Neuropathy, Multiple Sclerosis, and Mercury

My research continues on with what mercury does to the body. Today I looked up neuropathy, but found that MS is closely linked, so I researched both. My maternal grandfather died from MS when I was two, so this one hits close to home.

FDA testimony
Testimony from same person
FDA testimony II
http://www.iaomt.org/news/archive.asp?intReleaseID=215&month=11&year=2006
http://www.hendess.net/ms_e.htm
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/mercury.html
http://www.nationaldentalinformationcenter.org/the_hidden_killer.html
http://www.pamrotella.com/health/ms.html
http://curezone.com/letters/multiple_sclerosis.asp
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_247-248/ai_113807023
http://www.vaccinetruth.org/multiple_sclerosis.htm
http://zap.intergate.ca/sclerosi.html

There of course is more, but I thought I should stop here. I also recently found out Dr. Hal Huggins has written a book about MS and mercury. Check it out in my book section.

In the last week I got a cold. It started out first as a sore throat only and seemed to go away in a couple of days so I thought maybe I was out of the woods, but I felt it settle in my chest over the last two days. It feels like I've been coughing until my chest hurts, but I haven't been doing much coughing at all. It is pretty sore, and making it difficult to keep rejoicing in the fact that my headache and jaw pain have not returned. I also have not noticed any irritability in about two weeks, but I am not getting overly excited about that yet since it could return. I have been having several bouts of dizziness over the last week as well, so that's been frustrating since my doctor has tried helping me with various things to alleviate it and nothing seems to be working. It makes me want to get these last five crowns taken care of right away!

I forget...what was I researching?

Today I started researching memory problems stemming from dental mercury, but as I kept checking out sites I noticed that they were discussing alzheimers almost as equally as memory problems. I have a family friend in his 80's suffering from alzheimers. He now lives in a nursing home and his wife visits him daily, even though he barely knows who she is. The last time I saw him several years ago, I do remember when he smiled one could notice his mouth was full of silver fillings. Do I believe that amalgam fillings can cause alzheimers and other memory problems? You bet. I personally suffer with memory problems daily, and I believe that it would have continued getting worse. I have noticed since I've had a lot of amalgam removed that my long-term memory has gotten better, but my short-term memory is still terrible, although of course I'm not done with dental revision yet.

Please look at the websites I've shared below, and decide for yourself what you think.

http://www.midnightcafe.com/alzh/diagnosis3.html
http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/hydro/amalgam.htm
http://www.whale.to/d/biblio.html
http://www.mercola.com/2001/apr/7/alzheimers_mercury.htm
http://curezone.com/dental/dental_alzheimer.asp
http://www.holisticmed.com/dental/amalgam/

UPDATE: The family friend I spoke of in this post passed away on Tuesday, October 30th.

Dr. C and Learning Disabilities

I got a phone call from Dr. C yesterday. I was a little surprised, although I shouldn't have been, since he's done it a couple of times previously. He called just to see how I was doing since I had the extraction done and if things are healing well. We talked for a good 20-30 minutes. I shared with him about how the laser treatments went and he had several questions regarding it (he's considering purchasing a laser for his own practice which I wholeheartedly encouraged), and then we also talked about our next plans for dental revision for me. We decided we'd wait a month to give me a little more time to heal since this root canal thing was a huge blow to my immune system, and then I would call and set up an appointment to get started on the crowns. After a couple of questions I had for him and another one he had for me, we felt good about where we are at with my dental situation. Much progress has been made, and we are both looking forward to finishing the job.

Today's symptom I researched is Learning Disabilities. During my college years, I was tested for and found to have LD in math and reading comprehension and retention, so connecting LD with mercury toxicity is big for me. It would explain a lot. I started having problems in school in about the 2nd and 3rd grade, which I'm guessing is about the time I would have received my first amalgam fillings. Kindergarten and 1st grade I remember being easy and fun, and my teachers were pleased with my work. By 2nd and 3rd grade things became extremely difficult, and by 4th grade there were big deficits in my learning curve. I struggled all the way through junior and senior high having to take algebra 1 three times. I loved to write, but would fail (or almost fail) anything else reading related. In college I noticed my friends barely having to study and breezing through tests I would barely pass after studying for hours. It really started bothering me, so I finally talked to a counselor (who I was doing workstudy for at the time) about my frustrations. Not long after, I was tested and found that I fit into the category of the Learning Disabled. Suprised? No. Here's some info regarding LD and mercury:

http://www.immunesupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm/ID/3318/t/CFIDS_FM
http://www.homeopathyhouston.com/homeopathy_articles/learning_disabilities.html
http://www.ghchealth.com/your-next-visit-to-the-dentist.html
http://www.talkinternational.com/news_vaccine_072407.htm
http://www.whale.to/a/grant.html
http://www.flcv.com/tmlbn.html
http://www.toxicteeth.org/compareTable.cfm
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/amalgam.htm

