Squeezable Homemade Toothpaste

Hi Shannon,

Reversing a carie (cavity) can be tricky, since once decay starts you basically have an open doorway for acid to do further damage. You need to close this door so that your enamel and/or dentin can start the repair process. Your teeth have tiny tubules which lead straight to your dentin. Your enamel is supposed to cover these tubules. When your enamel gets worn some of these tubules get exposed (the door I mentioned), causing sensitivity and possibility for decay. Decay is caused by the acids created by bacteria.

If a carie is to be reversed, you first need to close the door, to protect your tooth from further damage from acid. This requires the formation of hydroxyapatite on the surface of the enamel. Hydroxyapatite is the material from which your enamel and teeth and constructed.

I made a previous post below which should give you some helpful information. Essentially, you need to consider the following (and forgive me if I’m long-winded and repeating myself, but this stuff is important if you are serious about your teeth):

1) Eat foots containing the materials you need to repair enamel/dentin. These materials get secreted in your saliva, and include mainly such things as calcium and phosphorous. These are needed to form hydroxyapatite, which then build a sort of scaffolding on your enamel, which then get filled in and close the “door”. There is a multitude of information and books out there on the subject of dental nutrition, but I tend to believe that keeping your diet balanced and healthy will result in the proper oral environment you need. If you’re on some sort of restricted type of diet, these books may be helpful.

2) Point #1 will not be effective without saliva. Your teeth need saliva soaking time. If you produce little saliva, you need to rectify this. Chewing on Xylitol gum is great for this, and of course also having it in your toothpaste. Xylitol immediately starts making you salivate. Chew on it throughout the day, especially after meals. Rinse your mouth after eating also helps. Of course, you only want gum sweetened ONLY with Xylitol. A lot of gums contain other sweeteners along with Xylitol, which feed bacteria, and defeats the purpose. I buy a brand called “pur” which is readily available in stores (at least here in Canada). If Xylitol is not for you, then you’ll need to find another method to increase your saliva throughout the day/night. At night, I usually put a pinch of Xylitol in my mouth after brushing and before going to sleep, to get some saliva in my mouth for the long night, when saliva production drops.

3) Not only do you need constant saliva to promote healing, but you need the proper pH. Healing will only happen at a higher pH (less acidic). So limit acidic food/drink as much as possible. Drop the juice. Get some pH strips and test your saliva throughout the day to see how you’re doing. Also test the pH of the toothpaste you are using, it should be at least 5.5 or higher, the natural pH of your mouth. Xylitol helps to prevent an acidic environment, since it kills off about 90% of the bacteria that would otherwise be creating acids in your mouth. Btw, don’t buy into those high pH diets, which supposedly raise the pH of your body for health benefits. Not only is that false science, but changing the pH of your body would probably kill you. You body regulates your pH, and you cannot change it, nor is it advisable to do so. Yes, you health freaks out there, there IS a place for science in our health! I happily attend both camps, and I use the term “freak” with loving sincerity and understanding 🙂

4) Limit the amount of sugar intake as much as possible. Sugar feeds the bacteria which create acid in your mouth. It’s the acids which are demineralizing your teeth and causing caries. Xylitol helps to create saliva which will wash the sugar away. Xylitol actually kills bacteria by starving it. Bacteria tries to metabolize the Xylitol (treating it like regular sugar), but it can’t. Two-fold benefit here … you decrease the food that bacteria feed on by washing away sugar, then starve those remaining with “fake food”.

5) It’s likely not the bacteria in your mouth and on your teeth that are causing you problems. It’s the bacteria hiding just below the gum-line, which regular brushing methods do not reduce. You need to start using the Bass Brush Method, and get a better toothbrush, which I’ve mentioned in my other post. And just because a toothbrush is labelled “very soft” or “extra gentle” does not necessarily make it so. A very important aspect of a toothbrush is the very tips of the bristles. The vast majority of commercial toothbrushes use bristles that are squared off on the tip. Why? Well it’s cheaper to make. Take some “soft” bristles and chop them off at the end – simple … then label them as “soft”. Think about that for a second. You end up with a cylindrical bristle, squared off on the end at a 90 degree angle. This my friends, is a sharp edge, perfect for scraping tiny scratches into your enamel, and hindering any repair efforts. You want a manufacturer that actually takes the effort and expense to ROUND off their bristles. They are rare, but they’re out there (hint, the Radius toothbrush I mentioned does this). Plus, round bristles are perfect for utilizing the Bass brushing method, to get those bristles under your gums and brush away those bacteria trying to hide, and which survive regular brushing methods. So you may wonder why you brush and floss religiously, and avoid sugar, but still get cavities? Here’s why.

