In my late 20s, I was told I had gum disease.

Determined to get rid of it, I spent countless hours at the dentist and eventually underwent three painful operations at a dental hospital. I also spent a considerable amount of money on different products and tools to clean my teeth.

At one point, my daily cleaning routine was taking around an hour.

Yet despite all the time, effort, expense and treatment, nothing seemed to change.

My gums continued to bleed. I was experiencing bone loss and loose teeth, and the gum disease simply wasn't going away.

That was when I began to realise something important:

There was no quick-fix solution.

I started asking myself why I was having these problems in the first place and whether there was something I was missing.

Then I noticed something that really made me think.

My parents, who were elderly, didn't seem to have the same problems with their teeth. They had healthy-looking teeth and gums, yet they didn't use toothpaste.

That didn't make sense to me.

So I decided to stop simply accepting that I had to live with gum disease and start doing my own research.

I wanted to understand what was really happening in my mouth, why my gums were bleeding, and whether there was a better approach to looking after my teeth and gums.

What I discovered changed the way I thought about oral health completely...