Oral care products that helped my back

BY MARY-ELIZABETH HARMON
Founding Mother, Chard & Stripes

You know how they’re things you think would be good for you but you don’t do them?

Tongue scraping and oil pulling were two of those things for me—I tried, but they never stuck.

Until I discovered Akamai.

Use LOVE20 for 20% off your first order.

Bacteria and toxins build up on our tongues overnight. Scraping—not brushing—is how to remove the gunk and stop it from being reabsorbed into our bodies.

And according to Ayurveda, a system of holistic medicine born in the Indian subcontinent thousands of years ago, oil pulling—swishing oil in your mouth and pulling it through your teeth—can cure a host of diseases. I can’t support that claim but Dr. Burhenne of AskTheDentist.com has read up and says…

Oil pulling reduces gingivitis-causing plaque. It may also prevent and reverse cavities, and can reduce the symptoms of oral thrush (yeast overgrowth) and fix bad breath.

I started oil pulling ages ago because my mouth was getting hammered when I had a systemic yeast infection. But despite all it can do for oral health—which is important to overall health—I stopped because I would gag from using plain coconut oil that I melted in my mouth when it had solidified.

Today, I’m good using Akamai’s Oil Pulling Mouthwash, which stays liquid and has a base of sesame seed oil plus the oil from the so-called “cure for everything but death”: black cumin seed. I’ve been using it for months, along with the other products in the complete oral care kit (vs. the essentials kit).

I’m thrilled with my results. My once yellow teeth are now white, my gumline is generally tighter and the gum pocket I had on one tooth is almost closed.

And my teeth feel cleaner every day than after a visit to the dentist, …

All without plastic toothpaste tubes—which apparently a billion get tossed each year—because now I brush with a mineral-infused toothpowder that comes in a refillable glass jar.

Use LOVE20 for 20% off your first order from Akamai.

If you visit their site, you’ll see that Akamai offers more than oral care products. Because I was so happy with those, I saved my pennies and bought their body care kit too.

Though you can use Akamai’s mouthwash on your skin, that’s not how their products helped my back.

It was “succeeding” at oil pulling, and tongue scraping to a lesser extent, that made the difference.

By forming habits that I couldn’t make stick before, I felt filled with possibilities and revisited other things that I wanted to do but hadn’t, like stretching.

Years ago, my father told me that stiffness was putting a major damper on his life. I heard him but didn’t listen: Though I thought that stretching would be good for me, I didn’t do it…

Even after a year of walking around with a hunched back because it hurt.

My father passed away last year, but his words started ringing in my ears recently. And I finally listened. I figured if I could make oil pulling a habit, surely, I could do some stretching every day. And without my looking, I found “A 3 Minute Neck Drill That Will Change Your Life” on YouTube.

And guess what?

I started doing the drill (carefully) while oil pulling, and was shocked it released tension in my back.

Then, a friend offered me her spot in a program that included yoga, which was something I thought would be good for me but resisted for whatever reason. But newly filled with possibilities as an oil-pulling neck stretcher, I thought why not try yoga while I could still regain flexibility?!

It’s early days, but I’ve been adding some yoga into my life, and am excited to baby stretch my way into a back bend, however long it takes. I’ll introduce my teacher another day, but now I have a question:

What’s something that you think would improve your health to try, be it again or for the first time?

You can get started if you want, but I’m only asking you to ponder what you might do. I’ll nudge you to start soon when I tell you about a trick for making habits stick.

Alrighty. It’s time for my PM routine with my goodness-infused floss. Bye.