6) Further to getting a proper and very soft toothbrush, you need a very gentle toothpaste. Obviously you need to remove any plaque and bacteria from your gums and teeth, but scrubbing away on your enamel is counterproductive. If you want to repair the worn away enamel, and close the door, you can’t be scrubbing away the construction project! As per my other post, using White Kaolin in your toothpaste is recommended. It is gentle, and will polish your teeth smooth, making it harder for bacteria and plaque to take hold. Avoid other toothpaste ingredients which will only add to the abrasiveness of the mixture. Keep it Simple! Contrary to popular belief, it takes VERY little abrasiveness to clean your teeth. You may think that brushing for 10 minutes can only be a good thing, but you’d be wrong, and likely doing more harm than good. A soft toothbrush (with proper bristles!) and soft toothpaste are essential, especially for you. You would be better off brushing for 1 minute using a soft brush/paste, using the Bass method, than 10 minutes with a regular brush/paste. Note that I still recommend 2 minutes of brushing, but you get the point.

All of the above points are to enable an environment for your body to repair the damage. Once continued damage has been mitigated, only THEN can your caries have a hope of remineralizing. You need to work WITH your body, not against it. Once your enamel has been sealed, and the acid attack has stopped, your teeth can then start healing from within to rebuild your dentin. This is purely diet at the point. All the while, you continue to work at protecting your outer defense, which I’ve outlined.

And to further comment on toothpaste, without boring you (further) to tears: in your particular case, you may want to consider kick-starting the healing process with a (gasp) commercial toothpaste. Not just any toothpaste. Not just a so called “sensitive” toothpaste. I mean a toothpaste which truly helps to remineralize your teeth faster than your natural saliva could. After all, the first phase of sealing up your enamel is very important, and therefore the quicker you can accomplish this, the better. There are in fact toothpastes out there that can accomplish this. You just have to weed out the “fakes”. A “remineralizing” toothpaste claiming to do so by adding “calcium” or the like, is what I consider “fake”. Not that minerals aren’t a good thing, mind you, but you need fast repair. You need additives which actually work to create hydroxyapatite, or at least help it form.

You can find toothpastes which actually contain nano-hydroxyapatite. These are nano sized particles of hydroxyapatite, which can actually fit into the tiny tubules of your teeth, and seal it up. They build the scaffolding, and you saliva does the rest. Again, don’t be scared off by the sound of this material … your teeth are MADE of this stuff. Don’t be swayed off by thoughts or comments of “it’s a commercial product, thus not natural”.

As for finding toothpastes containing hydroxyapatite, they are expensive and hard to find, but they are out there. They are particularly popular in Japan. In Canada I’ve found a brand called X-pur, that you can buy at some pharmacies (Shoppers Drug Mart). Use Amazon if needed. Note that I can’t speak to the other ingredients of abrasiveness of any of these products, although X-pur at least feels very gentle (plus it’s fluoride free and has Xylitol!). You can also get a version of Sensodyne (Repair & Protect) containing something called NovaMin. While not pure hydroxyapatite, NovaMin is based on the same principle of sealing off your dental tubules to reduce sensitivity. Sorry for those of you in the U.S., but for some strange reason Sensodyne doesn’t use NovaMin in your version of the product (which I dub a “fake”). It is however available in Canada and Europe. Not to sound like I’m wearing a tinfoil hat, but I’m sure the ADA and dental establishment have no vested interest in actually preventing caries/cavities. While I’m sure the people working for these organizations, and the dentists themselves, are good people, would ANY industry work to effectively render themselves unnecessary? Cavities are good for business. Dentists work to repair the damage, not necessarily to help you avoid them. But I digress.

So back to the scary sounding toothpastes. If nothing else, using a nano-hydroxyapatite toothpaste may help to kick-start your healing, like I mentioned. Use it for a couple of months, then go back to your homemade stuff. using all the tips I mentioned.

Even better yet, add some nano-hydroxyapatite to your homemade toothpaste, and create a Super Paste! I won’t get into all of that, but it IS possible. In fact I have a shipment on the way as I write this, to be incorporated into my own paste. Say goodbye to caries for the rest of my life, and hello to smoother whiter teeth. Yes, nano-hydroxyapatite will not only fill in any weak spots, preventing enamel penetration by acids, but it will fill in the tiny scratches and imperfections on the surface of your teeth, giving a whiter appearance. Scratches, I might mention, caused by squared-off toothbrush bristles.

