OT: Another good article on Root canals and Mercury!

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http://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=19990303204231

METAL FREE DENTISTRY: CROWNS, ROOT CANALS AND EXTRACTIONS

by: Jerome, , D.D.S.

Dr. Jerome is a graduate of Ohio State University School of

Dentistry, and is a practicing dentist in southern Indiana. He has

been a mercury-free dentist since 1980 and he contributed the dental

sections of Hulda e's three books including The Cure for All

Disease. He is the author of Tooth Truth, a very enlightening book

about the dangers of toxic metal dentistry.

HISTORY OF MERCURY FILLINGS Although many dentists have argued

against its usage, mercury has been used in dental fillings in North

America since 1830, and it continues to be used mainly for economic

reasons. There weren't many alternatives besides gold in the old

days, but we do have better alternatives now. Mercury's toxicity has

been buried and we have been told that it does not come out of

fillings, but even in 1890 it was known that mercury came out of

fillings and create an electrical current in the mouth. In the 1930s,

German research proved conclusively that mercury does come out of

fillings. In 1980, the American Dental Association finally had to

admit this, but they claimed it was just a small amount. When I heard

this, I decided to stop using mercury, and I thought more and more

dentists would also stop using mercury, but today only 6% of dentists

are mercury free. The dental profession has become entrenched, and

the more entrenched they become, the more they attack dentists who

don't use mercury.

MERCURY FILLINGS Mercury is toxic - they admit it. If mercury caused

cancer it would be all over, but mercury is too toxic to cause

cancer. It poisons the cells and causes the cells to die, and they

die before they can mutate. And mercury is only the tip of the

iceberg. There are five metals in amalgam fillings: mercury, zinc,

tin, silver and copper. They are toxins. Our bodies do require

minerals, but we are organic beings and these are inorganic minerals.

These minerals are in our teeth, implanted right inside our bodies

covered with saliva at 37 degrees centigrade. So it's hot, it's wet,

and food and acid are coming in there, and the metals are released

slowly as we chew. We inhale the fumes. Ten percent of it goes

through the olfactory area right back up the cranial nerve into the

brain. Mercury is a very active neurotoxin, and it loves nerve

tissue. It also goes into our lungs and right into our blood stream,

but mercury is so active it doesn't stay in the blood stream or come

out in the urine, and the body can't get rid of it, so it tries to

isolate it and store it in different places. You can't detoxify if

you're putting more toxins in all the time. You can take all the

supplements you want, drink wheat grass juice, run for miles, but you

won't heal until you pull out the amalgam fillings and get rid of it.

COMPOSITE FILLINGS There are not very many good dental materials, but

something better than amalgams has been created which is the

composites, the white plastic fillings which have been around for 25

years. They are mostly used in the front teeth, but they are pretty

strong, so we started using them in the back teeth, and now they have

manufactured harder composites which are made specifically for the

back teeth. Plastic is the perfect material. It can be shaped any way

we want, so that we don't have to destroy as much of the tooth as we

do with amalgam, but for some reason the Dental Association decided

not to switch to composites. If you want to have composites, you must

find a dentist who has some experience in doing this, or who

specializes in composite fillings.

OTHER METALS IN DENTAL WORK You are lucky if the four metals in

amalgam are the only metals you have, because you may have elaborate

dental work like crowns, partials, bridges, root canals or an

implant. Mercury is the most toxic non-radioactive element. The next

in toxicity is nickel, and nickel does cause cancer. The one after

that is chromium, and then cobalt. So what do they make partials out

of? Nickel, chromium and cobalt. Mechanically it's just fantastic as

long as you don't put it in a human being. Mercury and nickel can

also cause depression.

CROWNS AND INLAYS Crowns and inlays are made of porcelain, and

porcelain contains aluminum oxide. Not much aluminum comes out of it;

it might be all right, but it is still a metal. Also porcelain crowns

for the molars usually have a metal like gold underneath which may

contain 10 to 40% other metals depending on the brand of crown, and

some crowns are made of stainless steel. Recently 24 carat gold under

porcelain crowns have become available. Also note that many dentists

leave the mercury under the crowns - that's very common. According to

statistics, one in five teeth die after they are crowned. Some

dentists don't have any teeth die, which is a rarity, and some

dentists kill every tooth they touch. There is a competency factor.

When dentists make crowns for the back teeth, they cut the molar down

so that half the volume of the tooth is lost, and about 75% of the

front teeth will be cut away. I don't think that cutting all the

enamel off a tooth to save part of it from chipping is a good idea.

You can make bonded inlays which are strong and aid in holding the

tooth together. They are stronger than fillings without cutting every

piece of that enamel away as they do with crowns. So if they

recommend a crown make sure that they save every bit of enamel they

can. The tooth breathes - there is microleakage through the tooth so

that it can remineralize itself and feed the inside of the tooth.

That is how it cleanses itself. If you put a crown on top of that

tooth, it can't breathe. You stifle it.

BRIDGES When bridges are made, teeth on each side of the bridge are

cut down and fitted with crowns, so that you have one chance in five

of killing either tooth, and then you may end up with root canals or

missing teeth. I prefer to keep the removable partials as long as I

can. I'm never going to have anything permanent put in. I won't take

the risk. I want to guard everything that I have got.

ROOT CANALS Root canals are the most toxic most damaging procedure

dentists can do. You have two options: a root canal or an extraction.