Laser Therapy Update and Anemia

Yesterday was my last of 6 sessions of laser treatment therapy. I have noticed a profound difference. My headaches are pretty much gone, and my jaw is starting to feel normal again. I have to believe I am a success story for Dr. K, and that cold laser treatment works to speed up healing from extractions or heal over cavitations that have happened. Dr. K and his staff attended a dental conference over the weekend (Dr. C was also there), and Dori said they have learned so much more about what they can do with laser treatment as well as other dental procedures. I was encouraged to hear that.

Today I am struggling mostly with dizziness, chronic fatigue, and brain fog. Unfortunately the laser therapy didn't rid me of those problems, not that I was expecting it to, but I sure was hopeful. I am still in contact with Dr. S daily and he's aware of these symptoms, so I am hoping we'll find something to relieve it for the time being. According to research, both dizziness and brain fog can be caused by (you guessed it!) mercury toxicity. I am reminded every time I feel dizzy of the 5 crowns with amalgam under them I still have that could be causing the problem.

I'm going to say it: MERCURY IS POISON. Why would we want poison in our bodies?

Today I researched anemia and mercury. Here are some sites I found:

http://www.drkaslow.com/html/mercury_s_influence.html
http://www.amalgam.org/
http://www.icnr.com/uam/DAMSIntro.html
http://www.natural-lifestyle-made-easy.com/natural_dental_health.html

Have Trouble Sleeping?

Today's research is the effects of mercury on lack of sleep, better known as insomnia. Here's what I found:

http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=1852
http://www.mercurypolicy.org/exposure/documents/ModelDentalBill.pdf
http://www.mercurypoisoned.com/symptoms.html

This last one had a questionnaire in it that I'll copy and paste below:

A checklist of other symptoms that could be related to mercury toxicity.
A Mercury Test by Dr. Hal Huggins:

1. Heart problems
_heart/chest pains
_angina
_tachcardia (heart racing)
_heart murmur
_low blood pressure
_abnormal EKG
_endocarditis
_partial heart block
_high blood pressure
_heart attack

2. Skin Problems
_unexplained rashes
_excessive itching
_red flushes of color
_rough skin
_acne (pimples)

3. Nervous Disorders
_Belle's Palsy
_Multiple Sclerosis
_shingles
_epilepsy/convulsions
_Dr. told you "It's your nerves"
_the shakes of hands, feet, head, etc
_twitching of face or other muscles

4. Digestion
_diverticulitis
_ulcers
_Crohn's disease
_Graves Disease
_indigestion
_diarrhea
_bloated feeling after eating
_heartburn
_poor appetite

5. Blood Disease
_mononucleosis
_false positve for venereal disease

6. Cancer
_leukemia
_Hodgkins disease
_any other name

7. Endocrine Problems
_diabetes
_ovaries
_hysterectomy-complete
_tipped uterus
_overweight
_thyroid overactive
_testes
_pancreas
_cervical erosion
_underweight
_prostate
_mensturation-painful, too often or too seldom/ stopping without reason

8. Emotional
_sudden anger
_depression
_wish you were dead
_irritability
_suicidal tendencies
_been divorced

9. Annoying Symptoms
_frequent headaches
_noises in your ears
_ringing in your ears
_hissing in your ears
_chronic eye inflammation
_chronic fatigue
_do you tire easily?
_swollen lymph nodes
_do you sweat excessively or not at all?
_hearing problems
_cold hands and feet
_motion sickness
_slow healing
_leg cramps
_dizziness
_get up at night to urinate
_urinate frequently during the day
_have insomnia
_tired when awaken in the morning
_have trouble making decisions

10. Allergies
_metal
_fabrics
_soaps and detergents
_food
_other__________

11. Diseases
_rheumatoid arthritis
_bursitis
_tennis elbow
_painful joints
_Friedreich's ataxia
_asthma
_osteomyelitis
_psoriasis
_sickle cell anemia
_kidney stones

12. Miscellaneous
_Infections take a long time to heal
_Do you work around mercury?
what capacity?_______________
_what medications are you taking that have mercury in them?

