Sore, Inflamed, Sensitive Gums?
– 9 Questions & 2 Solutions –

Dr. Al Danenberg ● Nutritional Periodontist

September 19, 2021

Barbara is a new patient of a dental colleague I know well. He is a well-trained biological dentist. Barbara was at her wits end, and he was perplexed.

Barbara had sore, inflamed, sensitive gums frequently – especially after she had any dental procedure performed in her mouth. She also had many existing dental restorations.

Interestingly, Barbara had blood tests to determine the compatibility of these dental materials before they were placed. No problems were identified.  Also, her current biological dentist could not find any active periodontal disease, bone infection, or problems with her existing dental work.

Obviously, Barbara was confused and distraught. She wanted to know what was going on. And her dentist was confounded and needed answers too.

 

First Things First

First, her new biologically oriented dentist completed a thorough dental exam. Among other things, he was looking for at least 11 potentially irritating factors that might be in her mouth causing inflammation and infection. Obviously, if any of these were the problem, each must be resolved correctly.

Second, a medical doctor and various specialists were consulted. They were looking for any systemic medical conditions that could be the cause of her gum issues. If any were detected, they would need to be addressed and treated.

For Barbara, it turned out that the cause was not a typical cause that her dentist or medical doctors would generally investigate. But once Barbara’s dentist and she learned the cause, she responded well.

 

9 Questions

Barbara’s dentist called me to describe his dilemma and Barbara’s negative findings. I suggested that he ask Barbara these 9 questions:

1. Do you avoid eating healthy beef or lamb?
2. Do you eat bread?
3. Do you eat processed sugars?
4. Do you eat any vegetable or seed oils? (Canola, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, grapeseed, sesame, soybean, peanut, etc.)
5. Do you eat chicken or pork more than once a week?
6. Do you have allergies?
7. Do you have frequent sinus infections?
8. Do you have frequent skin lesions or rashes?
9. Have you taken various regimens of systemic antibiotic therapy in the past?

 

If Any Answer is “YES”

Answer these questions for yourself. Are any true?

• If you avoided eating beef or lamb from nose-to-tail, you could be missing many bioavailable nutrients in their natural state that are required by the body. I wrote about this in my recent Blogs titled, The Case for Meat and 4 Perfect Supplements – 1 Perfect Diet. If you are not eating this way, desiccated organs in capsule form could be included into your diet. Think about them as high-powered, multi-vitamin, multi-mineral whole foods with nothing added and nothing removed except water.
• If you ate bread and/or processed sugars, they could damage your gut microbiome and the lining of your gut. Try to avoid or eliminate them from your diet.
• If you regularly ate vegetable and/or seed oils as well as a lot of chicken and/or pork, linoleic acid could be a problem. Linoleic acid is a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) that can cause weight gain, immune system dysfunction, and mitochondrial damage when consumed in excess. Vegetable and seed oils should be removed completely, while chicken or pork should be eaten only once a week or every other week.
• If you had a history of allergies, sinus infections, or skin irritations, these issues may be emanating from the same source that could be causing mouth problems.
• Frequent use of antibiotics in the past could damage the garden of healthy bacteria in the gut as well as in the mouth.

A “Yes” answer to any of the 9 Questions might indicate a leaky gut. I already suggested some positive changes you might implement.

 

Leaky Gut & Mouth Problems

If you have sore, inflamed, sensitive gum tissues, they may be due to an imbalance of bacteria in your gut and damage to the epithelial barrier that separates the inside of your gut from your blood system and the rest of your body. Damage to the gut could cause improper absorption of nutrients even if you are consuming healthy nutrients. The breakdown of this gut barrier is called a leaky gut.

A leaky gut will cause inflammation coursing throughout your body. This inflammation will affect all organ systems negatively – including the mouth!

My suggestion is to improve the health and diversity of the bacteria in your gut and repair the gut epithelial barrier to help solve your mouth problems. In essence, you need to treat your Leaky Gut.

To do this, I have 2 Solutions that will help repair the gut lining and improve the gut microbiome.

 

2 Solutions

#1. Consume spore-based probiotics

These have been demonstrated in human trials to increase the diversity of the gut microbiome and help repair the gut epithelial barrier.

The two spore-based probiotics I take personally and recommend are …

1. MegasporeBiotic
2. TerraFlora Deep Immune

 

#2. Swish and swallow bovine colostrum

When you swish with bovine colostrum, some of its beneficial elements will enter the blood system rapidly because they are absorbed through the soft tissues in your mouth. After you swallow the colostrum, all of it gets into the gut to bind to toxic elements and to help heal the damaged epithelial gut lining.

I personally use and recommend ProColostrum-LD.

If dairy is a problem in any way, colostrum may cause gut discomfort. I suggest taking a very small dose of the ProColostrum-LD and titrate to higher doses over the next week or two. If you cannot tolerate colostrum at any dose, then I recommend MegaIgG 2000 capsules to swallow. MegaIgG 2000 is like colostrum but derived from bovine serum instead. It has the immunoglobulin antibodies IgG, IgM, and IgA as well as transferrin, but it does not have all the other beneficial bioactive elements which bovine colostrum provides.

 

Barbara’s Experience

As I said, Barbara’s biocompatibility blood tests for her existing dental restorations were negative or inconclusive. Also, her medical doctor specializing in allergy medicine was uncertain to the actual cause of her reactions. And additional medical complications were ruled out by other medical specialists.

When Barbara’s dentist finally asked her the previous 9 questions, he discovered that she ate mainly plant-based foods and possibly was missing some very important nutrients.

In addition, Barbara gave a medical history of frequent sinus infections and antibiotic usage.

To solve the puzzle, Barbara’s dentist helped her transition to some animal-based foods – especially the desiccated organs. Also, he had her begin the 2 Solutions I suggested.

Within 45 days, Barbara resolved most of her mouth soreness, inflammation, and sensitivity. Also, she said she felt more energy without any gut disturbances.

 

Final Thoughts

My 2 Solutions are not a cure. But they support the body in healing. What’s fascinating is that every cell in the body communicates with every other cell in the body in some way. And the gut microbiome, which is made up of 38 trillion microbes, has a significant influence in our overall health and wellbeing.

By the way, the human body only has 30 trillion human cells. So, we are more microbial than human! Think about that!

 

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