My new dental hygienist agreed that Xylitol is the way to go! Ellie Phillip's dental health system

 

This is the Ellie Phillip's system for dental health.

Neutralize=CloSys (original formula - not the "healthy gums" formula). So you "bath" your teeth in CloSys for one minute but no longer - this neutralizes any mouth acids to prepare the teeth for scrubbing. You don't want to "scrub acid" into your teeth yet food/drink makes the teeth covered in acid.

Remineralize = Crest original formula toothpaste (now called Crest Plus but not any of the other newer types of Crest). The original Crest uses "sodium fluoride" while other types use "stannous fluoride" but Ellie Phillips is against the stannous fluoride. 

 Sanitize = Listerine essential oils mouthwash (the original with no flavor is considered the strongest but mint flavor is fine also).

Seal = the ACT original (now called Restore) fluoride rinse. If you get the smaller size bottle then the fluoride dose is stronger - at .05 instead of .02. The purpose of the fluoride is an ion catalyst to pull in the minerals to remineralize your teeth. The alcohol acid of Listerine actually "etches" the teeth so that the Fluoride reacts stronger into bonding to the teeth.

 Stabilize = the mouth saliva itself as "mouth resting" - so go an hour with no drinking or eating for the fluoride to work its magic.

Prebiotic = Xylitol that kills off the Strep Mutans bacteria that feeds off sugar in food. Xylitol also increases the saliva flow and so increases the good bacteria and remineralization process. Have 5 grams a day minimum - so have four mints after each meal. The sooner you have the Xylitol after eating or drinking, the sooner you stop the damage by stopping the feeding of Strep Mutans. Xylitol keeps your teeth clean as a "slick" feel since the dead strep mutans will now easily slough off your teeth through the above mouth washing process.

And added bonus is to get a "flossing toothbrush" from Dr. Plotkins - this brush has "finer than hair" bristles that are extra long to get in between your teeth. Also the brush is lined with silver embedded in the bristles to keep the bristles antiseptic - after six hours of drying.

So that is Ellie Phillip's dental health system - and she says this system will actually reverse cavities - if they are small and just in the enamel. But if you have structural holes in your teeth or gumline dentin cavities then those should get filled.  The issue here is how to prevent the need for future fillings? Filled cavities easily trap more plaque!! So use Ellie Phillip's dental health system to prevent the need for future fillings and even worse - crowns and root canals....

My dental hygienist who also does fillings - she said overall my gums are healthy and my teeth are good but even still she is doing cavities fillings. Why? I brushed my gums way too hard with the diatomaceous earth! This kept my teeth nice and white but I didn't realize that below the gum line is where the teeth are not protected by enamel - so the bacteria easily causes cavities below the gum line.

So I have swore off sugar now that I have a good excuse - and I have had to tell several nice ladies who had been supplying me routinely with sugar sweets - sorry!! hahaha. This has been excellent for my overall health as my qigong energy is very sensitive to sugar. I still take ginger to offset any sugar even in food - for example tea leaves even have sugar in the leaves!! Milk, Orange Juice and banana - all need ginger, etc. 

Yesterday my dental hygienist started with a cavity in my front incisor - the plaque had built up - why? I had stopped using the diatomaceous earth. hahaha. She worked hard to make it look like a perfect match with my other incisor. I really can't see any difference - except that now the tooth looks white and nice again - no more "holes" in it as groves.

The problem with cavities and plaque is they provide a permanent home for the Strep Mutans bacteria - this is why I've sworn off sugar while I have also gorged on xylitol. 

One dentist on youtube recommended putting the xylitol directly on the cavity area - and I looked it up - a cavity is about 5% Strep Mutans in terms of biomass. The rest of the cavity is "demineralized enamel" or in this case dentim - and other bacteria feeding there also.

So I have been using Ellie Phillip's dental health system for several days and as soon as I used xylitol then I immediately noticed this slick feeling to my teeth. Her "flossing brush" method is to massage the gums because she insists that the gums need stimulation - and an extra soft brush won't provide that. But I still have to be very careful with the gums also - it's a balancing act. 

Also I still floss the gums even though Ellie Phillip's argues that flossing causes gum recession. I just use wax floss that is old skool and I take it easy. There is no bleeding. Another dental hygienist tried no flossing with Ellie Phillip's system - and she documented increase in plaque on her teeth along with bleeding starting up. So Ellie Phillip says if you want to keep flossing then do it just after you brushed - so you work the fluoride in between the teeth. This will also help to protect the gums.

