Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - “Stop Using Mouthwash & Start Using Mouth Tape.” - Holistic Dentistry With Dr. Kelly Blodgett
Episode Date: March 22, 2024Is your dentist lying about how many fillings you need? Is a root canal ever a good idea? Find out what red flags to look for in a "holistic dentist," why mouth taping is the new wellness tr...end you need to implement, how mouthwash is wrecking your mouth's microbiome, and MUCH MORE. Every dentistry question you have is answered in this hilarious, educational, and fun interview with one of the top holistic dentists in the country, Dr. Kelly Blodgett. Follow Dr. Kelly Blodgett on Social Media: Instagram | / blodgettdentalcare Facebook | / drblodgett Youtube - @Blodgettdentalcare Learn more about Dr. Kelly Blodgett’s practice and see him speak on his 2024 Toxic Tooth Tour! https://www.blodgettdentalcare.com/to... If you’re looking for a dentist near you, here are a couple Dr. Blodgett recommended. https://iabdm.org/https://iaomt.org/ . Get ticket details for Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit at ywls2024.com and use code ALEX for 25% off admission! Interested in making a tax deductible donation to support The Spillover? ☕️ Visit https://donate.tpusa.com/donate to contribute to guest travel, set needs and more! . Ditch artificial fragrances for your family by switching to ALEAVIA organic prebiotic body wash and use code: ALEX15 for 15% off. https://www.aleavia.com/ Support American farms and shop GOOD RANCHERS. Get $25 Off and a FREE Easter Ham valued at $118! https://www.goodranchers.com/ Elevate your skincare routine with NIMI SKINCARE! Go to https://www.nimiskincare.com/ and use promo code ALEXCLARK to get 10% off your order. . Looking for like-minded friends? Join the Cuteservative Facebook group: / 1234544066933796 Interested in making a tax deductible donation to support The Spillover? ☕️✨ Visit https://donate.tpusa.com/donate to contribute to guest travel, set needs and more! Listen at 6 PM PST/ 9 PM EST every Thursday by subscribing to ‘The Spillover’ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify ☕️✨ AlexClark Instagram | / realalexclark Instagram | / poplitics X | https://x.com/yoalexrapz Spotify |https://open.spotify.com/show/7M0C7cl... Shop Real Alex Clark Merch! https://tpusamerch.com/collections/real-alex-clark
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What would it look like to be informed about how certain types of careers can work with you or against you when becoming a mom one day?
That's one of hundreds of topics that will be addressed at this year's Young Women's Leadership Summit.
The Young Women's Leadership Summit is the largest all-women conference in the conservative movement, and it's for all ages.
It's taking place June 7th through 9th, featuring some of the biggest guests we've had on the spillover in the last year, some people I look up to so much in parenting, conservative politics, crimes against children.
and health and wellness that haven't been on the show and more.
Seats are very limited and you don't know anyone going, you say?
Don't have to.
I went by myself the first year and made lifelong friends.
This is my favorite event Turning Point does.
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Join us in celebrating getting back to our roots.
June 7th through 9th in San Antonio, Texas.
Details and tickets at YWLS24.com.
use code Alex for 25% off general admission.
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Find a link in the show notes.
Your oral health, your teeth, your gums, all of it is connected to
and playing a part in what's going on in your body overall.
This week's guest is one of the most recognized leaders
in holistic and biological dentistry in America.
He understands that the mouth is an integral part of the body
and that teeth originate from the same tissues that form your self.
central nervous system. So when a dentist treats the mouth as though it is separate from the rest of the
body, it can ultimately lead to compromised health. He'll be answering questions on everything from
mouth taping at night to root canals. His practice is located in Portland, Oregon. So you know what that
means? Pray for him. Watch this interview by subscribing to real Alex Clark on YouTube. You may not know
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Leave a five-star review.
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You can visit my guest practice
at Blodgett dental care in Portland, Oregon,
or try to see him on his toxic tooth tour,
2024 happening across the country right now.
This weekend, he'll be in Nashville, Austin, Chicago, Denver, and Boston sharing the truth
about toxic practices in traditional dentistry like fluoride, root canals, mercury fillings,
and more.
