Ivermectin for Gum Disease

Table of Contents

1. What People Share in Telegram Chat Groups
2. Mentions on Public Forums and Websites
3. The Parasite Explanation Behind It
4. Single-Celled Parasites Living in Gum Pockets
5. 1914: An Anti-Amoeba Drug for Gum Disease
6. Ivermectin and Parasites in Gum Tissue: Case Reports
7. Ivermectin Applied Directly to the Tissue
8. Ivermectin Paste and Gum Parasites in Horses
9. A Worm That Lives in the Lining of the Mouth
10. Oxantel Against Porphyromonas gingivalis
11. Metronidazole: An Anti-Parasite Drug Used in Gum Treatment
12. About Ivermectin
13. Key Research Papers
14. Connections
15. Featured Videos

What People Share in Telegram Chat Groups

Much of the talk about ivermectin and gum disease happens in Telegram chat groups, where members swap their own experiences with ivermectin. What follows is a summary of what people in these chats describe. The chats are not public web pages, so their posts cannot be linked here.

• The method. Members describe putting ivermectin paste directly on the gums. This is the oral paste sold for horses, used on the gums rather than swallowed. They repeat the application several times.
• The feeling in the gums. During the first applications, people describe strong tingling and a shaking sensation in the gums, which they say feels like parasites dying in the gum tissue.
• The turning point. After several applications, they report that the tingling stops and the gums no longer react to the paste. Members take this as the sign that the gums have been cleared of parasites.
• The result they report. Gums described as completely healed, including in people who had lived with gum disease for years, with no return of the gum disease since. Some describe their gums growing back.
• How the idea spreads. Members describe hearing about the method in the chat, trying it on their own gums, and then reporting back to the group that their gums healed completely.

In these accounts, gum disease is understood as a parasite infection of the gum tissue, and the paste is put where those parasites are thought to live. The sections below describe the parasites that researchers have found in diseased gums, and the published cases in which ivermectin was used against parasites in gum tissue.

Mentions on Public Forums and Websites

Outside the private chat groups, ivermectin for gum disease also turns up in public places: a newsletter, an article by a physician, a dentist’s answers to his viewers, a Reddit forum about gum disease and comments under health videos. The public accounts found for this page describe ivermectin taken by mouth rather than paste applied to the gums. The quotes below are copied as written.

Writers and practitioners

• Mathew Maavak, a writer and commentator, in his newsletter The Eye Opener (October 2026): “Gum inflammation involves bacteria, but antibiotics alone will not solve the problem because parasites remain in the gum tissue. On a hunch, I took ivermectin and was relieved by a drastic reduction in the inflammation. Yes, I am referring to the same ivermectin meant for pets!” (source)
• Simon Yu, MD, an internist who practises integrative medicine, in the Townsend Letter (June 2023), describing a sequence for “dental parasites”: “Start by treating intestinal GI tract-related large parasites first with medications like ivermectin … and praziquantel; next treat dental parasites and fungi with doxycycline, tinidazole, and nystatin.” (source)
• Mark Bonner, a dentist whose videos present periodontitis as an infestation by parasites such as the gum amoeba, answered a viewer who asked about brushing the teeth and gums with liquid ivermectin: “We have not try. It may be possible, but no data.” (source) To another viewer who wrote only “Ivermectin”, he replied in French: “Plutôt sel, bicarbonate, peroxide et Metronidazole” (“Rather salt, bicarbonate, peroxide and metronidazole”). (source)

One account on Reddit

In the forum r/PeriodontalDisease, one user described the same experience across several posts in 2026. They took ivermectin tablets by mouth for the skin condition rosacea and noticed a deep gum pocket calming down: “I had a 7mm (!) pocket that is basically back to normal after one dose of ivermectin. I took the ivermectin for my rosacea. Wasn’t expecting other benefits from it.” (source) In a later post they described what followed the first dose: “a lot of stringy bloody mucus” from the pocket about a day later, then “a very hard pimple like thing” on the gum line, after which the area settled (source). Months on, they wrote: “I have not had any issues with the periodontal pocket at all. No inflammation or flares of pain.” (source) They said they came across the gum amoeba, Entamoeba gingivalis, while trying to understand what had happened (source).