 While Ellie Phillips relies on "mouth resting" - it is important to get enough water obviously. So if I had to choose with staying hydrated and mouth resting - I would choose the former. It depends on how much sweat from physical labor, etc. Also I recommend cayenne to clear out the sinuses - and other essential oils to counteract sugar in food (not refined sugar but natural sugars). Ginger, cayenne and spirulina powder (for magnesium from chlorophyll).

also if you have too much xylitol then you get diarrhea - so it will clear out the colon. This can cause dehydration also - and so this limits the xylitol intake. I gorged on the stuff at first just to really target the cavities. 

 

 

 

The mouth has over a 1000 good bacteria and only 14 bad bacteria: Biofilm is overall good for health, xylitol gets rid of bad bacteria

 Ellie Phillips on the need to alkalize your mouth by destroying Strep Mutans via Xylitol

 Xylitol is a 5 ring carbon, not a six ring carbon - so the Strep Mutans bacteria starve from xylitol after the bacteria try to eat it....You can WASH plaque off your teeth without even brushing...and xylitol feeds your good bacteria...

 Xylitol just needs to be put on the back of your tongue and since xylitol is hygroscopic - it PULLS the salvia out of the top back molars - where the salivary glands are....

 Strep Mutans plaque can drop to 0.2% only in the mouth after six months!!

 Streptococcus mutans is a primary bacterium responsible for dental caries. It colonizes the mouth and produces sticky glucans that bind to tooth surfaces, forming the biofilm known as dental plaque. It thrives by metabolizing sugars into lactic acid, which erodes tooth enamel

Xylitol doesn’t directly kill Streptococcus mutans in the way an antibiotic would, but it effectively starves them. When the bacteria ingest xylitol, they cannot process it for energy. This triggers a "futile energy cycle" that stunts their growth and prevents them from producing tooth-decaying acids. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Over time, this process causes the bacteria to lose their stickiness, making them easier to wash away with regular brushing and significantly reducing their numbers in your mouth.

 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3434645/

 The S. mutans and S. sobrinus counts of the saliva samples decreased significantly (p = 0.01 and p = 0.011, respectively) in the xylitol gum group but not in the sorbitol gum group.

 wipe xylitol over lesions in the mouth....

Yes, Streptococcus sobrinus is one of the primary bacterial species that causes cavities and tooth decay in humans. Working alongside Streptococcus mutans, it thrives on sugars in your diet, producing acids that dissolve tooth enamel and cause decay. [1, 2]

While S. mutans is more common, S. sobrinus is often considered more potent. It produces acid much more quickly and is highly associated with the onset of decay on smooth tooth surfaces

 Chemically, pure xylitol is nearly neutral, with a pH of roughly 5.0 to 7.0. However, it actively promotes an alkaline environment in your mouth. Because oral bacteria cannot ferment it into decay-causing acids, it neutralizes mouth acidity and stimulates saliva flow, pushing oral pH above 7.0 to help remineralize tooth enamel.

  In vitro tests demonstrated the xylitol concentration of 12.5% was required for inhibiting the growth of S. sanguinis; however, S. mutans was inhibited significantly at a xylitol concentration of 1.56% (24). Kontiokari et al. (31) showed in vitro effectiveness of xylitol in reducing S. mitis. This is incompatible to the finding of the present study, which suggested that xylitol chewing gum consumption did not effect on in vivo growth of S. mitis. It is possible that xylitol selectively affects and reduces S. mutans and S. sobrinus levels without altering load of S. mitis and S. sanguinis, the bacteria implicated in development of oral health.

 Bacteria make up the active, living portion of a cavity, but they rarely exceed 1% to 5% of the total mass of the dark, decayed tissue. The rest of the black cavity consists of demineralized tooth structure (collagen), food debris, and mineral stains...The bulk of the cavity is dead, softened dentin and decalcified enamel....

 Chromogenic Bacteria: Some people naturally host "good" chromogenic bacteria (like Actinomyces) that form harmless, thin black lines along the gum line, often despite excellent oral hygiene

 Arrested Decay: If a cavity stops growing and remineralizes, it can turn dark and hard, meaning the S. mutans bacteria are no longer actively eating the tooth structure

During the first 5 days without food, a person may lose 1–2 kilograms (2.2–4.4 pounds) of body weight each day. Most of this weight loss is related to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Over several weeks of starvation, changes in the body usually cause weight loss to slow down to an average of 0.3 kilograms (0.7 pounds) per day.