13. Dental History
_had silver amalgams
_had gold fillings
_have gold fillings now
_removable metal bridge
_gold bridge
_porcelain caps (crowns)
_non-precious crowns
_root canal
_root canal now
_metallic taste in mouth
_burning sensation in mouth
_increased flow of saliva
_have more than half your teeth

There of course are more websites with more info on insomnia. Please check them out for yourself if you suffer from it! Just type "insomnia dental mercury" in google.

Nervousness and dental mercury

I thought I'd start going down the list of symptoms I previously posted back in July one by one and start doing research on each of them. Today I looked up nervousness. Here are some things I found:

http://www.talkinternational.com/health/hg_signs_symptoms_poisoning.htm
http://www.toxicteeth.org/merctoxprofile.cfm
http://www.pacifichealthcenter.com/updates/4.asp
http://www.quicksilverpress.com/contents.html

These of course are just a few of what's out there. I'm also sure we'll see nervousness pop up again when I research other maladies.

The effects of mercury: ADD, ADHD, and Autism

Today I decided to do a little research on Attention Deficit Disorder and mercury. What I found was more than I could bear to think about!! I of course have read some about it, but not to the extent these websites have shared. And this is just the surface of them, folks!

http://www.mercuryexposure.org/index.php?article_id=339
http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article18965.html
http://www.wholebodyhealth.us/autism_adhd.htm
http://www.webdeb.com/add.htm
http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2006/04/fda-public-hearing-on-dental-mercury.html

Another article mentioned selenium as being a great natural chelator (or detoxifier), and works great with cilantro. Hmmmm.....I think I'll check out some new recipes that include both for my kids. They both were immunized as children as well as had to deal with my mercury overload in utero. I've done epsom salt baths for them and other things, but I still see a lot of hyperactivity in Doshi. I bet he would benefit from a little bit of extra help.

An Informative Newsletter

Below I have copied an email newsletter I received from the Huggins foundation. I am thankful for the timely information!

ADA Takes Bold Protective Step

Dentistry has rehashed the same argument about, should dentistry place mercury fillings because they are cheap, or ban them because they contain 50% of the most toxic poison known that is not radioactive?

Last year's Congressional hearing on "how safe mercury is in the mouth" as presented by the FDA – lost by a vote of 13 to 7. Nearly 2 to 1. A committee of scientists evaluated the presentation as well as those by several "witnesses". Dr. Boyd Haley and Dr. Hal Huggins presented scientific data refuting mercury safety.

After mulling the presentations over for a year, the FDA has stated in writing that they will present new standards for the use of mercury fillings by the end of the year 2007. Based on that, the ADA sent communications to all dentists telling them to immediately start informing their patients that mercury was in "silver" fillings. Especially discuss this with pregnant women and parents of children in order to reduce the number of law suits.

As stated in a letter from Charles G. Brown, National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice:

"In the July edition of Dental Practice Report, the long-time general counsel of the A.D.A., Peter Sfikas (who stepped down eight months ago) advised dentists that FDA would likely contraindicate amalgam to classes of patients, and dentists must begin immediately protect their legal position by (1) asking patients if have mercury hypersensitivity, and (2) giving precise warnings about mercury exposure to pregnant women and parents of young children."

The FDA could reclassify mercury from Class I (of no health significance, where it is now) to either Class II, which calls for record keeping of who had mercury placed in their mouth, or to Class III which would constitute a total ban in dentistry due to its toxicity. The ADA is hoping for Class II, the public pushing for Class III.

The ADA just paid for a study on "the economic impact of mercury-free dentistry". This may indicate their fear factor. Another item that may be related is that dentists have just been targeted as high income people with little litigation, so a ripe terrain for new lawyers. This as a result of the fact that there are more students in law schools now than lawyers in practice in all 50 states put together. Attorneys are just now finding out that almost all dentists have malpractice insurance, but that placement of amalgam may or may not qualify for insurance coverage. The dentists actually mix mercury with metallic powder to form amalgam. This constitutes manufacturing a "product". Do dentists have product liability insurance? No. That opens Pandora's box for litigation from both the malpractice aspect, since dentistry has been aware of its toxicity since 1840, and dentists are also wide open for personal loss from the product liability aspect.