Under health videos

• Under a video about ivermectin for autoimmune disease: “I also took it for an abscess earlier this year on my gum After a root canal and two rounds of antibiotics did not help after eight days of Ivermectin And oil of oregano it’s gone has not returned.” (source)
• Under the same video, another viewer: “taking ivermectin for my back pain has been a miracle and I’ve also noticed my gums do not bleed when I get my cleanings” (source)
• Under a video about non-surgical gum treatment: “Gum disease is aggravated by parasites (Amoebas). … Ivermectin will kill them, made my gums much healthier.” (source)
• Under the gum-parasite dentist’s videos, French-speaking viewers name ivermectin as a treatment, for example “Les meilleures traitements c’est Ivermectine” (“The best treatments is ivermectin”) (source).

Not everyone in these threads agreed. A reply on Reddit read: “Nothing showing ivermectin reduces periodontal pocket depth in humans.” (source) A reply under one of the dentist’s videos read: “it’s not ivermectin it’s metronidazole or clindamicin.” (source)

Across these public accounts, the reasoning matches the chat groups: parasites in the gum tissue, especially the gum amoeba, and an anti-parasite medicine to clear them.

The Parasite Explanation Behind It

The chat accounts rest on one idea: that gum disease is, at least partly, an infection by parasites living in the gums, and that an anti-parasite medicine put where they live can clear it. Dentistry usually explains gum disease through bacteria in dental plaque, with Porphyromonas gingivalis a major culprit in chronic periodontitis [3]. The parasite idea has its own scientific record, which the sections below follow:

• Two single-celled parasites, an amoeba and a flagellate, are found far more often in diseased gum pockets than in healthy ones.
• In 1914, doctors treated gum disease with an anti-amoeba drug and reported cures.
• Ivermectin has been used against fly larvae, scabies mites and migrating worm larvae found in the tissues of the mouth.
• Another deworming drug, oxantel, has been tested against Porphyromonas gingivalis itself.
• Metronidazole, a medicine first used against single-celled parasites, is already part of gum treatment.

Single-Celled Parasites Living in Gum Pockets

Two parasites live in human mouths. The first is an amoeba, Entamoeba gingivalis, a close relative of Entamoeba histolytica, the amoeba that causes amoebic dysentery [4]. The second is a flagellate, Trichomonas tenax, a single cell that swims with whip-like tails [5]. Both are protozoa: single-celled organisms, larger and more complex than bacteria. A 2023 review of the research concluded that both parasites can interact with gum cells, trigger inflammation in the gum tissue, and “may cause periodontal disease” [5].

The gum amoeba in inflamed gums

In a 2020 study in the Journal of Dental Research, the gum amoeba’s genetic signal was the second most abundant in inflamed gum pockets, after the human one. In people with periodontitis, the researchers found the amoeba in 77% of inflamed gum sites and 22% of healthy sites, and 15% of healthy mouths carried it. Where the gum’s surface layer was broken, the amoeba moved into the gum tissue and fed on the body’s own cells. In gum cells grown in the laboratory it raised an inflammation signal (interleukin 8) about 1,900-fold, something Porphyromonas gingivalis did not do in the same test. The authors described the amoeba as a “potential and, to date, underrated microbial driver of destructive forms of periodontitis” [6].