The link for his website is in the description.
Please welcome holistic dentist, Dr. Kelly Blodgett, to the spillover.
As a holistic dentist, what are the procedures, the ingredients, the practices that are going
on in traditional dentistry that are gravely concerning to you?
Let's start off with the most obvious, like mercury fillings.
You know, the Mad Hatter syndrome, you know, that we used to talk about 200 years ago, people that would play with, you know, mercury absorbing into your body.
We know that it's horribly toxic.
Unfortunately, it's still being used in America.
Many European countries aren't using it anymore, but mercury in your mouth, not good.
It's constantly vaporizing and you inhale it and swallow it.
What are the side effects of it?
It can take time for some people, but mostly it's like neural degeneration.
Like you inhale it, goes to your brain, it degrades the neurons in your brain and, you know, can lead to neurodegenerative issues.
It also has, you know, an energetic issue.
So if you have other metals in your mouth, like gold crowns or titanium implants or metal partial dentures, you know, like you're creating batteries in your mouth,
which can totally disrupt the energetics.
I mean, think about how close, you know, your mouth is to your brain,
and you start shifting the energy that flows through there by adding metals.
And so not the healthiest thing to put into your mouth.
Second thing in my experience, and I've been doing this 25 years now, is root canals.
You know, I was trained to do root canals in dental school,
and it probably took me 15 years of extracting root canals to start absorbing root canals
to start observing how differently they looked when we extracted the teeth,
like how dark and particularly inside where you put the root canal filling,
it could be black.
And finally, I reflected it like it was white and pink stuff when it went in.
Where'd the blackness come from?
And so started looking more deeply into like, why would this occur?
And again, going back to energetics, like when you take the nerve and blood flow out of a tooth
and put in, quote unquote, inert materials,
what happens to the energy flow that goes through that meridian?
And we find that it generally decreases flow.
So every organ tissue that's connected energetically to that tooth
is also going to receive less energy than it was when the tooth was healthy.
So those are biggies.
I do think, is another just, you know, having done this a long time,
observed that the ways and the rates at which we put metal,
into people's mouths without critically considering,
might this human being be sensitive or allergic
to any of the components that are in those materials,
particularly titanium implants, right?
Most, if not all of titanium alloys, have nickel in them.
And, you know, most men that I meet,
they might not know if they respond poorly to cheap earrings.
But most women do.
Oh my gosh.
Wait, that is a real thing.
Getting the cheap jewelry and it irritating you and then, wait, that same material is some of the stuff that they used to fix problems in our teeth?
Right.
Wait, that is a huge, like, aha moment for women.
Yeah.
And it's a bigger, like, kind of smack in the head to men because it's like, what if you're getting this and you don't know?
I mean, how would you know?
Yeah.
So how does holistic dentistry compare to traditional dentistry?
The simplest way I can say this is.
that traditional dentistry, the way that I was trained in school, was very symptomatically driven.
I see a hole, I drill it, I fill it. Very little consideration was given to why did it show up
in the first place, you know, and how might we help the body maintain its own health? The way that
I try to approach a biological and holistic approach to dentistry is to look at those root cause
issues to work in tandem with other health care providers, naturopas, acupuncturist, functional
nutritionists, people like that, osteopaths, to help look at the wholeness of a person's health.
Because my belief system is that the human body was designed to be self-maintaining in health.
But, you know, as you and I both know, I mean, we're exposed to so many things in our life's
journey that have toxicity or can degrade our energy. In dentistry, it's not outside of that at all.
I mean, it's a huge part of it. The interesting thing is that in my experience, it's the one area of
health nobody's looking at. It's like, you know, you go to your physician. I remember years ago,
about 15 years ago, I asked a friend who is a fertility specialist. And I'm like, okay, so who do
you see? He says, well, you know, it's women who either can't get pregnant or
they're not able to maintain a pregnancy.
And so my question to him was, okay, you know, like, where in your health history assessment
do you ask them, have you had mercury in your mouth, or are you being, you know, exposed to fluoride
chronically?
Have you had root canals?
Have you had titanium metal implants in your mouth?
