Photo: "Doc says I need a root canal. I'd settle for the Suez Canal."
The second most requested subject I get is about root canal therapy, and there has been so much mis-information that I thought it's time to set the record straight.
When the nerve to a tooth dies for whatever reason, be it blunt force trauma, dental decay, or deepening gum disease, the remnants of that nerve tissue become a tasty delicacy that attracts bacteria from all over the body. It is like
being invited to a picnic with "free, all you can eat" signs posted all over your body.
When people eat, we form waste products, but we have an elaborate digestive system to take these wastes our of our body. When germs eat, they form waste products, too, but these wastes accumulate at the site of the tooth because there is no digestive
system to get rid of them.
Some of these wastes are quite toxic. New research shows they are powerful enough to induce premature births in pregnant women. They have also been shown to cause cardiovascular problems for adults of both sexes. You may recall
the case of a young child in Baltimore a few years ago where the boy actually died as a result of an untreated dental infection.
So the Big Question is: What can be done about this situation where the nerve to a tooth has died?
In two words, not much!
From time to time, I will read in various chat groups a post from someone who claims to have been able to reverse the death of a tooth nerve. Sorry, I don't believe it because my experience shows otherwise.
I have tried electroacupuncture and all other forms of frequency medicine, including pad, plasma and combined use devices. Went to our large, local Chinatown and bought Chinese herbal concoctions. Brewed regular herbal potions, including
colloidal silver, echinacea, golden seal, and hypericum, and everything else short of alchemy (turning lead into gold). Some of these may help to "cool down" the situation, especially in a person with a strong Immune System, but none of these
approaches will solve the problem, long term.
Let me be more blunt: In more than four decades of practice, I have never been successful in getting a dead nerve to heal. |
I have occasionally been able to reverse the dying process under limited, optimal
conditions. When a nerve dies, it dies, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either flat-out wrong- or they have truly figured a way to turn lead into gold.
In acute situations, there are nosodes available which act, in a loose manner of speaking, like an allergy vaccine. Nosode preparations containing weakened dental abscess and weakened
dental granuloma material are very effective in relieving pain and limiting swelling and the spread of infection. These are best used as short term, stop-gap therapy.
Unfortunately, quality-controlled, non-radionically produced nosodes, in other words, preparations containing actual sustance, are becoming hard to find at present, and the likelihood is
that Federal regulators, in their wisdom, will remove such products from the marketplace in the not-too-distant-future.
So: What options are there to treat a dead nerve? There are only three:
First, you can choose to do nothing at all. Of course, that leaves you with an infection in your jaw where pus and other toxins are accumulating. You can tell this is happening when you notice a small swelling or "gum boil" high
up on the gum tissue over the dead tooth. If the swelling grows large enough, you will get substantial pain until the pressure inside the "gum boil" causes it to rupture. Then, the swelling gets much smaller and the pain subsides or disappears,
but you will swallow the pus, further spreading the possibility of additional infection. Not nice.
And here is where so many people make a great mistake:
Absence of pain does not mean the problem is solved, The infection is still there. It builds up a little then bursts, like before. And every time this happens, you are swallowing the infectious material
on a continuing basis. |
This is not smart, because dealing with the pus and infectious material becomes a chronic
drain on your Immune System. Diseases your body would ordinarily be able to fight off may now overpower you and make you sick. ** See Bonus Section #1 below for additional information relating diseased teeth to causing disease in distant
body organs.
A second possibility is to take the infected tooth out. The infected tissue will be removed at the same time, so that problem, at least, is solved. This is hardly non-invasive, but it will eliminate the problem of infection. **
See Bonus Section #2 below for additional information relating to NICO (neuralgia inducing cavitational osteonecrosis) infections.
Removing the tooth doesn't solve everything, however, especially if the tooth is an upper front tooth that now shows an ugly space every time you open your mouth, or if it is a functioning back tooth that now has no opponent to chew
against. **See
Bonus Section #3 below for additional information on options for replacing (or not) missing teeth.
The final possibility is to begin root canal therapy. In this case, a
small access hole is made in the tooth so the dentist can go inside it and remove the dead (or dying) nerve. Yes, it sounds scary, but with modern anesthetics, it can be done fairly easily and completely painlessly, except for the pain in your wallet
or pocketbook.
Once all the nerve tissue is gone, the inside of the tooth is sterilized, then filled with some sort of non-reactive filling material. The pain and infection are gone, the tooth is no longer a source of disease, and you can get on with your life.
There is controversy in the holistic dental community about the whole process of root canal therapy. ** See Bonus Section #4 below for what I recommend to my patients about root canal therapy.
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Bonus Section
1
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How teeth can cause dease in other organs of your body |
Dr. Reinhard Voll, a German physician recognized as the Father of Electroacupuncture, proved that teeth are connected to distant body organs along the acupuncture meridians. He felt that if you left a dead tooth in the
mouth, it would prevent the normal flow of electrical energy along the meridian, and thus cause disease to whatever organ was on that meridian.
