Understanding the spiritual meaning of gum disease

The spiritual meanings of gum disease symptoms are often overlooked, yet working with these messages often holds the key to effective healing.  Gingivitis, periodontal or gum disease often begins with gum recession or gum pockets, which are variations on the way that gums can separate from teeth.

Physical symptoms for gum disease are influenced by metaphysical factors (spiritual, emotional and psychological) at the cellular level.

The behavior of our gum cells is guided by proteins which carry information, not only from physical influences such as nutrition and environment but also from our subconscious thoughts and emotions.

Communication between our subconscious and our physical body is often very metaphorical. The main role of gums is to hold our teeth in place and support them to be strong and straight.

When you aren’t feeling well supported, the gums can embody that as a metaphor in your mouth.

Teeth are supported by gums

Your gums may be responding to feeling unsupported by people in your life now, or perhaps you didn’t feel well supported by people who were important to you when you were growing up, whether parents or peers. You may be consciously aware of the lack of support, or it may be a subconscious feeling.

Sometimes that feeling goes deeper than your personal experience, into feeling disconnected from the support of the Universe (or God or a Higher Power, whatever you like to call it).

You might feel like the Universe isn’t supporting you, but I believe that those feelings are really the result of the lack of social and economic justice (which hits harder on people of color, women, LGBTQ etc).

We are surrounded by messages telling us that our feelings are personal, even when they are a reasonable response to unreasonable circumstances. Feeling unsupported may be diagnosed as anxiety or depression (and thus blamed on individual, moral weakness rather than racism, sexism, classism and homophobia etc), but it can also be understood as a spiritual malaise.

Any sense of not being supported, whether personally, socially or spiritually, could be contributing to your gum symptoms.

You are worthy of support

This spiritual meaning of gum disease is also associated with lack of trust. If you don’t trust that you are supported  and safe then your gums can undermine the stability of your teeth.

Feeling unworthy is another variation on the lack of support. Feeling unworthy can be the internalization of that sense of not being supported. If you don’t feel worthy of support and particularly if you don’t back yourself to ask for what you need, your gums cause trouble.

The importance of speaking your truth

Another spiritual meaning of gum disease relates to the suppression of strong feelings. If you’re suppressing anger and resentment then your gums may start to retract in response to that.

So one of the solutions is to speak your truth.

Asking directly for the support you need and accepting the support that you deserve, helps to turn stabilize and repair gum symptoms. Speaking up when you are not used to it is very challenging.

Metaphysical healing is not necessarily easy work. In many ways it is much more comfortable to go to a periodontal surgeon and pay many thousands of dollars for painful gum surgery. There’s lots of people who would rather have surgery than have to acknowledge that they don’t feel supported, that they don’t really trust people around them or are suppressing anger and resentment.

Physical remedies

Of course there are physical influences causing gum disease as well, though most of these are almost as rarely acknowledged as the metaphysical causes. Symptoms are usually blamed on not flossing enough but that is too simple an explanation. After all, plenty of people never floss and yet have healthy gums.

Gums do react well to being clean, but they are undermined by aggressive hygiene techniques such as rough flossing, hard bristled toothbrushes and careless dental hygienist treatments. Gums are very sensitive to toxins and traumas so it’s important to clean our gums thoroughly yet gently.

A good balance of minerals in our diet may be the most important factor in gum health. The modern food system is so depleted of nutrients, especially minerals that even people on a healthy, whole foods diet may not be getting enough minerals to sustain their gums through the challenges of life.

Gums are also very responsive to tension in our jaw, so keeping a relaxed jaw plays a big role in gum health.

Healing with spiritual meaning of gum disease 

The physical and the metaphysical sit side by side.  It is not enough to focus only on the spiritual, emotional or psychological aspects of healing your gums.

If you are doing all the physical remedies right and nothing’s really changing, or it’s getting worse, then it generally means that you aren’t responding to what your gums are telling you. The metaphysical message behind the physical symptoms is just as important, if not more important, than anything physical that we can do to care for our gums.

Read my new book, The Secret Lives of Teeth, to learn more about how to interpret and apply what your gums are trying to tell you.