My experience following Dr. Ellie Phillips system for my teeth and mouth care

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

This is my experience doing Dr. Ellie’s dental / mouth health system. I am not a dentist, and I have two goals:

1. Preventative care for myself. I want to maintain and improve my own dental health, and prevent gum disease or cavities from having a chance to show up in the future. 
2. Share my own experience, encouraging other people tell me ideas and information that I would not have learned otherwise. I hope actual dentists will chime in and critique what I am doing so that I can improve the protocol I follow, and keep my mouth, teeth, and overall body healthy. 

I have heard some people can have negative side effects from this protocol so definitely consult with your dentist before trying this.

Background: I started using xylitol about a year ago, and started following this protocol exactly on March 14, 2026.

Tooth / mouth products I use and where to buy them

Basically I bought the below 7 products and currently use them every day. These are all over the counter products available in the United States as of 2026.

• Xylitol
  • Pur Gum:
    • Grocery stores like Vons sell packs of Pur Xylitol gum for about $2
    • I buy it on Amazon because you can buy in bulk.
  • Granulated Xylitol: Others on r/periodontaldisease on reddit have said they use granulated xylitol, letting a teaspoon dissolve in your mouth and swishing around for 5 minutes.
• 2 toothbrushes one for morning and one for night (allow the brush to fully dry avoids bacteria growth).
  • Dr. Ellie recommends the MOUTHWATCHERS brand, which I bought, and are a little more expensive. These are totally worth it in my opinion because it feels like a massage for your gums. The top of the bristles are much finer and they feel so soft but they also get in between my teeth quite well.
  • I previously used Trader Joe’s toothbrushes which are about $3.
  • Dr. Ellie recommends against electrical powered / motorized toothbrushes. 
  • Replace toothbrushes every month.
• CloSYS Ultra Sensitive mouth rinse alcohol free
  • I bought it at CVS for $17.49. Target didn’t have it. 
  • For convenience you can find it on Amazon here too.
• Crest Cavity Protection Regular tooth paste
  • I bought it at Target for $3.19. 
  • For convenience you can find it on Amazon too.
• Flossers
  • I like Dentek Advanced Clean Floss picks with no break or shed handheld flossers because they are rigid, don’t get slack and the floss doesn’t tear or shed fibers in your teeth. 
  • There are also PFAS free dental flossers you can buy.
• Listerine Original or COOL MINT.
  • I bought COOL MINT at Target for $3.99.
  • For convenience you can find it on Amazon too.
• ACT Anticavity Rinse
  • I bought it at Target for $3.99.
  • For convenience you can find it on Amazon too.

Step by Step Dental System I follow

I really take my time and don’t rush through Dr. Ellie’s protocol and it still takes much less than 10 minutes morning and night.

5 steps, twice a day:

1. Pre-rinse with CloSYS Ultra Sensitive for 60 seconds. Don’t swish, just rotate head so it covers the inside of the mouth.
2. Brush with Crest Cavity Protection Regular tooth paste. (2 toothbrushes for morning / night)
3. Floss with toothpaste still on teeth. Spit out excess paste, and before rinsing work the remaining toothpaste between the teeth. 
4. Rinse with Listerine Original to COOL MINT until it feels spicy (only about 5-10 seconds for me).
5. Rinse with ACT Anticavity Rinse. 

After that I’m done. It’s quick.

Important notes on the dental care process:

All rinses are alcohol free.

In the morning, do it after breakfast. Don’t rinse with water, nor drink water / eat for at least 30 minutes.

At night, do the process after the last meal and don’t eat anything for the rest of the night. Don’t rinse with water or drink water for at least 30 minutes (I don’t drink water before bed anyway because apparently it can cause acid reflux). Wait at least 15 minutes before starting to use your retainer or mouth guard. Fast until the morning.

During the day, after meals, take xylitol and don’t eat or drink anything for 30 minutes.

