

How To Get Rid Of Gingivitis (Gum Disease) Fast & Naturally

Gum Disease Treatment At Home, Without Going To The Dentist

In this article, I will tell you everything I did to cure my own gum disease I had a few years ago, and I will not try to sell you anything or get you to sign up for anything. Just 100% free information. I got sick of searching for 'how to cure gum disease' back when I had it, and all I found were people trying to sell me something. So I figured out how to cure it myself, and now I want to share this information with you. For free.

2018 Update: I made an even bigger & better guide, here: Gingivitis: The Ultimate Guide To Curing Gum Disease
The one you're currently reading is still relevant too, though. 🙂

Gum disease (gingivitis) symptoms

  • Receding gums (ie, your teeth start looking 'taller')
  • Your gums bleed often, like every time you brush them
  • Your gums might be sensitive to the touch
  • Purple or bright red gums

Those are the officially recognized symptoms of gingivitis... in my case I also had slightly loose teeth as well (I could wiggle them a little bit... it was disturbing). That's a less common symptom of gingivitis, and is usually associated with periodontitis instead.

What causes gingivitis?

To put it bluntly, not cleaning your teeth properly causes gum disease, due to plaque building up and not being removed. Bacteria feed on this plaque, and they produce chemicals and toxins which degrade the gum tissue in your mouth.


So if you have gum disease, it means you haven't been cleaning your teeth as well as you should have.

Is there a cure for gingivitis?

Yes! Keep reading. 🙂

How long does it take to get rid of gingivitis?

If you clean your teeth every day as I describe in this article, your gum disease should start going away after about a week or so. Unless it's more severe (periodontitis), in which case it will take longer, and you should go see a dentist because I seriously don't think you can fix it yourself.


How to get rid of gingivitis

Getting rid of gum disease and preventing it from ever coming back requires a change of habits. You can't just 'get rid of it' once and expect it to stay away forever - you need to actively keep on cleaning your teeth properly every day for the rest of your life. If you're not willing to do this, you might as well make friends with your gum disease, because it will always be there with you.

Here's what I did. Don't laugh, it really was this simple in my case, and doing this will probably be enough for you as well, as long as your gingivitis hasn't progressed to periodontitis yet (more info on that later).

All I did was clean out all the plaque on, around, and between my teeth with toothpicks, floss and my fingernails. No special tools were used. I have been continually doing this every day ever since I started, and my gum disease has gone away and hasn't come back. My teeth also no longer wiggle 🙂

The best 'tool' for cleaning out plaque that builds up right above the gums, in my experience, is a blunt toothpick. It's soft enough to wipe the plaque off without hurting the gums, but still hard enough to actually scrape the stuff off.

When flossing between your teeth, try to use the floss to scrape straight up alongside each tooth, to get out any plaque that might be hiding in there. Do this multiple times until you're absolutely certain it's squeaky clean. Also, you can use the floss to clean right at the back of your molars. This is a good place for plaque to hide, and can be quite hard to get to, so be sure you get some floss back there and clean that stuff out. It's worth the effort.

Also, brush your tongue. A lot of stuff sticks to it and makes your breath smell bad, and since you're getting into the habit of cleaning everything properly, you might as well clean that too. Getting rid of absolutely everything bacteria could possibly feed on is a good idea.

See the updates I posted at the end of the article for more things that will probably also help to cure gum disease, which I'm doing as maintenance to keep my teeth and gums healthy in the long run.

Stubborn plaque (also known as Tartar)

Tartar is the hard stuff that sticks to your teeth and doesn't come off when brushing. A toothpick also isn't hard enough to scrape it off.

How to know if you've got tartar

Feel the sides of your teeth with your finger (make sure it's clean first). If it feels smooth, it's not tartar. If it has a tacky roughness to it, you've probably got some tartar built up there. You need to get rid of it. You should only need to clean tartar off once, because once you've got rid of it, as long as you keep your teeth properly clean, it won't come back.

I scraped the tartar off my teeth with a (sterilized) paperclip... yes, I'm serious. Don't laugh. I'm sure there are better ways of doing this, and to be honest, I don't really recommend the paperclip method... you could slip and stab yourself in the gum, and that wouldn't be very nice. So if you're going to insist on using a paperclip, be careful.

Dentists remove tartar using dental picks, which are small sharp pointy metal things (not too different from my paperclip, I suppose). Dentists also have other fancy tools, like ultrasonic water spraying things that loosen up tartar. They also have little mirrors that make it easy to see all those awkward hard to reach places. So if you have a lot of stubborn tartar, you might want to get some specialized tools for it (or get someone to help you clean it).