The ADA held its national meeting in San Francisco September 28 through October 2, 2007. In addressing the issue of mercury toxicity, the ADA decided to mandate dentists using mercury scrubbers to remove mercury from their suction devices before dumping it into the sewage system.

Thus, the ADA is protecting the sewage, and ignoring human health that it is sworn to protect. How bold.

---

In an effort to inform the public of both sides of the issue, the Toxic Element Research Foundation (TERF) has just released a 45 minute DVD of the July 23, 2007 edition of the New Zealand 60 Minutes franchise examining the dental mercury issue. Both sides were presented in 60 Minutes fashion. A representative of the New Zealand dental association and Dr. Huggins were both interviewed recently in Auckland, New Zealand. After the program, Dr. Huggins then comments on some of the presentations from the Washington DC encounter between the FDA and the Congressionally appointed committee. He shows a few clips of the actual session in D.C. with comments to accompany. There are a few testimonials from previously mercury damaged patients. All in all, the DVD takes the place of trying to tell friends and family about the mercury issue in a 3rd party format. A tax deductible donation of $25 to the Toxic Element Research Foundation (TERF) will secure you a copy (including US postage). Call for your copy through Dr. Huggins' toll free number: 1-866-948-4638. The Toxic Element Research Foundation is currently paying for laboratory fees for testing that proves the toxicity of dental materials in humans. Any additional donations will be put to good use for the health of all of us.

Thank you for your interest in eliminating this unnecessary poison that provides more birth defects than all other known methods. As Huggins says in ending his talk, "Clean our DNA. Ban mercury fillings."

Hal A. Huggins DDS, MS

The Cost of Fixing Bad Health

Last night I went to see my doctor, Dr. S. He felt it was time to see me again, so Sparky drove me to his office after work. Dr. S. worked on some stomach problems that started yesterday afternoon, and then also corrected some misalignments in my head, neck, and upper back. He told both of us he feels we've made it past this last problem, and he thinks I'm on my way to finding many good days coming up. He assured us there will still be some bad days, but he's confident that I'm on an upward curve. I'm really hoping so. It's been a long haul, and I'm really tired of feeling badly most of the time.

This morning I went in for my 4th of 6 laser treatments. There's a marked amount of less pain in the jaw and extraction area, and my head doesn't hurt as often or as much. I'm certainly enjoying that, since the pain from the infected tooth was horrendous. Dr. S. is helping me out daily through email with offering advice for pain management as well.

The reason why I titled this particular entry the way I did was to bring this all into perspective. In previous posts I've talked about nutrition for good teeth. I've mentioned how important it is to take care of teeth by eating right and having composites instead of amalgams placed in decayed teeth, and encouraged no root canals. I know the reasons most people choose amalgams anyway, but I want to encourage you to think out of the box in your reasoning. I know insurance companies won't cover for composites when amalgams can be used. I know that amalgams are cheaper than composites when you don't have insurance. PLEASE, think about it long term though, and not just short term when your dentist tells you he's going to place amalgams. It may seem wisest to do the amalgams at the time, but consider the costs of health care after amalgams have been placed. Let me explain with an example, me.

Amalgams were placed in my teeth every time I had decay because insurance paid for it. We didn't have any costs out of pocket, which was nice. But as I got sick, the doctor visits and emergency room bills became so many we couldn't count. And now that I'm having the amalgams all replaced, along with crowns with amalgam under them, and root canaled teeth retreated, our out-of-pocket costs in the last 2 1/2 years have skyrocketed. In the last year alone, we have spent over $8,000 in medical and dental costs. That doesn't include the previous 1 1/2 years, and I'm not done yet. I have at least another $6-7,000 more to go in dental bills.

Okay, so now some of you are thinking "But I'm not sensitive to mercury. I don't show any signs of anything that would tell me I'm mercury poisoned". If you have one ailment you are plagued with that your doctor can't explain - he may be able to remedy it by medication or surgery or whatever, but he can't tell you how it started, then please think long and hard about those silver fillings you have, or that root canaled tooth you have, or the dentures you have. I'm begging you to think about them! And I beg you to think twice before your dentist wants to place amalgam in your or your child's or your loved one's teeth. TELL HIM (or her) NO, PLEASE!!!! Send a message to the ADA that we're not going to stand for it any longer!!! Please pay the out-of-pocket expense now while it's only $50 instead of having to come up with $1000's of dollars later to fix a health problem it created.