Listerine mouthwash has the potential to irritate my mouth. I purposefully do it just for a few seconds to avoid any irritation, because it is spicy.

After the protocol I also make sure to splash water on my face to clear my lips or the corners of my mouth from any of the leftover dental rinses. I think it the different mouthwashes can irritate your lips. Even better, would be to just do the protocol right before showering.

Mouthbreathing is also apparently bad for you, so I also try to always breath through my nose, even when I sleep. 

Flossing: what I know about it

I was flossing wrong most of my life.

Here’s how my dental hygenist told me to floss a couple years back: 

• Instead of going back and forth, slide the floss up and down on either side of your tooth.
• Move the floss gently up towards both sides of the gum between the two teeth. It should not be at all painful. If it is at all painful I would talk to my dentist before proceeding. 
• From Dr. Ellie’s protocol, I also learned that you want to floss after brushing, before rinsing, while you still have some toothpaste around your gums. This helps get the toothpaste all around the edges of your teeth.

Why I tried Dr. Ellie’s dental system

I am blessed with healthy teeth. However as life goes on, I want to ensure my teeth stay healthy, and avoid potential dental problems down the road. 

I would love to be able to talk to my dentist in depth about all of this and as a million questions. But she simply doesn’t have enough time. I do ask a few questions here and there but discussing this at length and in depth with a dentist is simply not possible.

Wiggly teeth

One issue I have is that some of my bottom teeth are ever so slightly loose. That is something that scares me and made me look into ways I can avoid periodontal disease. So I have been doing a lot of reading on r/periodontaldisease on Reddit, and particularly like r/askdentists too because only verified dental professionals can make top level comments (direct replies) to posts.

And while I do have generally decent dental health, I never considered that my mouth biome was not optimized until I found Dr. Ellie on YouTube.

I used to sometimes have a strange taste in my mouth. No easy way to describe it other than  acidic and sour tasting.

As a result, I would in turn brush my teeth 3 times a day, sometimes after lunch in addition to morning and night. But the strange feeling would come back quite quickly after brushing and it was annoying.

Sometimes, when I would press my teeth together, the tops of my molars literally felt kind of soft. It just wasn’t a pleasant feeling and even swishing water or brushing my teeth or using mouthwash wouldn’t get rid of it.

Eventually I realized that certain foods made it better or worse. I tried different toothpastes, baking soda, fluoride free xylitol toothpaste, and also tried this mouthwash called Therabreath and while it was ok, it was a little too harsh so I didn’t use it very often. In hind-sight, I think the therabrath mouthwash was kind of nuking all of the good bacteria in my mouth, so it wasn’t effectively improving my overall mouth health.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I wasn’t promoting the presence of good bacteria in my mouth.

Why I use xylitol

When I stumbled upon a YouTube video describing the “biofilm” in your mouth. The video was made by Dr. Ellie Phillips and it really changed how I thought about my mouth health and how biofilm can be created by having more good bacteria than bad bacteria. I was thinking that by promoting the growth of good bacteria they would essentially over-take the bad bacteria, thus improving mouth health. 

The video mentioned Xylitol, which is a natural sugar alcohol derived from birch trees. The idea was that the good bacteria feed on the xylitol and in turn will become much more plentiful in your mouth, effectively stopping the bad bacteria from growing in your mouth as much. 

The idea made a lot of sense to me. Rather than destroying the bad stuff, it simply promotes the good stuff and the rest takes care of itself. I immediately found some Xylitol gum, and noticed a positive effect throughout my mouth when chewing a few pieces a day after meals. 

I appreciated Dr. Ellie’s ideas because it was more about finding ways to promote the good bacteria rather than nuke the bad bacteria. It made me realize that the over-brushing and mouthwash I was using was essentially probably just killing too much of the good bacteria (and some of the bad bacteria) in my mouth, and the bad bacteria seemed to just grow back too quickly after brushing throughout the day.