Infection: Teeth, Gums & Mouth

Toothache & Abscess, Infection After a Tooth Is Pulled, Bleeding Gums & Loose Teeth, Canker Sores & Cold Sores, Thrush and Bad Breath

Part of the Infection series. This sheet adds what is special to the teeth, gums and mouth. The core program (the two infection formulas, Echinacea, liver flushing and the five levels) is on the General Infection sheet. Start there, and use this sheet alongside it.

Understanding the Condition

A Tooth Is Living Tissue

A tooth is not a stone set in the jaw. Under the hard enamel is a layer of dentin, and in the center is the pulp, with its own nerve and blood supply running up through the root. The root sits in a socket of jawbone, held there by the gum and a cushion of ligament. Like every other living part of the body, a tooth is fed by the blood and cleaned by the blood.

Dr. Christopher taught that most tooth decay starts from the inside, not the outside: from a toxic bloodstream and the toxic saliva it makes. Sugar leaches calcium out of the body, and a body short of calcium takes it from the bones and teeth. That is why the teeth so often suffer in pregnancy, when the baby draws on the mother’s calcium. Good teeth depend on clean blood and good food all through life.

The mouth is also a crowded neighborhood. The roots of the upper back teeth sit just under the sinuses, the jaw joint sits in front of the ear, and the lymph glands under the jaw drain the whole area. An infection in a tooth or gum does not stay politely in one place.

Diagram: an infection in a tooth or gum can travel to the sinuses, the ears and jaw joint, the glands under the jaw, and the bloodstream. — Where an infection in a tooth or gum can travel. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

What Goes Wrong

Toothache and abscess. When decay or a crack lets germs into the pulp, the nerve swells inside its hard shell and throbs. A pocket of pus can form at the root tip, an abscess, and the gum or face may swell.
Infection after a tooth is pulled. A pocket of infection can stay behind in the gum over the empty socket. It often shows as a small white pimple on the gum that will not go away.
Bleeding gums, gum disease and loose teeth. Plaque and a low-grade infection along the gum line make the gums spongy, swollen and quick to bleed. Left alone, it becomes pyorrhea: the gums and the bone around the teeth draw back, and the teeth loosen.
Canker sores are shallow, painful ulcers inside the mouth, on the inner cheeks and lips, the gums or the tongue, with a white or yellow center and a red rim. They are not caused by a virus and are not catching.
Cold sores (fever blisters) are on or around the edge of the lips. They start with a tingle, then small blisters that break and crust over. They are caused by the herpes simplex virus and can be passed to others, so keep them away from babies.
Thrush is a yeast (candida) overgrowth in the mouth: white, cottage-cheese patches on the tongue and inner cheeks that leave the tissue red and sore underneath. It is common in babies and after antibiotics.
Bad breath rarely starts in the mouth. Dr. Christopher said it is the sewer line backed up: a constipated bowel, with the odor coming out the front door.

A canker sore inside the lip, and cold sores on the edge of the lip. — Left: a canker sore, inside the lip. Right: cold sores on the edge of the lip (arrows). Photos: Jeffrey Dorfman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped).

Why the Bowels and Liver Matter

The mouth shows what is happening deeper in the body. Bad breath points to the bowel. Canker sores that keep coming back point to a toxic condition running through the whole system, not just the mouth. Gums and teeth that are starved of calcium point to the blood. Treat the mouth, but clean up the inside at the same time: keep the bowels moving two or three times a day with LBF, and flush the liver.

Root Canals and Silver Fillings: the Facts

Root canals. In a root canal the living pulp, the nerve and blood supply, is taken out and the tooth is sealed. The tooth stays in the jaw but no longer has a blood supply of its own. A low-grade infection can linger at the tip of the root, often with no pain at all; it shows on an x-ray as a dark spot. A 2023 study from King’s College London found these root-tip infections in about half of people worldwide, and that about 1 in 6 root canals do not fully heal. People with them had higher levels of the inflammation markers tied to heart disease, and the markers came down when the infection was cleared. Dental groups say a root canal that has healed well does not cause disease elsewhere in the body.

Silver (amalgam) fillings are about half mercury and give off small amounts of mercury vapor over the years, more with chewing and grinding. In 2020 the FDA advised that pregnant women, nursing mothers, women planning a pregnancy, young children, and people with kidney problems, MS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or a mercury allergy avoid new mercury fillings whenever possible. The European Union banned them from January 2025. Taking out a filling releases more vapor than leaving it, so have them removed only by a dentist who takes precautions. For clearing metals from the body, see the Heavy Metal Routine sheet.

If you have had a root canal, or have an old tooth that bothers you now and then, ask your dentist for an x-ray of the root.

