★★★★☆
WORKED TEMPORARILY
After taking antibiotics I had a stubborn white coating on my tongue. I followed the advise of someone else who had posted on earthclinic and cut open a probiotic. I put less than half of the contents in a spoon of water and swished and spit the mixture out. By the next morning, the white coating was just about gone! However, as soon as I stopped, the coating came back.
In about five days I will be taking a prescribed oral yeast medication (for after the antibiotics) and am taking a probiotic twice daily and eating a cup of plain, organic greek yogurt (with the bacteria listed in the ingredients) a day. Hopefully, this will permanently eliminate the problem. Since I have been taking probiotics, I have noticed that my gums rarely bleed after brushing/flossing anymore.
I may try oil pulling with sunflower oil here after the antibiotics and yeast medication, but I do not buy the whole "detox" or "herx effect" claims after doing much research. I would use it simply for teeth whitening and to eliminate bacteria in the mouth. If you are suspicious of "big pharma" medication, then you should also be suspicious of detoxes and cleanses (they are all profit industries). Personally, if anything makes me feel like crap, then I am going to stop doing it. Listen to your body above all. (with antibiotic symptoms, I eat very well, take probiotics, and drink lots of water, and I barely have symptoms, therefore feeling like crap is more a result of an unhealthy lifestyle when my body has less of an ability to deal with unhealthy food/habits than it would off of the antibiotics).