The more fat stores available, the longer a person can typically survive during starvation. Once the fat stores have been completely metabolized, the body then reverts back to muscle breakdown for energy

 

Thousands of immigrant farm workers in forced trafficked slave labor in the U.S.

 

thousands of foreign farmworkers had been illegally charged fees by labor contractors to work in the U.S. Some were forced to pick crops for little to no pay in what prosecutors described as a form of modern-day slavery.

https://projects.propublica.org/blueberries-farmworker-mistreatment/

Federal investigators seized a trove of passports that they say had been confiscated from farmworkers by the defendants. Obtained by ProPublica 

Many farmers speak only English. So they end up hiring contractors to bring foreign laborers to the U.S. and oversee their work.

That outsourcing can shield farmers from responsibility for — or even awareness of — harm against their workers.

Labor regulators have repeatedly failed to make sure that contractors do what the government requires them to do: keep workers safe and pay them what they’re promised.

  ProPublica also reached out to over 30 of America’s largest grocery and fast-food chains to ask why they haven’t joined the Fair Food Program or expanded their limited participation. None of the companies answered questions about the program.

 https://www.propublica.org/article/h-2a-farmworker-visa-safety-suggestions-experts

by 2030, there could be a need for up to 500,000 H-2A workers — roughly triple the number requested in 2016, the year that President Donald Trump was first elected.

  there’s a bill proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers that would require farmers to stop working with recruiters who charged laborers an illegal fee to obtain an H-2A visa.

 ‘Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2025’’

https://gray.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/gray.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/lofgre_001_xml.pdf

shall offer family housing to workers with families if such workers are engaged in agricultural employment that is not of a seasonal or temporary nature. The worker may reject such an offer.

Wow so you are not required to provide housing if the labor is seasonal? fascinating. 

 up to 500 aliens may be issued visas or otherwise provided H–2A nonimmigrant status under paragraph (1) in a fiscal year for range sheep or goat herding.

 https://projects.propublica.org/h2a-visa-farmworkers-operation-blooming-onion/

Some of America’s largest supermarkets (Walmart, Whole Foods) and fast-food chains (McDonald’s, Burger King) participate in the Fair Food Program. The corporations’ participation was originally limited to a select set of crops, such as tomatoes. Some of their commitments since have grown to include more crops. Other big buyers, like Kroger, Publix and Wendy’s, have not participated in the program..... still less than a tenth of the more than 300,000 H-2A workers in the U.S.

  Georgia was more reliant on H-2A workers than any other state.

Mendoza said that if she had it in her mind to leave his operation, she’d have to do so without her passport. She wasn’t getting it back.... He was charging some applicants thousands of dollars for the chance to get an H-2A visa...... he’d bring in more and more workers that the farmers didn’t actually need, just to get those up-front fees. He’d even bring her to meetings with King.... Mendoza crammed a couple dozen people — workers and their children — into a trailer. She noticed that a few didn’t have enough money to eat. Sofi believed that the workers were being shorted. She remembered Mendoza occasionally picking up calls in the middle of the night, alerts that people were escaping.... Still, she told him no. It didn’t matter. Month after month, closed up in his house with him, he did what he wanted to her.....I’ll call immigration, she remembered him saying. I’ll have you deported. Only after she signed did he explain what the document was: a marriage license.... Sofi took some of Mendoza’s money and the keys to his car and drove the children to a gas station to get them some food. Mendoza caught wind of it and tracked her there. He took the car and made her and the children walk back. And he beat her for what he saw as her defiance.... She recalled him telling her over the phone that if she didn’t stay with him, he would kill her son. She feared that with all his connections in Mexico, it was possible he could. She arranged with her parents for the child to be hidden far away....

  On a small wooden table, objects were arranged in an offering of sorts: fruit, cigarettes, a bottle of tequila, flickering prayer candles. In the middle was a photo, placed upside down, of the woman who’d been kidnapped. She was holding a bouquet of yellow roses and a box of chocolates. Looming over the photo was a statue of La Santa Muerte, known among law enforcement as a saint invoked to protect criminal acts. There was blood — what he later learned was the victim’s blood — smeared on the statue’s scythe

 Mendoza was indicted in September 2020 for sex trafficking. It was the first big indictment of what was known as Operation Blooming Onion, which exposed widespread abuses of H-2A workers across Georgia.