Get Yourself to the ER

A tooth infection can spread fast. Get emergency care now, and keep your herbal work going alongside it, if you have:

Swelling spreading across the face, up toward the eye, or down the neck
Swelling under the tongue or jaw, or trouble swallowing, opening the mouth or breathing
A high fever, chills or feeling very ill with a toothache
A baby with thrush who will not feed, or has few wet diapers
A cold sore near the eye

See your dentist for any tooth that throbs, any swelling of the gum or face, or a mouth sore that has not healed in two to three weeks. The When Minutes Matter box on the General Infection sheet lists the signs that apply to any infection.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

Teeth represent decisions. Teeth problems: longstanding indecisiveness; inability to break down ideas for analysis and decisions. Turn it around: I make my decisions based on the principles of truth, and I rest securely knowing that only right action is taking place in my life.
Gum problems: inability to back up decisions; wishy-washy about life. Turn it around: I am a decisive person. I follow through and support myself with love.
Bleeding gums: lack of joy in the decisions made in life. Turn it around: I trust that right action is always taking place in my life. I am at peace.
Root canal: can’t bite into anything anymore; root beliefs being destroyed. Turn it around: I create firm foundations for myself and for my life. I choose my beliefs to support me joyously.
Wisdom tooth, impacted: not giving yourself mental space to create a firm foundation. Turn it around: I open my consciousness to the expansion of life. There is plenty of space for me to grow and to change.
Jaw problems (TMJ): anger; resentment; desire for revenge. Turn it around: I am willing to change the patterns in me that created this condition. I love and approve of myself. I am safe.
Mouth represents taking in new ideas and nourishment. Mouth problems: set opinions; closed mind; incapacity to take in new ideas. Turn it around: I welcome new ideas and new concepts and prepare them for digestion and assimilation.
Tongue represents the ability to taste the pleasures of life with joy. Turn it around: I rejoice in all of my life’s bountiful givingness.
Canker sores: festering words held back by the lips; blame. Turn it around: I create only joyful experiences in my loving world.
Cold sores: festering angry words and fear of expressing them. Turn it around: I only create peaceful experiences because I love myself. All is well.
Thrush: anger over making the wrong decisions. Turn it around: I lovingly accept my decisions, knowing I am free to change. I am safe.
Bad breath (halitosis): rotten attitudes, vile gossip, foul thinking. Turn it around: I speak with gentleness and love. I exhale only the good.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are places to look and let go.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

Start the core program from the General Infection sheet at the level that fits. Herbal Aid 2 is the formula for the teeth and gums: it works on the blood and lymph and goes after a stubborn, local infection. (Herbal Aid 1 is for the throat and chest, not the teeth and gums.) Take Echinacea every day of the work, keep the bowels moving with LBF, and do the ELFs your level calls for. Then work on the area.

Toothache and Abscessed Tooth

Tooth & Gum Formula on a Q-tip. Soak a Q-tip in the Tooth & Gum Formula and swab it right onto the sore tooth and gum. It usually brings relief within minutes to a throbbing, infected or inflamed tooth. This is my favorite toothache remedy, and the one to keep on hand.
Clove oil rubbed on the gum is the backup if you are caught without it.
A paste roll in the cheek. Moisten a little Tooth Powder with distilled water and 1 or 2 drops of Tooth & Gum Formula. Spread it on a small piece of gauze or thin cotton and roll it into a thin log, 1 to 2 inches long. Wet it with a few more drops of water and Tooth & Gum, tuck it between the cheek and gum over the sore tooth, and leave it 3 or 4 hours or overnight.
The Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over the cheek. Lay it on hot (not burning) over the sore area, cover with plastic wrap and a washcloth to hold the heat, and hold it in place with a pair of pantyhose: the waist around the head like a shower cap, the legs wrapped over the poultice and tied under the chin or on top of the head. Leave it 4 to 6 hours or all night. Directions for the poultice are on the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice sheet.
See your dentist. The herbs can carry you through to the appointment and clear the infection, but a broken or decayed tooth still needs to be seen.

Infection After a Tooth Is Pulled

Do the regular infection work: Herbal Aid 2, Echinacea, LBF and the ELFs, with Tooth & Gum on the gum. If a white pimple on the gum will not clear, the infection is sitting in a pocket the herbs are not reaching. That is when to put the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over both ears.

Make two poultices and hold them over both ears with wide sweatbands, angled low around the head.
Leave them on about 4 hours, then replace with fresh ones. Keep going through the day, for a day or two.
The first few may leave the ears sore, as if the ear tissue itself is full of toxins. A little Healing Salve takes the soreness away.
Keep flushing the liver with ELFs all through; there is a lot of waste moving out.

In my own mouth, the pimple was gone by the fourth application. I was surprised it worked so well on the gum from over the ears, but the ears, jaw and gums all drain together.