What pooled studies found

• A 2022 review of studies that used genetic tests found the amoeba in 76.9% of diseased gum pockets and the flagellate in 38.6%. Both were far more common in diseased pockets than in healthy ones [7].
• A 2025 analysis of 20 studies found the odds of periodontitis 8.33 times higher in people carrying the amoeba, and 2.90 times higher in people carrying the flagellate [8].
• A 2021 study from Jordan found the amoeba in 88.9% of people with periodontitis, 84.9% of people with gingivitis and 47.9% of healthy people. The authors concluded that the long-held view of these parasites as harmless residents needs to be re-evaluated [9].
• A 2021 worldwide review of 52 studies put the gum amoeba’s overall prevalence at 37%, and linked it to a 4.34-fold higher risk of oral diseases [10].

Cysts and mouth rinses

The gum amoeba was long thought unable to form cysts, the protective resting stage that other amoebae use to survive. In a 2023 laboratory study, amoebae taken from inflamed gum pockets formed cyst-like structures with chitin walls when exposed to amoxicillin and metronidazole, two antibiotics used in gum treatment. The authors wrote that this cyst formation “may explain why established treatment approaches often fail to halt periodontal tissue destruction” [11]. In a 2019 laboratory test of mouth rinses, every rinse tested killed both the amoeba and the flagellate when used undiluted, and chlorhexidine was highly effective [12].

Ivermectin and other amoebae

The nearest published findings on ivermectin and amoebae involve relatives of the gum amoeba. In a 1993 study of 129 people given a single dose of ivermectin for river blindness, stool samples taken three days later showed a significant fall in the cysts of Entamoeba coli, a gut amoeba, with a cure rate of 46% for the cysts [13]. In a 2009 laboratory study, ivermectin showed activity against Entamoeba histolytica, the amoeba of amoebic dysentery, although it needed a higher concentration than the other antiparasitic drugs tested; its effect in animals had not yet been tested [14]. The wider research is on Ivermectin and Single-Celled Parasites.

1914: An Anti-Amoeba Drug for Gum Disease

A century before the Telegram chats, doctors tried the same idea: kill the parasite and cure the gums. Gum disease was then called pyorrhea alveolaris. In 1914, a study of patients at the Philadelphia Hospital found amoebae in all 46 people with pyorrhea it examined. A later report from the same group said no amoebae were found in 7 healthy people [4].

The patients were then given emetine, an alkaloid drug used against amoebae. According to the 1914 report, the amoebae disappeared and the pyorrhea was cured in 13 patients. Emetine was thought to kill amoebae while having little effect on bacteria, so the researchers concluded that the amoeba caused the disease. They renamed it “amoebic pyorrhea” and “oral endamebiasis” [4].

Emetine treatment of pyorrhea then appeared in medical and dental journals:

• “The Cause and Cure of Pyorrhea Alveolaris by Emetine” (The Dental Register, 1915) [15]
• “The Treatment of Pyorrhea Alveolaris, with Special Reference to Emetine” (Atlanta Journal-Record of Medicine, 1915) [16]
• “The Roll of Emetine in the Treatment of Pyorrhea Alveolaris” (Atlanta Journal-Record of Medicine, 1915) [17]
• “The Emetine and Other Treatment of Pyorrhea” (The Dental Register, 1917) [18]

Italian clinicians were still writing about emetine for pyorrhea in 1952 and 1954 [19][20].

The approach then fell out of use. A 2018 review describes how the studies linking the amoeba to gum disease “were countered by specialist opinions without formal experimental proofs”, and how “this controversy led to an almost total abandon of the etiology- and emetine-based therapy”. In the decades that followed, microscope studies kept finding the amoeba in close to 100% of advanced gum pockets [4]. The full story is on Amoebic Pyorrhea: The 1914 Emetine Treatment of Gum Disease.

Ivermectin and Parasites in Gum Tissue: Case Reports

The medical record of ivermectin in the gums comes from infestations of the gum tissue itself. The most common is oral myiasis: fly larvae (maggots) living in the tissues of the mouth. An analysis of 157 cases published between 1990 and 2020 found the gums to be the most affected site, in 29% of cases, followed by the palate (25%) and the lip (21%). The treatments used included removing the larvae by hand or by surgery, substances that suffocate them, antibiotics, and ivermectin [21].

Fly larvae in the gums

• A 2004 report described a patient with cerebral palsy whose oral myiasis was “treated successfully with ivermectin” [22].
• A 12-year-old boy with cerebral palsy had larvae in the gum at the front of the palate. They were removed with a fine clamp, together with ivermectin taken by mouth [23].
• Six patients with facial injuries were treated with ivermectin injected under the skin, and a 10% phenol preparation (creolin) on the wounds. After about 12 days in hospital no larvae remained in their mouths. Healing was uneventful and no unwanted reactions were seen [24].
• Two men had larvae in the gum ridge after a tooth extraction, and along the edges of an inflamed tissue overgrowth. Both were treated with ivermectin and antibiotics [25].
• A woman had larvae coming out of a destructive lesion in the hard palate. They were removed with forceps and she was treated with ivermectin by mouth [26].
• A young man with cerebral palsy had the larvae removed after turpentine oil was applied, combined with ivermectin by mouth [27].

A 2026 review of 14 recent case reports and case series listed periodontal disease among the risk factors for oral myiasis. It found treatment “consistently multimodal”, combining removal of the larvae with antibiotics, ivermectin, surgical cleaning and medicines applied to the tissue [28]. A 2025 systematic review of 95 publications on parasites of the mouth covered fly larvae and worms such as Gongylonema pulchrum and Dirofilaria. It concluded that treatment could benefit from combining surgical removal with medicines [29].

Scabies mites in the gums

In 2021, doctors reported what they described as the first case of oral scabies located on the gums. A 43-year-old woman had an ulcer on her gums, first thought to be pemphigoid, an autoimmune blistering disease. Mite eggs and young mites were then seen in the tissue. She was treated with ivermectin, chlorhexidine mouth care and thorough cleaning. At 30 days her skin and gum lesions had completely healed, and she reported no side effects [30].

Worm larvae under the lining of the mouth

A woman had seven months of itching, painful, winding tracks in the lining of her cheeks and lips. She was diagnosed with oral larva migrans, the migrating larvae of a worm. The lesions resolved after ivermectin, with no return at 18 months [31].

Ivermectin Applied Directly to the Tissue

The Telegram accounts describe putting ivermectin directly on the gums, and medical reports describe the same route. In a 2023 case, an 82-year-old man with an implant-supported bridge had fly larvae in the space between cheek and gums, along the gum ridges on both sides of his upper jaw, and over much of his palate. He was given ivermectin by mouth and a swab soaked in ether, and the larvae were surgically removed. A crushed ivermectin tablet was then applied directly to the affected tissue for two days. The remaining larvae were removed and he was given antibiotics through a drip. The authors concluded that ivermectin by mouth and on the tissue, combined with antibiotics and wound cleaning, “proved to be effective” [32].

A 1999 dermatology report was titled “Myiasis: a successful treatment with topical ivermectin” [33]. On the skin, ivermectin creams and lotions are used for scabies and head lice. They are also used for rosacea, a skin condition in which Demodex mites may play a part. A 2016 review describes ivermectin as a broad-spectrum antiparasitic drug “with significant anti-inflammatory properties” [2].

The chats describe the same idea of putting ivermectin on the affected tissue, but with the veterinary paste rather than a crushed tablet or a skin cream. Ivermectin creams, lotions and use on infested tissue are covered on Topical Ivermectin.

Ivermectin Paste and Gum Parasites in Horses

The paste described in the chats was made for horses, and horses have a real gum parasite. The larvae of the horse bot fly, Gasterophilus intestinalis, enter through the mouth. A 1989 study described first- and second-stage larvae burrowing through the top layer of the tongue and then lodging in the gums between the teeth. The tunnels they dug let bacteria in, and small abscesses formed [34]. Earlier studies mapped where in the mouth the larvae settle [35][36]. In 2006, veterinarians using a camera inside the mouth found the larvae in the spaces between the back teeth of 14 horses brought in with chewing problems [37].

