Oil pulling is the practice of swishing about a half tablespoon of high-quality oil in your mouth for 15-20 minutes every day. You can find information about it on the internet in many places. It is purported to have many health benefits, including removing impurities from the blood across the highly vascular tissues under the tongue. I can’t speak to all of the claims of benefit for the practice, but I can tell you of some of the benefits that I and others I know personally have experienced.
First, oil pulling can drain an abscess in an emergency.
Wait, is this where I have to tell you that I am not a medical expert and that I am not giving medical advice? OK. I’m not a medical expert and I am not giving medical advice. There. Done.
I don’t know why, but dental emergencies have this way of happening after normal business hours. Very inconvenient. There have been about a half a dozen times I have told someone I know about oil pulling when they developed an abscess and couldn’t have it immediately treated by a dentist. Even when you can make it in to see a dentist, most dentists won’t treat an abscess until you’ve finished a round of antibiotics and the infection subsides. In my experience, oil pulling has helped drain abscesses by creating negative pressure within the abscess, moving the infection through the gum tissue to drain. The abscess can look worse before it gets better as the infection localizes before it drains, but it does eventually drain and that drainage brings with it a lot of pain relief.
Secondly, oil pulling removes tartar. Not immediately, of course, but oil pulling does free tartar from the teeth. This was something that I experienced first hand. I had some tartar on the back of my lower incisors and, after several weeks of oil pulling, the tartar came off while I was swishing. Someone else also reported to me that, after oil pulling for a while, he went in for a dental cleaning and the hygienist commented on how easily the tartar lifted off of his teeth. I would bet that the tartar would have come off on its own given just a little more time. Sure beats having the dentist scrape your teeth with a metal hook!
Lastly, oil pulling removes stains. People I know who have oil pulled long term report that their teeth look whiter. Personally, I had some stains on my molars completely disappear. They were stains left from the braces on my molars. Because they were in between my teeth, they were stains that dental cleanings had not been able to remove.
People ask me what kind of oil to use. I like sesame oil, but I’m half-Korean, so I don’t mind sesame oil so much. Some people can’t handle the taste of straight sesame oil and choose to use coconut, olive, or sunflower oil. Whatever oil suits you best, it should be as pure, unrefined, and unheated as possible.
People also ask me how I find 15-20 minutes in my day to do this regularly and I will admit that it was difficult at first. My poor kids got really good at charades. The best time I have found to do this is when I’m getting ready for the day. If I start my bathroom/shower/dressing routine by putting some oil in my mouth, I’ll finish getting ready with just a little bit of swishing left. If my kids have to play charades, it’s only for a few minutes.
There aren’t many drawbacks to oil pulling. It’s definitely one of those things that doesn’t hurt to try and you might even discover benefits not listed here. Hope this helps.