His charge was followed by a flurry of others — including forced labor and money laundering — against two dozen other participants in what the federal government described as a sprawling, transnational criminal organization. It was one of the largest H-2A trafficking investigations ever.
Mendoza made more than $25,000 a month by charging workers unlawful fees before he would submit their H-2A applications. They also turned up evidence that he’d inflated the number of workers he needed so he could collect more of those up-front fees and that he’d sold the labor of some of the additional workers to farmers not authorized to participate in the program.
prosecutors alleged that defendants filed petitions seeking more than 71,000 H-2A visas, leading to thousands of applicants getting approved when there was no legitimate job for them. They also estimated that the operation raked in more than $200 million in profits by illegally charging workers thousands of dollars to get a visa and by having them work for other, unauthorized employers, not all of them farms, which violates their H-2A contract. One of those workers died of heat stroke after working on a farm where he wasn’t supposed to be.

“How many times did he rape you?” the prosecutor asked.

“Many,” Sofi said.

“How long were you with him, do you remember?”

“One year.”

“And during that year, did he rape you on a weekly, monthly or daily basis?”

“Whenever he wanted to.”

The prosecutor turned to the day of the kidnapping. It was a day that made Sofi fear she’d never see her son again — or, worse, that she’d see her son killed.

this year has led to arrests of undocumented farmworkers — who account for over 40% of all field laborers — and sparked enough fear to convince others to no longer show up to work. If farmers are squeezed further by the shortage of farmworkers, the H-2A program can fulfill that demand. There’s no limit to how many visas can be issued.

.... she couldn’t stretch her $450-per-week paycheck to cover rent, utilities and car insurance — let alone send any money to Mexico for her older son’s tuition, uniform and shoes. The stress wore her down. She developed facial paralysis, but the nursing home wouldn’t give her time off to address it. Then she slipped and broke her ankle. She couldn’t walk, much less work, until she recovered from surgery. Without health insurance, the bills piled up, roughly $24,000. The one thing that could help her — the more than $16,000 in court-ordered restitution for unpaid H-2A wages — had yet to materialize.

 ............

extreme stress and fatigue can severely weaken your immune system and trigger vascular spasms. This makes the facial nerve susceptible to viral inflammation—such as the herpes simplex virus—resulting in Bell's palsy

https://projects.propublica.org/h2a-visa-farmworkers-operation-blooming-onion/

Sofi hasn’t been able to finish her and her son’s applications for green cards. After paying $1,000 for the required medical exams, she couldn’t come up with the $400 to cover vaccines or a reference letter from an employer.

 

 

A plug of organic ginger powder on my molars - between the mouth and gum line Ferric Sulfide - proven to kill actinomyces bacteria!

 

  Yes, certain actinomycetes (like Thermoactinomyces vulgaris) not only survive extreme hot temperatures but are specifically heat-loving (thermophiles) that thrive at 50°C to 65°C and can tolerate dry heat over 100°C for hours.

Compost Tea: Thermoactinomyces vulgaris is a heat-loving (thermophilic) bacterium that thrives in the high temperatures of active compost. If you are brewing aerated "compost tea" for gardening—especially using manure or high-nitrogen materials—these naturally occurring bacteria may be present. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Contamination Risks: In agricultural production and tea processing, environmental factors and poor storage can introduce heat-loving microbes. The spores of Thermoactinomyces vulgaris are known to be allergenic and can cause respiratory issues (such as "Farmer's Lung") if inhaled in agricultural environments or from moldy material

 A. israelii is famous for causing actinomycosis (an infection often characterized by facial abscesses and "sulfur granules"). However, this infection is caused by bacteria already inside the human body breaching the mucosal barrier

Actinomycetes are beneficial, filamentous bacteria naturally found in soil, compost, and the tea plant's (Camellia sinensis) microbiome. Wow I wonder if I got it from tea?!! Endophytic Actinomycetes from Tea Plants (Camellia sinensis) National Institutes of Health (NIH) | (.gov) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › articles › PMC6241348 by W Shan · 2018 · Cited by 134 — Endophytic actinomycetes from tea plants represent a valuable source of bioactive metabolites with antibacterial, antifungal, and plant-growth-promoting .. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6241348/ cultivated actinomycetes residing in tea plants ...A more recent study isolated 16 and 28 endophytic actinobacteria, respectively, from two tea cultivars Zijuan and Yunkang-10 and showed that some demonstrated antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities in vitro [32].