You know, do you have gum disease?
And none of that.
It's like the only question about dentistry was, do you have a dentist?
Yes or no.
I mean, it's just largely ignored.
So, yeah, I think the practice of holistic and biological dentistry is a wonderful thing
at its core.
The challenge today is that from a marketing perspective, there are hundreds, if not
thousands of dental practices, you know, who are putting on a new hat to say we're a
biological practice, we're a holistic practice.
And it begs the question because there's nobody regulating anybody using those terms.
Yeah, how do you know that they're really a holistic dentist?
Right.
And what does it mean if they say that they're holistic?
It might, you know, if you called up and asked to practice, they might say, well, we use ozone and a laser.
And you're like, okay, that's great.
You know, like, tell me more.
Like, well, I don't know.
You know, the doctor's really into the laser.
And I mean, that might be the end of it.
So in all fairness, I think that most dentists who decide to take this path, I mean, it's a lifelong journey to
continue learning and opening your mind and spirit to what people are bringing to you.
And being extremely humble.
I mean, because every week I'm learning from my patients.
Yeah.
So I was going to ask you, did you go to dental school thinking, I want to be a crunchy dentist?
So I became a dentist because I came to Christ in my senior year of college.
And I was just about to start a master's program in psychology.
I thought it was going to be a counselor.
You know, that's what I've envisioned myself doing.
And then God called me to become a dentist.
And what I heard him calling me to do is reverse the negative stereotype and experiences in dentistry.
So when I went to dental school, I knew there was a calling on my life to step forward and try to create more positive experiences for people.
And I would say in the first 15 years of my career, I was trying to do.
that through technology, you know, less invasiveness, help people understand their own oral health
in ways that they couldn't without advanced technologies. And really, it was through the experience,
you know, as a clinician for a decade and a half, I started seeing patterns and themes and realized,
you know, I need to learn a lot more about the total and whole connections of the body. So that just,
you know, started the journey.
I've been on the last 10 years.
Why is the stigma of holistic dentistry that it's less legit?
I think that if you look at the standards, they're big groups.
If we look at, let's take the mercury filling situation.
You know, the American Dental Association for decades has been saying there's no scientific evidence that proves that there's any harm for putting this in people's bodies.
Interestingly enough, I think it was May of 2020.
Remember, people's attention were on other things at the time.
the ADA had released, a press release saying, okay, well, we, we admit that it is being released,
but it's really not too much of a concern unless you're a child six or under or a pregnant woman.
Other than that, it's safe.
We consider it safe.
Imagine if we as a society all agreed, this is no longer acceptable ways to treat humans to chronically expose them to mercury.
I mean, like some of these people, they have mercury in their mouth for 50 years, 60 years, chronically inhaling and swallowing that material.
Imagine if we all decided, you know, that's, and there is enough science out there, by the way, that would, in my opinion, make it conclusive that we shouldn't be putting it in people's mouths at all, any part of their body.
Well, I also don't understand.
We can look at things and say, this material, this is not good for babies.
It's not good for pregnant women.
why would it, why would it be okay for anybody else?
Like if it's too dangerous for a baby or a pregnant woman,
why wouldn't we just say all human beings in general
should not be exposed to this material?
Right. I mean, that would be reasonable.
It would be reasonable.
It's too reasonable.
The crunchy living, the truth is they think it's like so crazy.
It's like, actually, no, this is the reasonable way to live.
Right.
I find it interesting today, like, you look at people using glass jars again.
I mean, the things that my parents were using 50 years ago
when I was a little kid and we had a garden in our own yard,
you know, within the Portland city limits.
We had a garden and grew our own food, and that was kind of normal in the 60s and 70s.
Now it's come back to like, you know, being kind of hip, you know, hipster cool to actually grow your own food and make it be organic and put things in glass instead of a tupperware, you know, a jar or whatever container, you know.
So what's kind of confusing to me is that there's this term holistic dentist and then there's this term biomimetic dentistry.
I saying that right?
Yeah, it's another phrase that was developed.
What is the difference?
Are they real?
Yep.
You know, what is that?
It's one better than the other.