Anti-bacterial Mouthwash

A lot of people recommend rinsing your mouth out with Listerine or some other anti-bacterial mouthwash. This makes sense, considering that it's bacteria that cause gingivitis. But on the other hand, the bacteria need plaque to survive, so getting rid of their food source (plaque) will get rid of them as well. I didn't use any anti-bacterial mouthwash whatsoever, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.

Gingivitis vs Periodontitis

Now, I personally didn't have Periodontitis, so I don't have any personal experience with this, but I have done some research comparing the differences between Periodontitis and Gingivitis. Hopefully this helps you figure out if you can cure your gum disease yourself, or if you should get professional help.

Gingivitis and Periodontitis both occur in the gums and both have similar symptoms but the two diseases are different from each other.

Periodontitis is much more serious than gingivitis. Here the gums tend to pull away from the teeth, creating a space between the gums and teeth where more bacteria can flourish. You are also more likely to see loose teeth in Periodontitis than in gingivitis. Plaque tends to travel down to the roots, which leads to the higher degree of infection you see in Periodontitis. The gums may also bleed very easily and you may feel pain when chewing. Periodontitis commonly leads to further complications such as tissue destruction and bone damage.

Periodontitis Treatment Options

Periodontitis is a very serious dental problem and should be treated as early as possible. There are various treatment options according to how severe the problem is, but you definitely need to go to a dentist for all of them. Scaling is used for milder forms of Periodontitis, and is done to remove tartar and bacteria from the surface of the teeth and in between the gums. The plaque may also be removed using an ultrasonic device. Root planing is another method to treat Periodontitis. This involves smoothing out root surfaces. You may also be given antibiotics to prevent the buildup of more bacteria and to reduce the chances of infection.

Surgery may be necessary for severe cases of Periodontitis. This is advised for cases where gum tissue fails to respond to non-surgical treatments. These include flap surgery, which removes a flap of tissue around the gums to facilitate effective removal of bacteria and plaque. Afterwards the underlying bone may be recontoured before the flap is reattached. The doctor may also perform soft tissue grafts. Tissue from the palate may be taken out and placed around gums that have receded from the teeth. This procedure helps prevent further gum recession.

Other surgical techniques include bone grafting and guided tissue regeneration. Grafting is done in extreme cases when the infection has spread to the bone. Pieces of bone from other parts of the body are placed in parts where bone has been eroded in order to prevent further bone damage.

All of which is very unpleasant to think about. So if you don't have Periodontitis yet, make sure you never get it!

Now what?

Now I believe you have some teeth cleaning to do 🙂 ... but if you found this article helpful in any way, I'd appreciate it if you click on any of the sharing buttons below to share this information with others. Good luck!

2015 Update - Water Flosser

I recently got myself one of these water flossers after reading good things about them, and after using it for a few weeks, I must say it's far more effective (and faster) than flossing and tooth-picking. I don't know how well it would work for getting rid of tartar (because I don't have any to test it on), but if you just get one of these and use it 1-2 times a day, I'm pretty sure you can ignore all the stuff I said about toothpicks and floss. 🙂

Panasonic EW-DJ10-A Portable Dental Water Flosser

Many people say that this one is better: Waterpik Aquarius

It's just not available in my local area, so I can't get one easily. If it's available for you, and you don't need it to be portable, it may be worth getting.

2018 Update - Oil Pulling and Xylitol Rinsing

I've been using Coconut Oil and Xylitol as mouthwashes for over a year now. They work so well that most days I don't even feel a need to brush my teeth or use my water flosser anymore. I still do it anyway though - and sometimes the flosser still gets out some food bits I didn't know were hiding there!

While I don't have any gum disease to test this on myself, I've read many articles saying that oil pulling with a variety of oils can cure gum disease on its own, and the same can be said for xylitol. So if you add oil pulling and xylitol rinsing to the cleaning tips I posted earlier, it can only help.  🙂

Here are some instructions on how to do oil pulling:

Swish 1-2 tablespoons of coconut oil around in your mouth for 10-20 minutes. Spit it out afterwards, and then rinse your mouth out thoroughly. For even better results, rinse with salt water after the oil.

When I do this early in the day, I find that it prevents plaque from building up or sticking to my teeth for most of the rest of the day.

More information about oil pulling:

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Posted in: Health by on February 24, 2012 @ 11:24 pm