I think I'm done begging now. :)

Making A Difference....

Yesterday I had the third of six laser treatments on the extraction and TMJ area. Dr. K actually did the procedure for me this time, and we talked extensively about my jaw and ear pain. He did the treatment a little different than Dori, and it still might be a little too early to tell, but my head hasn't hurt much at all today. This is huge, even from just a few days ago! I have been rejoicing that the pain has gone, even if it is just momentarily. You could call me a semi-happy camper today.

I noticed in my most recent blogs I have dwelt only on this tooth situation, and I apologize. I intend to get back to discussing more about mercury and fillings and root canals and such, it's just that I felt it necessary to show what can happen when root canals go bad. The main purpose of this blog is to help inform my readers about mercury and the dangers of dental care done by mainstream dentists who do not believe in informed consent, so I will get back to that as soon as possible.

Progress?

Yesterday I went to Dr. K's for my 2nd cold laser treatment. This time it seemed a little longer, and the gal (I'll name her Dori) who does the procedure was also willing to do the laser up in the tmj area where I was still having pain from the novacaine injection. Dori said it may help with the painful headaches I've still been experiencing since the tooth was extracted. I don't know if it's too soon, but my headache throughout the day yesterday didn't seem to get bad like it has been. I still had it, it just wasn't as intense. This morning now I still have a tinge of headache, but it seems to always be light in the morning and get worse during the day. Four more sessions to go....

For a while now I've been working through heavier brain-fog than 'normal', but the last few days have seemed even heavier. I have been having the hardest time concentrating. What takes the normal person 10 minutes to do can take me up to an hour or more. It's been really frustrating. At this point I don't want to speculate what could be causing this. I've speculated before, and I always seem to isolate one symptom rather than seeing the whole picture, and then I realize later that I was way off. It probably all leads back to the fact that I still have mercury in my mouth and body, I still have four root canaled teeth, and I have four extraction sites (wisdom teeth) that need to be addressed.

So, it's not a light saber....

I haven't posted in while. Not because I didn't want to, but because I haven't had time. But I did want to share something new that I am trying, and the first treatment was this morning.

After my fiasco last week with the oral surgeon who wouldn't remove the periodontal ligament, I talked to Dr. K, the dentist in the cities. He suggested two things; go to another oral surgeon and have him/her go back into the extraction site and clean it out, costing me another $1000, or try a new procedure that Dr. K recently began that's showing much promise - cold laser treatment at $25 per session for 6 sessions. I decided to try the treatment and save my money. Plus, this procedure is non-invasive, and it involves no pain whatsoever. I liked that. Now, I did try to run 'cold laser dental treatment' through a search engine and I couldn't get anything to come up, so I am trusting big-time Dr. K knows what he's talking about, but so far he has known. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I think it's okay.

My first session was no more than 8 minutes long. I sat down in the chair, one of the hygenists came and sat down in the dentist's chair, and held a laser inside my cheek and the gum line, carefully and slowly moving it around the area where the root of the tooth originally was. She did that for about 3 or 4 minutes, and then took a different laser and held it alongside my cheek, moving in the same way as the other laser. Another 3-4 minutes and I was done. I go back in two days, and then again two days next week and the following week. This is supposed to kill off any remaining bacteria and stop the extraction area from cavitation if it were going to happen.

I also asked the gal about my wisdom tooth extraction sites and she said that all four of them would need to be done if we were going to do it since there's no way of knowing if they've turned into cavitations without opening them up. I told her I'd think about it and will consider it as a future project if getting the rest of the amalgams out don't cause the relief expected.

Today I am feeling less pain in my jaw (although it's still sore in the novacaine needle puncture area), but the dizziness and slight headache are still hanging around. My doc seems to think that my anemia is out of whack again causing the dizziness, and wants me getting more red meat and pumpkin. We'll see if that helps any. I checked out the nutritional value of pumpkin, and found that eating it canned has far more nutritional value than eating it fresh! Unexplained anemia, which is what I have, is often caused by mercury toxicity. Upon amalgam's removal and detoxification of the body, many patients have found relief from anemia and regained their energy like never before. I am hoping that's what will happen for me when I can finally finish up with the last 5 crowns. It's looking like we won't even start the crowns until the new year, however, so it's going to be a bit of a wait.