Bleeding Gums, Gum Disease and Loose Teeth

Two formulas work beautifully together here. The idea behind them is an old one: Native Americans would place thin strips of inner oak bark between the gums and lips, day or night, to heal sores of the gums and tighten loose teeth.

Tooth & Gum Formula as a rinse. Bayberry, white oak bark, echinacea and cayenne, with tea tree, peppermint and clove oils. It brings circulation back into the gums, fights infection in the mouth on contact, and helps tighten the teeth and gums. For best results use a water pik: 4 to 6 dropperfuls in the reservoir with warm water, at the strongest setting you can tolerate. Used daily, bleeding gums often stop within about a week. Or add 2 dropperfuls to 2 ounces of water and rinse, swishing and straining it through all the teeth. It can also be massaged into the gums with a cotton swab.
Tooth Powder. Comfrey root, white oak bark, horsetail, peppermint, oatstraw, cloves and a little lobelia. It strengthens the gums, helps tighten loose teeth, and brightens the teeth. To brush: wet the toothbrush, dip the bristles in the powder and brush as usual.
For problem gums, pack it overnight. Mix about a tablespoon of Tooth Powder with a little distilled water into a firm, fairly dry paste. Pack it between the lips and gums, upper and lower, around all the teeth, and leave it on all night. If it won’t stay, wrap it in gauze. In severe cases, pack it six nights a week, while still brushing, until there is clear improvement. Then keep brushing with the powder.
Feed the teeth. Teeth and gums are built from the minerals in the blood. Cut out sugar, which pulls calcium from the body, and eat calcium-rich foods and herbs. Dr. Christopher’s Calcium Formula feeds the bones and teeth.

A Note on Comfrey

The Tooth Powder contains comfrey root, valued for knitting tissue back together. In the powder it is used on the gums rather than taken by the spoonful. If you are pregnant or nursing, or have liver trouble, check in with me before packing it overnight.

Canker Sores and Cold Sores

For most of my life I had canker sores and cold sores, always both together. What finally cleared them was getting good blood, full of the healing nutrients, to the mouth, while the whole body was cleaning out.

Hot and cold to the face. In the shower, alternate hot and cold water over the face and mouth. Hold a washcloth over the face for each, one for the hot and one for the cold, to soften the sharp spray.
Clean up the inside. Sores that keep coming back are the body showing a deeper toxic load. Keep the bowels moving with LBF, flush the liver, and for a few days lighten the diet to juices, distilled water and red raspberry leaf tea. Going forward, a clean, mucus-free diet keeps them from returning.
Cold sores: Black Walnut at the first tingle. Dab Black Walnut extract right on the spot at the first tingle; it often brings fast relief and helps dry and heal it. Dr. Christopher taught that skullcap feeds the nerves where the virus lies quiet between outbreaks, so support the nerves and get your rest; outbreaks follow times when you are run down.
Cold sores are catching. Don’t share cups or towels, and don’t kiss a baby while you have one.

Thrush in a Baby’s or Child’s Mouth

When the yeast is in the mouth, it really is a mouth issue, and it can be cleared quickly with frequent, gentle care. If it keeps coming back, or there is yeast elsewhere in the body, see the Female & Yeast sheet for the full Candida program.

Thrush: white patches on the tongue of a child. — Thrush on the tongue of a child who had taken antibiotics. Photo: James Heilman, MD, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

White oak bark tea, made strong and sprayed into the mouth with an atomizer, or swabbed on the patches, several times a day.
Acidophilus for the baby (liquid, or a capsule opened into a little sterile water and swabbed in the mouth) and for a nursing mother too. The yeast passes back and forth between the baby’s mouth and the mother’s breast, so treat both at once.
Red raspberry leaf tea to drink, for a child old enough, and as a soothing wash.
Keep going until every white patch is gone, not just until it looks better.

Bad Breath

Go to the cause: the bowel. Mints and mouthwash only cover it up. Clean out the bowel with LBF and work toward two or three movements a day; when the sewer line is no longer backed up, the breath sweetens.
Digestive Tonic. Ginger, fennel and peppermint. ½ to 1 teaspoon in a couple of ounces of water sweetens the stomach.
For the moment: chew a few cloves or a sprig of parsley.
Rule out the mouth: an infected tooth or gum disease also causes bad breath, so use the Tooth & Gum rinse and Tooth Powder too.

Level of Commitment

Gentle support. Bleeding gums, a single canker sore, bad breath: the Tooth & Gum rinse and Tooth Powder every day, the bowels kept moving, and less sugar.
Focused cleansing. A toothache, an abscess, infection after a tooth is pulled, or sores that keep coming back: the Moderate level from the General sheet with its ELFs, Herbal Aid 2, Tooth & Gum on the gum, and the poultice over the cheek or ears. Clearing a stubborn gum infection can take a month; mine did.
The full program. An infection that is spreading, gum disease with loose teeth, or a mouth that has troubled you for years: the Intense level or the Incurables Program, alongside your dentist, and medical care right away if any ER sign appears.

