[MightySunTzu]

Hi Coronet,

I am sorry to hear about your serious gum condition. I hope whatever course you decide to take works out great for you.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

Specifically my questions are...would fasting cure the problem?

To be truthful, i don't recall reading anything in the literature specific to this area. But speaking generally, it sounds like the very kind of thing a fast would help greatly with. A fasting body kills bacteria, eliminates toxins and heals tissue. It doesn't care where the tissue is.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

and if so should i do a plain water fast or would a juice fast be ok? and finally how long for?!

Fresh, live juice fasts are nice. Highly nutritious, highly assimilable, low digestive demands, and the detox is so gradual as to allow you to continue very nicely with your normal daily activities. Once my body is completely detoxified and healed, i would enjoy doing many of these. But... in terms of detoxing and healing, Water-only fasting is the gold standard, 3 times more effective (3x faster results) than juice fasting.

How long? If it is me in your situation, serious about taking my best holistic shot at eliminating the gum disease, i will plan on a water-only fast to the return of genuine hunger. This is likely to be about 30 days or so. Even if it didn't completely heal your gum disease, there are 1000 other benefits your body will receive, including the elimination of all or most of your bodily toxins, amazing healing in parts of you that you didn't even know needed it, purified blood, and the optimization of the functioning of all your organs. If fasting to completion is too daunting an endeavor, then i would recommend going as long as you are able. You might find that after the first 2-3 days once ketosis takes over and your body is preferentially burning it's own fat stores as fuel, hunger will all but cease and it will be easier than you imagined. For me it is mostly about patience.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

Im a big eater and the idea of fasting doesnt fill me with joy but if it does the trick all do it for sure!

Show me one person in the universe who doesn't enjoy eating. The hardest part of fasting for me is having to sacrifice for many days the tantalizing foods i love, especially in the area of getting started. But if you measure that cost against the immense benefits, it becomes a lot easier to make the decision to fast and patiently await the day you will once again be able to enjoy these foods... and in all likelihood enjoy them far more than ever before. As well you may be delighted to find that fasting brings about certain joys of it's own such as a sense of peace that you have never known.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

I have hormone troubles, maybe fasting would fix them, but maybe it would upset them

A fast is amazing in it's ability to bring our bodily functions into balance and hormones are no exception.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

... and also mess with my metabolism.

In a fast our body is conserving as much energy as possible, allowing itself to cleanse and heal in a way that the unfasting body can never dream of. As such, a fast is said to temporarily reduce our metabolism by about 10% after 7 days and by about 20% after 21 days. Once the fast is broken, the metabolism is said to be back to normal after about 6 weeks.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

There seems to be a lot of mixed views about how safe it is do fast for anything longer than 3 days.

I'm sure the masters who have fasted tens of thousands of people to completion get a good chuckle out of this.

Originally Posted by Lucas

In my opinion the fear over this kind of thing stems from the medical community. Our medicine says to put a bandage upon it and not consider the source of disease and illness. We treat symptoms and not root out causes.

I completely agree. There is not a lot of money in fasting, but tsunami's of it in drugs and surgeries.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

Well I have just read the whole of the massive 30 day fast post on here (10 Pages..read the links and watched the vlogs!)

I'm curious which 30 day fast post you are referring to as there are multiple. The one i did is called "Beautiful Fast" and is here: Beautiful Fast
I am actually 7.5 days into the sequel.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

... and the one thing thats seems to be a common theme is that after while you will loose muscle mass.

Interesting that you derived this from your readings when you will burn 8-10x as much actual fat as muscle and the muscle you burn will be the very worst of it, the most diseased (including tumors), weak, or damaged. As well, believe me when i tell you that any muscle you lose in a fast will come back on very easily in a vastly detoxified, exceedingly healthy, super charged body.

Originally Posted by The Coronet

I was wondering would drink a little of an organic protein shake with some vitamins supplements each day prevent this also whilst giving you the advantage of a prehapes a more gentle detoxification process?

A water-only fast is natures perfect remedy for allowing the body to detox and heal itself. Perfection is not improved upon by altering it. In a water only fast, the body transitions into a state where it pulls everthing it needs from within including an ample supply of nutritional reserves... which includes all the vitamins and minerals we need and obviously the fat stores to provide the primary fuel supply for the duration. A water fast, by design is amazingly protein sparing. Read the following if you wish...

"The Physiological Changes of Fasting

Many of the most dramatic changes that occur in the body during fasting take place on the first three days of the fast.....

[Entire middle section of about 1.5 paragraphs removed in the need to reduce space. See link for remainder if desired.]

By the third day ketone production is sufficient to provide nearly all the energy the body needs and the body's protein begins to be strongly conserved. The body still needs a tiny amount of glucose for some functions, however, so a very small amount of protein, 18-24 grams, is still catabolized to supply it - from 1/2 to 1 ounce of muscle tissue per day. Over a 30 day water fast a person generally loses a maximum of 1-2 pounds of muscle mass."

from The Health Benefits of Water Fasting by Stephen Harrod Buhner

Protein shakes and vitamin supplements would very much detract from the power of the water-only fast and if it is super low calorie like 600 (which i believe these programs call for), this will backfire and the body will ironically end up burning more muscle with the supplement than without it. Ketosis as in a water-only fast spares muscle. Very low calorie diets do not.

Originally Posted by Excellent Lodestar

I wouldn't mess with gum disease. If there is bone loss you need to take action right away and not let up.

I wholeheartedly agree Lodestar. This is undoubtedly a serious matter. The path towards healing it is what is in contention. You may feel oral surgery is the only option, but others believe that a holistic approach, especially fasting is another. Keep in mind that oral surgeons are not trained to recommend fasts, nor would they make any money in doing so. Surgery is where the big bucks are. I'm not saying there is never a time for surgery, but in almost every instance, i would try a long fast first.

Originally Posted by Excellent Lodestar

Fasting helps the immune system, but we are talking about ANAEROBIC bacteria below the gum line(read:you can't kill it by standard brushing and flossing) you need to access the periodontal pockets with special protocols.

Fasting does immeasurably more than only help the immune system. Hundreds of billions of intestinal bacteria, both bad and good are wiped clean within about 10 days of water-only fasting (along with any parasites)... allowing the individual with a nutritious diet to rebuild the ratio in its optimal proportion. I have no doubt the fasting body will reach these gum line bacteria and kill them... that's the easy part. The greater challenge is healing the badly recessed damaged gums. Healing is what a fasting body does best, but it may or may not be able to regenerate all of the deteriorated tissue.

Originally Posted by ginkgo

But fasting releases a swarm of hungry killer T cells. Now if you put some people in front of some lions that just ate, then what would they do. They would do nothing. Now put some people in front of some hungry lions and they will eat them. So fasting causes all the resources that you put into stuffing your face with food and eats all this bacteria and nasty stuff.

I agree with Ginkgo on this point. A very decent analogy.