I had a case where a gentleman from a distant city came to me regarding his unsuccessfully treated and life-threatening prostate cancer. Examining him, I found he had an abscessed upper front tooth. According to Dr. Voll, this tooth
is on the Uro-Genital Meridian, and thus is energetically related to the prostate gland. We removed the tooth and the prostate, over the course of the next several months, reverted to a benign state. |
Bonus Section
2 |
Can having a root canal treathed tooth leave dangerous, infectious tissue behind? The NICO delima. |
At its simplest, a NICO is just a cavity, a hole in the bone. The very existence of such a condition is disputed among dentists. If you believe in the condition, and I do, then it is explained that such a hole in the
bone can come from leaving behind small remnants of infected nerve tissue following root canal treatment.
There are "biological dentists" who feel every root canal treated tooth is a source of this condition. We'll call them the Anti-root-canal-dentists because they feel no dead tooth, with or without
a nerve, should be left in the mouth. They advise their patients to have all such teeth removed because there is always the risk of chronic disease.
Although I accept the concept of NICO, I do not agree that root canal treatment should not be done. To me, advising a patient to have non-vital teeth removed to prevent chronic disease is the same as advising a woman to have her
breasts removed as a means of preventing breast cancer.
The concept of Cavitation is not widely taught in dental schools. Most often, establishing the diagnosis of a cavitation is based on X-rays. Where a "biologic dentist" sees holes in the bone, a conventionally
trained dentists sees "artifacts", much the same way biologists dismissed the different stages of cells Gunther Enderlein saw in his microscopes a century ago..
In medicine, we often establish a diagnosis based on symptoms associated with a particular condition. A child wakes up complaining of a painful throat; Mom finds her child has a fever, and when she calls the pediatrician, the presumptive
diagnosis is Strep Sore Throat. Case Closed.
So it makes matters worse when you look at the symptoms "biologic dentists" associate with cavitations:
Deep bone pain and pressure;
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A sour, bitter taste;
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Sharp, shooting pain in the jaws;
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Chronic maxillary sinusitis;
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A history of large dental fillings;
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Multiple root canals and root canal surgery
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Difficult tooth extraction and subsequent "dry socket"
Really, not a terribly specific list, is it? If you are a dentist, on the basis of such symptoms, you are sticking your neck out pretty far into legal 'disaster land' to recommend removal of teeth to a suffering patient, even
if you are correct!
Tell you a story: I had a "biologic dentist" friend who had a "movie star" practice on the West Coast. A patient came to him complaining about severe arthritic pains that were becoming so uncomfortable, it was impacting her ability to act onstage.
She had just completed a very extensive reconstruction of her mouth, prior to making an important movie, and now that the shoot was over, she decided she couldn't continue to live with the constant pain.
On examining her, he discovered all of her beautiful, expensive caps and crowns had been placed over teeth that had been treated with root canal therapy. He advised her to have the entire reconstruction removed, thousands of dollars worth of dentistry
taken out, then re-re-constructed again. "That will take care of your arthritic pains", she later testified in court when she sued him because his advice failed to eliminate her pain.
She had suffered horribly. He lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, lost more in having to pay her subsequent
medical and dental expenses, and lost his license to practice to boot.
Like I have emphasized all along, I strive to find the simplest, least invasive solution. Advising people to have all their root canal treated teeth removed is certainly neither simple nor non-invasive. |
Bonus Section
3 |
Options for replacing missing teeth - or not. |
In our society, you just can't walk around with a missing front tooth. If you have an abscessed upper front tooth and do not want a root canal treatment to permit you to keep it, after it is removed, you will have to put something in
its place.
These days, the current method of preferred treatment is to have an implant placed where the tooth used to be, then make a cap or crown to fit over the implant and restore the smile. This is expensive, involves multiple surgeries, and may require
a number of appointments with several different dentists.
I tend to be conservative, so I held off recommending implants to my patients for a number of years until I was convinced there were no problems of "bio compatibility". Decades have passed and my concerns were unfounded; implants are a good
way of solving the problem of a missing tooth.
The same holds true for abscessed back teeth, especially if the tooth to be removed is between several others and also functions against a tooth in the opposite jaw. To take that tooth out and leave the space results in the other teeth shifting
around, throwing the bite off balance and causing a number of other problems to develop. Implants and caps/crowns are useful solutions here, too. Understand, however, there are solutions available, other than implants, that are less involved and much
less expensive, depending on your situation. |
Bonus Section
4 |
What I recommend to my patients about root canal therapy. |
I had a singular honor to have studied with Dr. Voll. He was a genius, made enormous contributions to the field of energy medicine, and his thinking must be respected. But I think his recommendation that no one should
have any root canal treatments- is extreme. Not everyone ends up with allergic reactions to the materials used in root canal therapy. My experience has been that very few people experience cavitation because of root canal treatments. Not many patients
show evidence of disease in organs along meridian pathways that can be traced back to a root canal treated tooth.
Given a choice, I prefer to try root canal therapy first.
But I test my patients to be sure they are not allergic to whatever materials I am going to use, and I always inform them of what organs may be impacted by altered
energy patterns along the involved meridians. |
Biologic test kits have been developed that permit a dentist to check after a root canal therapy has been done to be sure your body is not producing any poisonous toxins at the site of the root canal treatment
If it turns out that a person really cannot tolerate a "dead tooth" on the acupuncture meridian, or toxins are being produced, you can always remove the tooth later. But if you start by removing the tooth first, there is no second chance.The
tooth will not grow back!
Remember- Simple. Non-Invasive |
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