Oral Care: Oil Pulling, Teething & Lip/Tongue Tie

July 13, 2017By Katie GuyFamily, Wellness No Comments

Let’s start today with oil pulling.  What exactly is this? Oil pulling is an ancient Ayurvedic dental technique where you swish about a tablespoon of oil, organic sesame, sunflower or coconut are best, in your mouth for up to 20 minutes.  It is said that the oil will pull pathogens out of your mouth and sinuses promoting not only oral health, but sinus and the overall health of the whole body.

There have not been any significant large studies on the effectiveness of oil pulling, however, there are MANY people who can tell you that it works!!!    Many holistic dentist recommend it for overall oral health and to help support the mouth while trying to remineralize the teeth.

TEETHING & LIP/TONGUE TIE

When my sixth child, Owen, was born in 2013 he had class 5 lip and tongue tie that we had released the weekhe was born. Being an avid oil user I wanted to support his little mouth with oils, but being such a new breastfed baby I didn’t want to introduce ANY flavors into his little pallet.  While sitting in bed recovering from his very hard birth and now the stress of having the tongue and lip tie procedure I somehow miraculously had enough use of my brain for it to dawn on me that I could use COPAIBA!!!

Copaiba has almost NO flavor and would work WONDERFULLY to support his mouth after this procedure. I  began to use it right away.  I was doing his stretches about once a day.  This is not the most fun thing in the world to do and like I said before I was only a few days postpartum, so I didn’t retain the instructions from the doctors office to do these stretches SIX times a day!!!  I was doing them only ONCE a day, but I was applying Copaiba several times a day!!  I was doing this for a week or so until I found out I was supposed to be doing them SIX times.  I was in tears.  I thought I had completely ruined the procedure!! I remember the ladies at the office specifically telling me to make sure I did the stretches or it would grow back together and you could have to repeat the procedure, yeah that one pictured below.  UGH!  I was a wreck.

How to do Oil Pulling

  1. Get about a tablespoon of your organic oil
  2. Add a drop or two of your desired Young Living Essential Oil…citrus oils are great for whitening teeth.
    1. Lemon
    2. Orange
    3. Citrus Fresh
    4. Thieves is a great addition when you need extra immune support. Of course, you can add any vitality oil of your choice.  You know what your body needs.
  3. Put the oil and EO mixture in your mouth
  4. Swish for up to 20 minutes.  If you are trying oil pulling for the first time you can start with 5   minutes and work your way up to 15-20 minutes (DO NOT SWALLOW!).
  5. Spit in the TRASHCAN not the sink.  These oils may clog your pipes.
  6. Rinse with warm water
  7. Follow up with Thieves mouthwash
  8. End with flossing and brushing with Thieves toothpaste and floss

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The follow up appointment was in a few days so I started to do them more times a day, but I was still in tears thinking I had really messed up.  I was so nervous when we went back to the doctor.  The last thing I wanted was to have to put my baby through another procedure.  To my surprise the doctor said he looked GREAT and everything looked PERFECT, nothing was growing back together.

Thanks to my crazy postpartum brain somehow (miraculously) remembering to support his body with  copaiba, everything turned out just fine, in spite of me neglecting to do those stretches as much as I should have!! I am not telling you this so that you can use copaiba instead of the stretches. If you have this procedure done on your baby, DO THE STRETCHES!!!  It is not worth the risk.

Just three months later I did a lunch and learn at this dentists.  At that time, he was one of only two dentist in the area doing lip and tongue tie revisions on infants.  I taught them all about Copaiba and shared my sob story with them about Owen.  By then he was three months old and had already gotten his first two teeth at TWO months old.  You BET I was using Copaiba on him when he started teething, which was pretty much from the time he was a few weeks old, just after his lip/tongue tie procedure.  I shared with all of them the additional use of Copaiba for teething babies.  We now have two dentist offices in the DFW area that do lip/tongue tie revisions and CARRY Copaiba for these precious patients. Dr. Stacy Cole in Fort Worth and Dr. Preetha Thomas in Southlake (she worked at Dr. Coles at the time I gave the lunch and learn!)

If you know of a dentist in your area that does this procedure you NEED to go tell them about Copaiba, get them signed up and using Copaiba in their office.

 

My little Owen had his one year molars at 10 months old (that is 12 teeth in 10 months) and every tooth, including his two year molars by the time he was 20 months old.  There was constant chewing, drooling, moaning, everything in his mouth, biting, grabbing to bite anything that comes in range.  Apparently, my collar bone was THE BEST thing to teeth on!!  There was a constant stream of Copaiba in his mouth.  The easiest way to apply Copaiba Vitality to your babies gums is by putting a drop on your own finger and rubbing it all around.  Of course, if you are in fear of LOOSING a finger you can apply a drop to a teething toy and give it to them as you know they will stick it in their mouth right away.

With that much teething going on though I needed another tool in my teething toolbox.  So I began to use diluted Thieves spray.  HE LOVED IT!!  Save one of your empty Thieves spray bottles and fill it half way with Thieves spray from a new bottle and filtered water.  You can even try this by adding diluted Thieves mouthwash to an empty Thieves spray bottle.  If they don’t like the taste and clamp up when they see the bottle you can use the same methods as you would with the Copaiba…on your finger or on a toy.

Once again, as with ANYTHING you use on yourself or your children.  Use common sense, trust your intuition and discontinue or dilute more if you think it is necessary.  Happy Teething!!