A Loose Healing Plan

Every day: brush with Tooth Powder and rinse with Tooth & Gum (water pik if you can). Keep the bowels moving two or three times a day.
A toothache: Tooth & Gum on a Q-tip at once, Herbal Aid 2 and Echinacea at your level, the paste roll by day and the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice on the cheek at night. See your dentist.
After a tooth is pulled: the same infection work. If a pimple on the gum won’t clear, the poultices over both ears, 4 hours each, for a day or two, with ELFs.
Bleeding or loose teeth: pack the Tooth Powder overnight six nights a week until the gums are firm; the water pik rinse daily; cut out sugar; feed the body calcium.
Canker sores and cold sores: hot and cold to the face, Black Walnut on a cold sore, a few days of light eating, and clean out the bowel and liver.
Thrush: oak bark tea in the mouth several times a day and acidophilus for baby and mother, until every patch is gone.
All along: watch for the ER signs. Continue 3 to 5 days after every symptom is gone.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: The Delivery Man

Back around 2002, when our offices were in Hendersonville, one of our delivery men showed up to drop off our order in horrid pain from an infected tooth. He had a dental appointment the next day, but he was going to have to leave the rest of his route undelivered; he could not keep going with all that pain. I gave him a Q-tip soaked in the Tooth & Gum Formula to swab the area in his mouth. It was only minutes before he was out of pain and felt he could finish his day. I let him take the bottle with him. The next time he delivered to us, he told me the Tooth & Gum Formula had gotten him through to the next day with very little discomfort.

Dara’s Story: The Poultice Over My Ears

In early 2024 I broke a tooth and had it pulled, and the infection in the tooth and gum was very hard to clear. All my regular infection work would not clear a white pimple on the gum above the extraction site, a pocket of infection. At the same time I was fighting a debilitating vertigo; the harder I worked on the infection, the worse it got. Cayenne and the Brain Formula held the vertigo in check.

Well into my third week, my left ear began to feel uncomfortable. Worried the infection was spreading into my ears, I put the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over both ears, held with two wide sweatbands angled low around my head, and replaced them every 4 hours over two days. The first three left my ears very sore, as if the ear tissue itself was full of toxins; a little Healing Salve gave complete relief. By the fourth poultice the white pimple was completely gone, and my ears were fine. I did several ELFs along the way. It took nearly a month to clear, and at my follow-up the dentist took a full set of x-rays and said I was infection-free and the site was healing beautifully.

Dara’s Story: A Mouthful of Sores

For most of my life, up until 1998, I kept getting canker sores and cold sores around and in my mouth, always both at the same time. That year I went to a friend’s clinic in Idaho and did the full Incurables Program: juice fasting, bowel cleansing and liver flushing. It was no surprise that I developed a mouthful of sores while I was there.

In the afternoons I was watching a video series on natural healing. One morning, after the part on hydrotherapy, I went back upstairs and got in the shower. I had always held my head out of the flow of the water, so I had never done hot and cold to my face or mouth. This time I did, with two washcloths to protect my skin from the sharp spray, one for the hot and one for the cold. It was a liver flush day. By that evening, what usually took a week of discomfort to get rid of was gone. All of them. That is the power of hydrotherapy: getting the good blood, full of all the healing nutrients, to the place that needs it.

From Dr. Christopher: The Blizzard Lecture

One snowy night Dr. Christopher nearly canceled his lecture, sure no one would come out in the storm, but something told him to stay open, and a small crowd came. As he spoke on pyorrhea, a woman came in, listened from the doorway in tears, and left without a word. Weeks later she stood up in another class to explain. A dentist had told her all 32 of her teeth, loose but without a single filling, would have to be pulled; it was the worst case of pyorrhea he had ever seen. Wandering the streets in despair that night, she had overheard the lecture. The next morning she bought powdered oak bark and packed it between her lips and gums faithfully. Within days her gums began to tighten, and her dentist said he had never seen anything like it. She told the class to listen to what Dr. Christopher taught, because she was standing there with every one of her own teeth.

From the Herbal Literature: A Toddler with Thrush

An 18-month-old had thrush so badly that the smell filled the house: swollen lips, white sores, and a tongue so swollen he could hardly swallow. A strong oak bark tea was sprayed into his mouth again and again with an atomizer, and his parents gave him only red raspberry tea and more oak bark tea. By the next day he ran to the door with a big smile, his lips back to normal and the sores healing pink underneath.

More on the Teeth, Gums & Mouth

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.