Natural Health Remedy
Scurvy and bleeding gums is what you get with a Vitamin C deficiency.
The ‘Limey’s of British ships discovered that taking plenty of limes, which are rich in Vitamin C, to supplement the diets of sailors, protected them from getting the deadly scurvy. Blleeding of the gums is one symptom of scurvy, or Vitamin C deficiency.
I discovered that Vitamin C deficiency was related to gum disease early on in the piece. I was pregnant with my very first child at the ripe old age of 23.
After a few months, my gums began to bleed after cleaning the teeth. Next thing, they seemed to be bleeding after eating crunchy fruits such as apples and carrots.
We went along to the hospital, where I was booked to give birth to my baby, for a check up.
The doctor came in and checked me out. “Is there anything you would like to tell me? – any questions?” I decided to mention the bleeding gums.
“Oh – don’t worry about that! Bleeding gums are NORMAL”, he said. “90% of the pregnant women coming in here have bleeding gums”.
I went away from the hospital decidedly disappointed in the healing skills of this doctor. Why wasn’t this doctor interested in finding out WHY people got bleeding gums, especially when 90% of his patients had them?
Bleeding gums are NOT normal. I had never had bleeding gums before I became pregnant. If so many people have bleeding gums, then they must ALL be lacking something in their diets, or taking something which is causing it.
I decided to check out the problem of bleeding gums myself. My Guardian Angels were with me, I am sure, because I was led within days into the strange but wonderful little healing clinic above a shop on Auckland’s Queen Street. A healer was operating up there, who was the real thing – generous enough to let me browse through his healing books which he had on display. I think he might have asked me what I was looking for. I told him I had bleeding gums. The information was revealed, one way or another, within a minute or two, without any expensive consultation, that the problem was likely to be a deficiency of Vitamin C.
I couldn’t afford to buy Vitamin C tablets at the time, but the healer told me, or maybe I read it in his books, to eat a grapefruit each day. He said to eat the inside peel, the pith, of the grapefuit as well, since that was where most of the Vitamin C was stored.
I expressed my gratitude to this lovely man and went on my way. We got hold of a good supply of grapefruit, which were growing in most people’s gardens several decades ago.
I did as the man had said, and ate one whole grapefruit each day, including the white pith from the inside of the skin.
Within a week, the bleeding gums had disappeared. I never had bleeding gums again during the course of the pregnancy, and did not ever have the problem again.
It was a good lesson in how important Vitamin C is to the health of the body, and to the gums.
Merrilyn’s new book is out on Amazon:
