Personal anecdote here----
I have mostly been without health insurance ===forget about paying a doctor or a dentist ======for about 15 years.
I have severe periodontal disease. Can’t eat anything sticky at all. Gets down in some god forsaken region within my teeth and gums and flat out does not come out. --------leading to infection and my face blowing up like a balloon. Really dreadful looking it is.
Ordinary solution is to visit the dentist, get a prescription for antibiotics for a couple weeks and problem solved.
But there was one time when I could not afford a dentist, or paying for an antibiotic. And so---------
I tried the old salt treatment. Hot as you could stand it water with saturated salt within. A couple times a day.
Worked fine. Ballooned up face returned to normal within days.
Worked just as well as the expensive dentist and the expensive antilbiotics for 2 weeks (which by the way tends to give me the shits for 2 weeks)