How did I come to research and discover nano-hydroxyapatite you might wonder? Well I made myself a batch of homemade toothpaste, using mostly coconut-oil, baking soda, and powdered calcium carbonate. A week or two later, by teeth became VERY sensitive and somewhat painful. My teeth felt raw, like I had exposed the sensitive nerves of my teeth. I’ve always had very strong teeth, which my dentist keeps informing me of. So I stopped using the homemade stuff, and went back to Colgate. Didn’t help. I stopped eating apples, which I’d recently started eating daily. I stopped coconut-oil-pulling which I was also doing differently. Didn’t help. I felt like the damage was done and I needed to find a way to repair it. I didn’t like having aching teeth, and I was a little worried I did permanent damage to my precious enamel. I even considered going to my dentist about this sudden problem, which I’ve never experienced before. I imagined him scolding me about making my own toothpaste, tsk tsk he would say, how dare I abandon fluoride and the dentist recommended toothpaste. Does the ADA seal of approval mean nothing to me?

But no, I broke it, and I was determined to fix it. Plus I wanted to avoid the embarrassing discussion with the dentist. Plus, I was still convinced I didn’t need fluoride, and I didn’t like the ingredients that commercial toothpastes were using. I didn’t feel like trying to debate the issue with a dentist, who was trained (cough brainwashed?) a certain way, to the benefit of their own industry.

So I started researching tooth sensitivity – long story short (shush), I discovered what hydroxyapatite was. I was about to order some toothpaste containing hydroxyapatite from Amazon, but ended up finding X-pur’s website. Checked their availability – turns out there was only 1 particular Shoppers Drug Mart location (out of many in the city) that sold it. I went to that store – sure enough they had some. Out of the way, high on a shelf, high on price, and small on tube-size. A very small sized tube in fact. Hmm, well it doesn’t seem very popular or well marketed. I didn’t care – I needed help and I was sold on the science of it.

Mainly because of how small the tube was, and how expensive it was, I used a very small pea-sized amount when brushing – half a pea really. I also started using the Bass brushing method to get that hydroxyapatite up under my gums. Within 3 days my sensitivity was very markedly reduced, almost gone. Within 1 week, my sensitivity was totally gone! I was not surprised mind you, as like I said, I trusted the science, but I was a little shocked at how quickly it worked.

Regardless of my experience, I’m still on board with the whole homemade toothpaste thing, and I don’t like the ingredients in the commercial stuff. So I spent a LOT of time researching things, including scientific studies, various literature, and also herbalist remedies, and even anecdotal evidence from blog comments like this one :-). Too much time perhaps, as you can probably tell. I like the idea of natural and homemade, but I’m also a man of science at heart. And seeing is believing, as they say. So I’m working on my own formulation, building from the natural recipes that people like WellnessMama put forth into the world. They are great recipes!

So obviously the whole baking soda/calcium thing didn’t work for me. I don’t even have proof it was the baking soda and/or calcium powder that caused my issues. Regardless, I don’t like the taste of baking soda, and after much research, have found things like White Kaolin Clay, Xylitol, coconut oil, MCT (liquid coconut oil), and various essential oils. The final, and most important ingredient for my homemade toothpaste is en route, in the form of nano-hydroxyapatite. And while I’ve come across a great many other interesting ingredients seemingly beneficial to oral health, I’m sticking with the premise that less is more. Just because you like 20 different foods, don’t expect to throw them together to make a recipe that works. And while my formulation has not yet been perfected, I feel I have found the best and natural ingredients (and yes I include the hydroxyapatite here).

So finally, I apologize for the very-long winded blog comment here, but I feel like I’ve gained quite a bit of knowledge on the subject, and I hope some of this helps you. I suppose it’s only fitting that my foray into natural dental care started with WellnessMama, and now I’m getting a chance to contribute, and bring back some knowledge I’ve gleaned. In fact, I have found that you can gather a lot of information and insights from the comments to articles themselves. I just hope mine wasn’t so long that it scared you away from reading – so thanks for persevering. And thanks to WellnessMama for actually approving this admittedly overly long-winded comment!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, is that having a DDS after your name doesn’t make you an expert at oral health and cavity prevention. After all, dentists are trained primarily to repair the damage, not on how to prevent the damage in the first place. We all have to gather information ourselves, and make our own choices. These are the findings and choices I’ve made, and my education on the subject continues.

Good luck repairing your cavities the natural way Shannon – hopefully it’s not too late and the services of dental repair are not needed!