Dentists usually fill root canals with gutta percha. Some use the

Sargenti method, a popular treatment used by 25% of dentists, but

denounced by the American Dental Association because it contains

formaldehyde compounds. There have been a lot of problems with those.

They used to contain lead. The current formulas are said to have

removed the lead, but millions of root canal treatments using the old

formulas are still in people's mouths. Gutta percha is 15% barium so

that it will show up in the X-ray. Gutta percha shrinks and leaves

gaps and the tooth can never be sterile. There is no such thing as a

sterile root canal. During a root canal, the main canal is filled and

possibly some of the small side canals, but the other smaller canal-

like structures in teeth called dentinal tubules are too tiny to be

filled during treatment and these tubules become home to bacteria

instead. Since there are millions of these tubules there is room for

enough bacteria to challenge the immune system. The waste products

from these nasty germs include some very toxic substances called thio-

ethers, and your body has to deal with these toxins 24 hours a day.

They contaminate the bone around the tooth and they are picked up by

the immune system and carried to the liver for detoxification.

Unfortunately, the liver can be seriously damaged by them. Weston

Price conducted research on root canals and wrote two books about how

toxic they can be. So you have to make up your mind what is more

important to you. I believe no tooth is worth destroying my immune

system.

DENTAL IMPLANTS contain titanium, which is supposed to be the most

biocompatible metal, but the most biocompatible metal is still

harmful.

DENTURES Dentures contain cadmium to make them pink. It's not food

colouring. They do use mercury to make them pink also, but most of

the time it's cadmium. A denture contacts the skin at least four to

six square inches and if you can absorb it you will absorb it.

Everything put into the mouth leaches. Cadmium causes high blood

pressure.

EXTRACTIONS Extractions have to be done well. Normally they pull a

tooth out, stick a piece of gauze in there and say bite on it. After

the tooth is removed, the socket has to be completely cleaned so that

complete healing can occur. If tissue such as torn pieces of

ligaments or periosteum is left in the socket and covers the bone,

the bone will tend to heal over the top, leaving a hole in the bone,

and new bone cannot form. This hole can persist for the rest of the

patient's life. It is a chronic infection that is called an alveolar

cavitational osteopathosis or cavitation. This means that there is an

infected cavity in the bone. These bone infections are only now being

seriously researched. If they are fairly easy to prevent by proper

socket cleaning, why is this not being done? But many if not most

dentists have never heard of cavitations.

DETOXIFICATION Detoxing refers to the elimination from the body of

the toxic dental materials that are being held by the body on or

within its cells. For every year the toxins have been implanted, it

may take your body a month to detox itself. If the metals have been

in 20 or 30 years, expect it to take 20 or 30 months to get the

majority of the mercury out of the body's tissues, although it may be

impossible to get it completely out of every cell in the body. The

mercury in a filling would not be toxic if it would stay within the

filling, but no metal is stable in the mouth. Getting mercury out of

the brain may take longer. Fortunately, once toxins are no longer

added, the problems they cause should begin to reverse as healing

begins. The body has ways to detox itself, but they are slow. The

patient can help the detoxing process by eating nutritiously and

maintaining good bowel and urinary elimination, which are major exit

routes for toxins. Nutritional supplements may help detox the body.

Vitamin C is very effective in detoxing the body. It is an

antioxidant or a free radical scavenger because it neutralizes free

radicals. Vitamin C is so effective that it will also neutralize the

anesthetics used to numb the teeth and gums because they are free

radicals. For example if a patient is taking 1000 mg or more per day

as is commonly recommended, it may neutralize the anesthetic, making

it difficult or impossible for the person's mouth to get numb enough

to do his fillings. It is recommended that you taper down to less

than 1000 mg on the days prior to the treatment and the day before

and the morning before treatment do not take any vitamin C. Right

after treatment it is a good practice to take 1000 mg to protect you

from the mercury released during the treatment. The use of saunas or

moderate exercise may help sweat out toxins, but don't push too hard.

Some mercury-free dentists recommend special IV solutions (chelation

therapy) to aid in detoxing.

X-RAYS If you take vitamin C, X-rays probably won't bother you at

all. Modern X-ray machines have much reduced power. I take very few X-

rays. If you don't get cavities, I can go three years without X-rays.

Some dentists take X-rays every six months. I take a panoramic X-ray

which is the big one which shows everything down to the bone and

shows the cavitations and sinuses very well. That is not very much

radiation. If you want damaging X-rays, go to the hospital and have

those full body plates taken, and you will get more X-rays in two

minutes than you get in a dental office in ten lifetimes. Use a lead

apron and take vitamin C and you will be protected.

DENTAL TATTOOS occur when mercury is ground into the tissue or a hunk

of mercury is left in the gum when they do a root canal and go in

through the gum and put mercury at the end of the root and sew it

back up and it bleeds into the gums and into the bone and it can be

just awful. If you have this problem, you would have to have a

surgeon look at it and make the choice whether to leave the tattoo or

have it removed if it is possible without damaging too much tissue.

I wrote Tooth Truth so that patients could protect themselves. People

used to take the information that I wrote in Hulda e's books, go

to a dentist and ask him to remove their mercury, and the dentist

would give them $20,000 worth of crowns. So these people often ended

up worse off. So you can't just rely on the goodness of the dentist

to protect you, even if they are mercury free dentists. You must take

responsibility for yourself.