home remedy for a mouth wash that wouldn't be loaded with all sorts of toxic things? Perhaps just good old booze? Or diluted peroxide (although I had trouble with that before).
Antimicrobial mouthwashes, as a general rule, are probably terrible for the mouth. The case in which they may do more good than harm is when you have uncontrolled proliferation of unwanted acid-producing bacteria, which is most likely to happen with regular carb consumption or immune problems.
On a carnivore diet I eat only twice per day and floss and brush my teeth after eating. I should have extremely minimal levels of acid-producing bacteria in my mouth, and my dentist has indicated as much when checking my gums. They think my gum recession is due to clenching my teeth, which I have told them is not the case, but they don't believe me. They want me to use a mouthguard at night, but IMO it's stupid as hell for a dentist to tell someone to keep a piece of plastic in their mouth every single night, which prevents circulation of saliva around the teeth, in an attempt to minimize clenching, which is really a similar (if prolonged) impact to chewing, which hunter-gatherers often do/did for hours every day when they are chewing on tough muscle and ligaments. Bruxism (grinding) is a different issue though...a plastic guard might actually be warranted for that until you figure out how to stop it from happening.
My teeth are plenty smooth above the old gumline, that's not the problem. They are only rougher in the receded area, which does exacerbate food accumulation and bacterial proliferation, so it's a cycle of negative reinforcement that requires a lot of careful cleaning. Were it not for those episodes of rapid recession and inflammation I had, I would probably blame something in my saliva for causing problems, but those acute episodes suggest a sudden "dump" of something in the body/mouth, and they seem to have disproportionately destroyed the tissue on only a couple of my upper molars and only on the inside edge of the tooth...what is up with that pattern?!
My journey on a low Vitamin A diet has left me vexed with all the mysterious symptoms that come and go. Having passed the 3 year mark now, I sincerely hope there are no more surprises for me.
Didn't Ourania have a notion that detox in the head comes through or around the teeth? Perhaps that might explain something about the pattern of the problems? Perhaps we just have to live through to the other side.
However, the sad fact is I do get a bad smell in these areas when flossing, so there probably are germs taking advantage of things or dead cells or something.
I totally agree that anything that kills germs probably kills me too, which is why I haven't really utilized the idea of rinses up to now.
@wavygravygadzooks and @lil-chick Thank you very much for your replies.
I agree with Wavy that these accesses of flesh eating around the teeth are due to detox of vA, and more precisely, to detox from the head. For years I suffered from this and dentists were no help. My head was always hotter than the rest of my body. I was fit and slim. And I knew two people who died from brain cancer who had been very fit and athletic, in effect leaving no place (in fat) to park away the bad A. I think I was saved from this because I suddenly put on a lot of weight.
I also have most symptoms related to the CNS. The night time blocked nostril is on the right side I suppose? I have much more to say about this in general. Do you also have a tendency to turn your head towards the left?
The problem leads to bacterial proliferation because once the tissues are damaged, bacteria happily settle in, starting a vicious circle.
As to a mouth rinse he best advice I got from an excellent dentist in extremely low-tech circustances was to swish with salted water. Also I think oil pulling helps because the oil dissolves the oily part of the detox fluid. I use olive/coconut/sesame.
I thought I had solved the problem a year or two ago, but it has started again suddenly and violently, after the no-surprise 3 year mark. It is now under control again. This came very suddenly, I don't know why. The very interesting part is: two weeks after this dump, my vision improved decidedly!!! And stayed better for the last two weeks!!!!!!! I suppose that I dumped vA from the sinuses behind the eyes. It took 3 years and 9 months on the low vA diet to get this vision improvement!!!!!
In meditation I see the fluid coming out beween the upper molars and also under the front teeth of the lower jaw. This excretion is localized, it also goes on at the back of the throat on the right side.
My husband suffered all his life from teeth clenching (happily for him, no real gum damage). This has completely stopped on the low A diet and hasn't come back. I suppose the teeth clenching happens after the liver does its nightly job and sends vA to the gums. You try to stop the burning feeling by clenching the teeth. A bit like feeling all is not right in your nails and biting them. I did bite my nails as a child and I think it was due to CLO poisoning then.
Starting this thread I was hoping someone was more advanced and had noticed actual gum regrowth. Let's hope.
PS: Maybe that sudden detox + vision improvement is due to an exercise I do to pull lymph out of the brain and lead to to be excreted at the tips of the fingers.
Quote from lil chick on September 12, 2023, 1:27 pmI wonder what would be a good home remedy for a mouth wash that wouldn't be loaded with all sorts of toxic things? Perhaps just good old booze? Or diluted peroxide (although I had trouble with that before).
I have begun trying out to use water mixed with xylitol in a lidded container. Xylitol is anti-bacterial. There might be down-sides to it but atleast xylitol tastes good in and of itself and is quite cheap in a bulk package.
As a side-note, it is known that smoke can give you mouth-problems, and I would think it applies to breathing any type of polluted air.
Perhaps the polluted air measurement Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) has a correlation with human mouth problems?
I think Ourania is onto something here, I'm not sure what to do with it, I suppose go back to oil pulling and try the salt swish. I want to say that when I brush, floss and oil pull I think my breath is actually worse. Is it because it stirs things up? Maybe primes the pump of detox?
Like her I've never been one to put on weight and yes probably the VA went to my head, so many problems were/are in my head. Gosh my nose has never settled down, not yet. My nose wants to detox so bad, and I think my ears send bad stuff to my nose. It's SO ITCHY. So much itchy crud comes down it. At least that eventually goes OUT. And like Wavy mentioned, this nose problem is more on one side (right) the same side as my worst ear.
Are we who have the VA in the head going to just have to deal with waves of this for almost ever?
I've heard it said very occasionally (you aren't going to hear this often because no one makes money off of this) that it really doesn't matter much if you floss. I agree with this notion because the health of the mouth comes from the inside and that very little that we do on the outside is going to really change the course. Another way of putting this is: if your teeth and gums are unhealthy you are really goofed up and a little cleanliness isn't going to fix it.
But then again, why would the head drain into the mouth, and then you swallow it and it goes around again? Derp. At least with the oil pulling, flossing etc maybe some bad stuff is going OUT.
I did want to mention that @Tim-2 had good results with a hydrogen peroxide regimen. I couldn't do it, though, my mouth couldn't handle it.