Actinomyces naturally colonizes the teeth and gums. While they are usually harmless commensal organisms, a diet high in sugar causes them to rapidly multiply and increases their acid production, which can contribute to dental plaque formation, root decay, and localized infections. 

https://microbiologyjournal.org/the-effect-of-red-ginger-essential-oil-on-adherence-of-streptococcus-mutans/

I use a ton of essential oils but I did not target their use on my teeth and gums. So now I am plugging the ginger powder between the gums and teeth and cheeks - and I can enjoy the burning cleaning sensation as the ginger powder kills off the actinomyces bacteria biofilm. Pronounced:

 ak-tin-oh-MY-seez.... actinomycetes are living, soil-dwelling bacteria that thrive in compost and organic-rich environments...Streptomyces and other actinomycetes produce the Streptomyces is a well-known genus of bacteria that belongs to the actinomycetes group. Specifically, it is the largest genus within the phylum Actinobacteria (also known as Actinomycetota) and is famous for producing many of the world's antibioticscompound geosmin, which creates a strong earthy, musty, or "wet basement" flavor...

I have self-diagnosed (see below) that since I was drinking a jug of tea a day and had dry mouth - I had a very acidic mouth that was perfect for this bacteria to thrive!! Wow. 

https://rmsjournal.org/ArticlesView.aspx?ArticleId=630 

Actinomycosis is considered as “the most misdiagnosed disease” even by experienced clinicians and is listed as a “rare disease” by the Office of Rare Disease (ORD) of the National Institute of Health (NIH)....In our lot we noticed three recurrences that required reintervention in patients who had
had short-term antibiotics due to non-compliance with treatment out of four such cases....The disease was determined after identifying colonies of Actinomyces israelii on pathol-
ogy (Figure 5) or bacterial culture from surgically drained pus (15 cases). The histopathology
discovered a granulomatous inflammation located in the intestinal wall, in the omentum,
and of the parietal peritoneum with confluent serosa and mesentery abscesses....The mean duration of
treatment was 6.5 months ± 4.6 months ranging from 3 weeks to 12 months, with regard to
the clinical and laboratory symptoms. 

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/12/3/447 

Wow - I just self-diagnosed this. hahahaha.

 It usually requires 6 weeks or longer for an actinomycotic swelling to break down and discharge pus....Infection involving the cervicofacial [throat-mouth] area is most common,

No pus - so must be pretty recent...Simply because I didn't pull my cheeks back to visually inspect my molar side that I chew on - although I did on the other side of my face - the right side molars - the left side molar needs a lot of work. So I definitely would have done this before if I had known about it.

https://www.tooth-life.com/black-line-on-teeth.php 

Luckily I will get the cavity filled - and they are on both sides of the mouth - so I have ginger on both sides. The x-ray proved they are cavities but these are just "surface root caries" (see below)

I have not been to the dentist in eight years but I have been eating refined sugar just in the past few years and then drinking a lot of tea so I had dry mouth a lot. Again I use tons of essential oils all the time so I could not believe the black was from the cavity itself - sure enough the black is from the actinomyces bacteria! It is Ferric Sulfide!!

The most common species involved is Actinomyces. These bacteria interact with the iron in saliva and release compounds that stick to the teeth, creating the typical black discoloration.

This results from the hydrogen sulfide they produce, which reacts with iron in saliva to form black compounds called ferric sulfide.

Strangely I did not feel any pain or get any blood from flossing - so I was really shocked to see black along one molar - the gum is black and the lower tooth on the outside. I thought I had stained my gums from black pepper since I eat a ton of black pepper. I think this is part of the black color but the x-ray proved this is not true - that it is actually a cavity.

I don't see any actual cavity or hole - meaning the cavity could still be just a general weakening of the enamel - since I don't feel any pain. But I definitely feel the ginger taking effect with a nice mellow burning sensation.

I will order more ginger powder. Again I use a TON of ginger powder but I was not using it in a targeted manner and so these teeth spots slipped me by. 

I just got a dental cleaning just half a week ago - so I'm surprised it would be all black just from plaque. I think it is a combination of the black pepper and the streps mutans.

 Black (Cavities/Staining): Teeth turn black only when the decay process is highly advanced (the cavity has deepened),

Yeah like I said - I don't see or feel any hole in the tooth... very strange.

Chromogenic Bacteria: Specific bacteria (Actinomyces or Prevotella species) can produce hydrogen sulfide that interacts with trace iron in your saliva to create an insoluble, dark-pigmented layer.
Diet & Lifestyle: Heavy consumption of coffee, tea, or wine, as well as tobacco use or iron supplements, cause dark extrinsic staining.
Hardened Plaque (Tartar): Plaque that collects iron and staining compounds hardens into tartar (calculus) and turns dark gray or black. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Interestingly, studies show that individuals who naturally develop black tooth stains from chromogenic bacteria often have significantly lower amounts of S. mutans and a lower rate of dental cavities

 Actinomyces: These are normal oral flora that actively take part in the formation of plaque biofilms. While Streptococcus mutans typically kicks off the cavity process by feeding on sugars and producing enamel-eroding acids, Actinomyces bacteria are highly capable of surviving in acidic environments and are major contributors to root surface caries (decay near the gum line)

 I bet this is what it is! Fascinating. 

