Black 2 Cartridge Crapping Out, Any Ideas?

So a few days ago I was playing through my Black 2 cartridge for the first time in a long time on my old 3dsxl (yes its authentic lol, I was handed it in the car in box by my parents 12 years ago on my way to the funplex for my birthday) and all of a sudden as I was exiting a building in-game, the game froze on the black transition screen. This had never happened before so I was confused, but ignored it at the time and just reset to keep playing.

Fast forward a day later and I’m playing it again, and I close the console to go to the bathroom. I come back and open it, and the game is entirely frozen, no black screen. At this point I start to really worry, and got an idea. I reset again, waited to get in the game, and then lightly slapped the back of the console where the cartridge was. Instant freeze.

My first assumption was “great, my cart reader is crapping out” but then after testing it with my even older Pokemon Black 1 cartridge, and my Pokemon X cartridge, I wasn’t able to recreate the issue, whereas I could do so with the Black 2 cartridge pretty consistently. Additionally, the 3DS would have trouble reading the cartridge for a bit sometimes after recreating the issue, though so far it’s always eventually read it again.

I want to believe just cleaning it with alcohol and a qtip will be enough but the fact that physical impacts seem to affect it most strongly makes me believe that’s wishful thinking. The game still plays normally when it reads and you don’t jostle/manhandle the 3DS, but it feels like it’s only a matter of time before it worsens. Has anyone else ever had similar issues, and if so did you find a fix? Is there a reliable service that one could send a cartridge to for skilled repairs? Any help would be appreciated, I really don’t want to lose this bastion of my childhood.