In a 1989 trial, ponies infected with these larvae were given ivermectin by injection or as an oral paste. No larvae were found in any treated pony, in the mouth or in the stomach, while the untreated ponies still carried them. The authors reported ivermectin as 100% effective against the mouth and stomach stages, and saw no adverse reactions with the paste or with the injection into muscle [38].

Horses can also carry a roundworm whose species name means “of the gums”: Halicephalobus gingivalis. It lives freely in the environment but can invade horses, and rarely people, and spread to the brain [39]. Its record with ivermectin is mixed. A growth caused by the worm near a horse’s eye cleared after ivermectin and surgery, with no sign of the worm 18 months later [40]. A horse with the worm in its jawbone was treated with ivermectin and did not survive [41]. In laboratory tests, samples of this worm tolerated ivermectin much better than related worms did [42]. Ivermectin in horses, livestock and pets is covered on Veterinary Ivermectin.

A Worm That Lives in the Lining of the Mouth

Gongylonema pulchrum is a roundworm usually found in grazing animals such as cattle and sheep, and it occasionally infects people. In humans it is usually found in the mouth, and the most common symptom reported is the feeling of something moving in the mouth [43]. Adult worms can live in the body for up to 10 years, irritating the mouth, throat and gullet [44]. Reported human cases have been treated mainly by removing the worm, followed in almost all cases by albendazole [43]. In a 2008 animal study, one injection of ivermectin cut the number of adult worms in infected rabbits by 25.8%. Levamisole cut them by 63.2% and mebendazole by 22.8% [45].

Oxantel Against Porphyromonas gingivalis

Some of the gum-disease research people point to involves oxantel, not ivermectin. Oxantel (given as oxantel pamoate) is a deworming drug used against whipworm. In children it has been tested together with albendazole [46], and a 2015 trial on Pemba Island, Tanzania, compared albendazole plus oxantel with albendazole plus ivermectin [47]. Both are deworming medicines, but they act on worms in different ways. Oxantel acts on acetylcholine signalling [3], while ivermectin opens glutamate-gated chloride channels [48].

Porphyromonas gingivalis is a major cause of chronic periodontitis. It lives in a biofilm, a sticky layer of bacteria on the surface of the tooth root. In 2010, laboratory researchers reported that oxantel strongly blocked Porphyromonas gingivalis from forming biofilm, and broke up biofilm that had already formed. It did so at concentrations lower than those needed to stop the free-floating bacteria from growing. Against the bacterium in biofilm, oxantel worked better than metronidazole, an antibiotic commonly used for periodontitis [3].

Oxantel blocks fumarate reductase, an enzyme these bacteria use to make energy without oxygen. A 2014 follow-up found that it disrupted mixed biofilms of three gum-disease bacteria: Porphyromonas gingivalis, Tannerella forsythia and Treponema denticola. In mice infected with Porphyromonas gingivalis, adding oxantel to their drinking water reduced the loss of jawbone around the teeth to the level of uninfected mice [49]. The Journal of the California Dental Association covered the work under the headline “Drug may guard against periodontitis” [50].

Metronidazole: An Anti-Parasite Drug Used in Gum Treatment

Dentistry already uses one medicine with a long history as an anti-parasite drug. Metronidazole was used for many years against the single-celled parasites behind trichomoniasis, amoebiasis and giardiasis. It was later found to kill bacteria that live without oxygen [51], the kind that drive gum disease [49]. A 1988 review describes it as highly effective against both oxygen-free bacterial infections and “a variety of protozoal and parasitic diseases” [52].

In gum treatment, metronidazole is used in some cases alongside deep cleaning of the gums (scaling and root planing). A 2020 systematic review of 28 studies found the best results with amoxicillin plus metronidazole, followed by metronidazole alone. Side effects were reported more often in the groups taking antibiotics [53].