 Scientific studies suggest that ginger derivatives, particularly extracts, can inhibit the growth of and kill certain species of Actinomyces bacteria (such as Actinomyces naslundii and Actinomyces viscosus)

Yes, you are on the right track! Actinomyces species are primary chromogenic bacteria involved in the formation of extrinsic black tooth stain. They metabolize and release hydrogen sulfide, which then reacts with iron and trace elements in your saliva to create an insoluble, dark pigment. [1, 2, 3]

While Actinomyces causes the staining, the halitosis (bad breath) often stems from a different process closely related to these bacteria: [1, 2]

Volatile Sulfur Compounds (VSCs): Actinomyces—along with other anaerobic bacteria in your mouth and tongue coating—breaks down proteins to produce foul-smelling VSCs, particularly hydrogen sulfide. [1, 2]
Plaque Environment: The black stain creates a rough, calcified plaque structure that provides an ideal breeding ground for the anaerobic bacteria responsible for bad breath. [1, 2, 3]
Co-existing Pathogens: Halitosis and severe black stains are both linked to an overall imbalance (dysbiosis) in the oral microbiome

 https://www.tooth-life.com/black-line-on-teeth.php

Black line stains, on the other hand, contain very few of these acid-producing bacteria.




Interestingly, for black lines to form and build up, they require an alkaline (not acidic) environment and saliva rich in minerals such as calcium and phosphorus. All of these factors are actually protective against cavities.

This is why people prone to black line stains usually also have mineral-rich saliva and a less acidic mouth. 

 Actinomyces israelii is a commensal inhabitant of
the oral cavity and intestinal tract [4] but acquires pathogenicity through the invasion of
breached or necrotic tissue. It is an opportunistic infection, usually in association with
bacterial invasion. It tends to follow a break in normal mucosal barriers. As the infec-
tion progresses, granulomatous tissue, extensive reactive fibrosis and necrosis, abscesses,
draining sinuses, and fistulas are formed [5]. Infection involving the cervicofacial area
is most common...Yes, Actinomyces israelii not only can grow with other strains of the same species, but it thrives as part of a polymicrobial community. In fact, it is rarely found as a single isolate in nature or infection, relying heavily on co-existing with other bacteria...This infection usually spreads locally slowly, and it may take months before any
symptoms appear [8]. It is not able to cross normal mucosal barriers and, therefore,
opportunistic infections can occur only in the context of underlying local disease. The
destruction of the mucosal barrier

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/12/3/447 

 

 Central nervous system (CNS) actinomycosis is a rare condition that accounts for less than 5% of all actinomycosis cases. It occurs when Actinomyces bacteria (usually present in the mouth or digestive tract) spread to the brain or the surrounding membranes (meninges)

 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1155/2020/5961452

 Oral-cervicofacial actinomycosis is the localization found most often, presenting as a soft tissue
swelling, an abscess, a mass lesion, or sometimes an ulcerative lesion.

 Cervico-facial means relating to, affecting, or involving both the neck and the face. 

 

Not sure if this is the bacteria or what - might just be "necrotizing gingivitis" -  but mine doesn't look that bad and I think they would have given me special treatment if it was that....

https://www.edoriumjournalofdentistry.com/archive/article-full-text/100037D01KA2019 

wow the ozone treatment did wonders!!

 

  If the line reappears consistently after cleanings, chromogenic bacteria are a likely cause. 

https://www.aspendental.com/dental-care-resources/dark-line-at-base-of-tooth-near-gum/ 

according to the Mayo Clinic, cavities that have progressed to the point of visible dark discoloration have typically penetrated through the enamel into the dentin layer, meaning they need a filling rather than remineralization.

If you suspect the black spot is a cavity, schedule an appointment within 1-2 weeks. Cavities don't heal on their own and they don't stop progressing. A small cavity caught now costs a filling. The same cavity six months later may need a crown, or a root canal and crown if it reaches the nerve.

 https://www.willowfamilydds.com/dental-health-tips/black-spot-on-tooth-cavity-stain-or-something-else