Let's see....this puzzle piece goes over here.....

Sparky brought home my extracted tooth yesterday after his visit to my dentist (I'm going to start calling him "Dr. C" just to make it easier) to get his teeth cleaned. The tooth was sent to Dr. C, and he looked at it and noticed that there was still an infection at the end of one of the roots and it was making the dentin soft. VERY soft. I took a good look at it last night and saw the same thing. Okay, sooooooooo....... I think I'm starting to put some puzzle pieces together, and figuring this out little by little what happened when I got really sick 2 and a half years ago when I thought this all started, but it started long before that. Just for the sake of having it in print, I am going to share my thoughts on how it all happened, so humor me, please!

All the amalgam in general as well as the original root canaled teeth still probably have something to do with this, but I'm going to pinpoint just this particular tooth for this part of the puzzle and what part it possibly played in the collapse of my health.

Let's look back to my teenage years, which was roughly 20 years ago. I got a cavity in this particular tooth (#18). I went to the dentist and had it filled with an amalgam filling. Since amalgam fillings only have a supposed life of 10 years, I should have had it replaced 10 years ago. I didn't. Sparky and I, in our young married years, saw a lot of different dentists because we hadn't found anyone we were really happy with. One dentist was too rough, another was too expensive, another didn't care that I tasted metal in my mouth after he placed a filling, and yet another called us all the time to set up cleaning appointments way too often, etc. When we finally found a dentist that we stuck with for several years (but still wasn't crazy about) he suggested I needed a LOT more work, and a LOT more amalgam fillings. We couldn't afford it, neither in time nor in funds, so we put him off. That tooth in particular, #18, he proposed an amalgam filling with a precious metal crown over it. Yep....precious metal. Not only mercury in the amalgam, but metal on top of it. I didn't do it, even though I didn't know the dangers at the time.

Okay, back to the timeline... four years and two babies (with very hard pregnancies as well as a miscarriage) later, I still did not have the work done. And the filling was failing. I mention the hard pregnancies and the miscarriage because I've read mercury can play an integral part in both.

At this time, I was introduced to some wonderful (and I do mean wonderful) whole-food products by a good friend, and I started buying them and using them faithfully. Some of these items, like I mentioned in an earlier post about Fortune Delight, were also cleansing in nature. These products did a lot of good for me, and I probably would have been a lot worse off had I not had them because I was full of the silver poison! I also started using some special toothpaste and tooth whitening products from this company. The stuff is great for someone who doesn't have 26 amalgam fillings! These awesome products cleaned my teeth... too well. It totally cleaned off any type of residue that was keeping the mercury from seeping out so quickly from my teeth into my body.

Back to the tooth: by this time, the filling in #18 had failed. But I still wasn't seeing the dentist because it didn't hurt. It was only unknowingly draining every ounce of mercury and mercury vapor into my body. By February 2005, I came down with a nasty case of what the nurse practitioner at a clinic told me over the phone was bronchitis. I struggled with that for a couple of weeks, and even when I look back at pictures during that time period, the pictures don't even look like me.

A few months (and a lot of stress from every where in my life) later, I ended up going on antibiotics for strep throat. Within a few days I would start feeling sick like I've never felt before. At that point my whole world turned upside down, and I was on a quick roll down a loooooooong sloping hill. My doctor didn't even know how to help me, and later on he told me that I freaked him out because he couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.

I continued to stay sick and muddle through until the following March when I was asked by a friend if I thought my amalgams could be the cause. The light went on. I started a little bit of research and came to a conclusion that it just might be it since I had almost as many fillings as I had teeth. It took six months, however, before a dentist could ever touch my teeth, because I couldn't function. On my good days I had to make up for the several bad and catch up on everything else. I did go and see Dr. K in June hoping to get started soon, but an accident broke his ankle and he was out of work for a couple of months. He introduced me to Dr. C for Peanut, but I decided I needed to see him, too.