About Ivermectin

Ivermectin was discovered in the late 1970s. It is made from avermectin, a compound produced by a single microorganism from Japanese soil, isolated at the Kitasato Institute in Tokyo. It was first introduced as a veterinary drug against internal and external parasites of livestock and pets. In people it became the main tool in campaigns to eliminate river blindness (onchocerciasis) and lymphatic filariasis [54]. Its discoverers, Satoshi Ōmura and William C. Campbell, shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine [55][56].

Ivermectin kills parasites by opening glutamate-gated chloride channels, ion channels found in invertebrates such as worms and insects [48][57]. Researchers note that its full mode of action is still not completely understood [1]. Laboratory studies have also reported anti-inflammatory effects:

• In mice given a lethal dose of lipopolysaccharide, a toxin from the outer coat of bacteria, ivermectin improved survival. It also lowered the inflammation signals tumour necrosis factor alpha, interleukin 1 beta and interleukin 6 [58].
• In immune cells, it lowered nitric oxide and prostaglandin E2 [59].
• A 2024 review links its anti-inflammatory action to blocking NF-kappa-B, a switch that turns on inflammation genes [57].

The laboratory and animal research is set out in more detail on Ivermectin’s Anti-Inflammatory Effects, Ivermectin Against Bacteria and Ivermectin and the Gut Microbiome.

For people, ivermectin comes as tablets and as creams and lotions for the skin [2]. Veterinary ivermectin comes in forms such as oral pastes for horses, and injectable and pour-on products for livestock. The paste described in the Telegram chats is the oral paste made for horses.

Key Research Papers

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9. Yaseen A, Mahafzah A, Dababseh D, Taim D, Hamdan AA, Al-Fraihat E, et al. Oral Colonization by Entamoeba gingivalis and Trichomonas tenax: A PCR-Based Study in Health, Gingivitis, and Periodontitis. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2021;11:782805. PubMed PMID: 34950608
10. Badri M, Olfatifar M, Abdoli A, Houshmand E, Zarabadipour M, Abadi PA, et al. Current Global Status and the Epidemiology of Entamoeba gingivalis in Humans: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Acta Parasitol. 2021;66(4):1102-1113. PubMed PMID: 34050504
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PubMed Topic Searches

1. PubMed: Ivermectin and oral myiasis
2. PubMed: Entamoeba gingivalis and periodontitis
3. PubMed: Trichomonas tenax and periodontitis
4. PubMed: Oxantel and Porphyromonas gingivalis
5. PubMed: Emetine and pyorrhea
6. PubMed: Topical ivermectin

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Connections

• Dentistry & Oral Health
• Gum Disease
• Periodontitis
• Gingivitis
• Oral Microbiome
• Oil Pulling
• Halitosis (Chronic Bad Breath)
• Ivermectin
• Amoebic Pyorrhea: The 1914 Emetine Treatment
• Oral Myiasis (Fly Larvae in the Mouth)
• Entamoeba gingivalis: The Gum Amoeba
• Trichomonas tenax: The Mouth Flagellate
• Gongylonema pulchrum: The Gullet Worm
• Oxantel Pamoate
• Topical Ivermectin
• Veterinary Ivermectin
• Ivermectin and Single-Celled Parasites
• Ivermectin’s Anti-Inflammatory Effects
• Ivermectin Against Bacteria
• Ivermectin and the Gut Microbiome
• Scabies
• The Discovery of Ivermectin
• How Ivermectin Works
• Satoshi Ōmura
• Cancer and Parasites
• Parasite Organisms
• Entamoeba histolytica
• Whipworm
• Overlooked Signs of Parasites
• Parasite Cleanse Claims
• Ivermectin Treatment for Strongyloides
• Albendazole
• Mebendazole
• Fenbendazole

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