As Dr. C made his way around my mouth that September, working on teeth and replacing the amalgam, he came to #18 tooth this last spring. He cleaned it out but noticed it was a deep decay under the filling and into the root. He tried to save the tooth anyway, but it was too late. Within a couple of weeks I was back in the dentist chair, and the root canal happened. A few weeks after that and my health started sinking lower again, this time the pain that came with it was unbearable at best. I had neck pain and head pain and head spasms and dizzy spells. Dr. C was convinced he took out all of the root when he did the root canal, and as you've read in previous blogs, he kept trying to help relieve the pain by changing the occlusion. Then this last Monday came, and I had had enough. The tooth was extracted, and it almost has completely come to an end, except.... I was lied to (but not purposefully) by the oral surgeon. It happened because the ADA has chosen to lie to their dentists and oral surgeons, and he didn't know any better. And I'm frustrated beyond belief.

When I went to the oral surgeon on Monday, I specifically asked that they would remove the periodontal ligament after he removed the tooth. He looked at me very strangely and told me that the periodontal ligament comes out with the tooth and I would be just fine. Well, according to Dr. K in the cities and some websites that I've placed in previous posts, some of the ligament stays with the bone and needs to be ground out with a dental burr. This will stop cavitation from happening and eventual disease in the rest of the body. Now I knew this, but I couldn't get this doctor to understand my need for it to be done (nor did he probably know how to do it). I contacted Dr. K today, and asked him to refer me to one of his oral surgeons who DOES take care of this. My concern for this to get done is not only for my longterm health, but the antibiotics that I was put on on Monday still has not started to work because the ligament is still there holding onto anaerobic bacteria.

I think the hardest part of all of this is that I keep seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, but someone keeps moving it farther as I inch up! Anyway, this is how I see this tooth playing a part in the collapse of my health. It's just one piece of the puzzle, but I think a huge, important one. It was a big tooth, with big roots.

Now as my kids hug me when I don't feel well, I tell them both...don't let this happen to you! Please take care of your teeth! Please brush often, and please think about what you put in your body! ...And that goes for you all, too!

It's Gone!!

Yes, the tooth is gone. What a huge sigh of relief, and my neck and head have already thanked me.

My dentist called me early Monday afternoon and we talked about the tooth. He told me that the oral surgeon who could extract it was leaving town today (Tuesday), and was willing to see me yesterday afternoon. I went gladly and willingly as soon as I could.

When the assistant brought me back and sat me in the chair, I was nervous and excited at the same time. Nervous I still might not be better when the tooth was gone, and excited that I might be better afterward. I decided I was only going to have novacaine, and I'm glad I did. It took longer to let the novacaine do it's job than what the oral surgeon did! When I was ready, he and the assistant came in and got the extraction tool ready. Within a matter of a minute, the tooth was out (in pieces), and gauze was dropped in it's place. I got to see the tooth, and it was not pretty (if there is such a thing as a pretty tooth!). It had broken open in the root area and I could see the posts that my dentist used to give support for the crown. I wanted to investigate longer, but they weren't willing to let me stay there very long.

A matter of hours later, I commented to Sparky that my neck didn't hurt much any more. It didn't!! And the pain in my head slowly disappeared, too. Of course there is still pain in the jaw, and now I feel achy in that area from where the novacaine was administered. The doctor put me on clindamycin, and gave me a prescription for motrin 800 mg. He also gave me a prescription for vicodin, but I chose not to fill it. The pain has been tolerable, and my neck is not tight and painful at all today. I've had some head pain, but it is minimal. I'm a little disappointed that I'm still having dizzy feelings, but they could be from the motrin, since it can be a side effect of the meds. Another thought is the infection that the antibiotic is addressing. It could just be a matter of time and it might go away. I'm hopeful, anyway.

BUT IT'S GONE! I'm very happy about that. It feels strange to have a big gaping hole there now, though. I'm concerned about dislodging the blood clot, too, since I've had dry socket before and it's even more painful than what I've been going through recently. I don't want that to happen again!

I will also be patiently and eagerly watching to see when zirconium implants will be available, that's for sure.

Remove it already!

I was reading these testimonials not because of the dentist (but she sounds great), but because of what these people had gone through... http://www.mercola.com/forms/testimonials_dental.htm
Oh my word is all I can say.

I called my dentist's office today and talked with the receptionist (who also assists my dentist at times) and told her my tooth was still giving me problems. She is going to talk to my dentist and call me back, but I asked her to tell him I just want the tooth gone. And after reading the testimonials in the website above, I am more than ready to get rid of it. The sooner the better.

Here's another page with some very useful information on it:
http://www.mercola.com/forms/dental_corner.htm#dentalarticles