Biomimetic was a phrase that came out maybe 15-ish years ago.
You know, like when academies start coming up and saying like, usually it's a kind of an
inspirational leader who says, hey, I'm going to start this institute.
And, you know, I'm the guru of biomimetics.
I mean, just if you look at the definition of the term, it's mimicry of, you.
biological tooth structure, meaning we're going to rebuild this two-layered tooth, enamel and dentin,
into layers that mimic tooth, which is smart. I mean, I've been doing that since I got into practice.
I never marketed myself as a biomimetic dentist. It just seems like common sense dentistry to me.
But when you consider that the standard is, cut a big hole and shove metal in it, you know,
I can see why they're trying to differentiate between the process that they're doing.
which is perhaps more health promoting.
But why do you need that if we already have holistic?
Like if that already exists, holistic dentist,
why did they have to create this third term?
Let's say a whole,
and I know this is getting into a little bit of tooth nuance.
Tooth nuance.
I know, right?
People do get excited, you know?
It is helpful to understand that the tooth is not like a rock.
It's not a piece of wood.
It's two distinctly different layers, the enamel,
which when you and I talk and smile at each other,
we see enamel.
and then you have dentin underneath that,
that it's made of more collagen.
You've got, you know, tubes through it.
You've got little nerve fibers that stick into it.
When you cut into those two different structures
and try to bond your dental materials,
they're very different.
You know, one is okay with resin bonding.
The other really isn't.
So you have to do thoughtful techniques
to minimize sensitivity,
because last thing people want is,
you know, they go in and they have a dental procedure.
now their tooth hurts worse than it did before.
So being biomimetic, and again, it's a marketing term as much as it is,
kind of a term of restorative functionality, for lack of a better way of saying it,
we see a lot of people in our practice who go to a holistic dentist to get their mercury out,
let's say.
Their teeth have never been sore.
So they get all their mercury out, and God willing, they did it in a safe way and protected
the patient.
they put all this composite into their teeth,
and their teeth are sensitive now,
and they were never sensitive with, you know.
So it's like, well, what happened in that process?
Just because you shove a white material
or a tooth-colored material into the tooth
doesn't mean that it's going to work out perfectly.
So there's some thoughtfulness that somebody,
I know this is all semantics,
but somebody who says I'm holistic,
but isn't practicing in a biomimetic fashion,
you know, may end up with,
results that are less than desirable.
Okay. So is it better if you're Googling in your city to go for the dentist that says
I'm a biomedic dentist or to go with the one that says holistic or they're both a synonym
essentially and you have to call them and ask them specific things to see which one's legit.
Yeah. I mean, I bang this drum a lot. The best, I'm going to say this. I try to,
I try to steer clear of extremes, but in my opinion, the best way to find a dentist who's going to
do a great job and with whom you feel comfortable is to pick up the phone and call or email.
I mean, sometimes emails work as well.
Get to know who you're trusting your health to because that's, you know, these are permanent
decisions.
It's not like calling a functional nutritionist and they say, try this for three months and
if it doesn't work, we're going to do something else.
When you have dental work put in your head, this may be for life.
So we want to be able to trust the care, trust the materials, trust the diagnostics, you know, trust the communication.
So, and that requires work.
Yeah.
You know, it's like any relationship.
It requires some work.
And there's a special test that a lot of these holistic dentists will offer that will tell you all of the different dental materials that you are allergic to.
And it could cost a couple hundred dollars, but why do you believe that it's worth it?
So the test that we use is called biocomp.
And what I love about it is it directs us towards the materials that are the least reactive for that human being.
There's not a single human being that's the same as another.
So, and I've helped many people where they had great dentistry done.
Beautiful dentistry, all ceramic, you know, kind of looks biomimetic.
Turns out they're highly reactive to what's in that specific material.
So if you know ahead of time what's safe for your body, wouldn't that make so much more?
more sense if you want it to last for life.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, it's, in my opinion, that's well worth the few hundred dollars you might
spend.
And I will say this, just for the clarifications.
It's probably good for three to five years, primarily because it's not like your
genetics change or your immune system changes that much, but the formulation of products
changes.
And so Biocomp, thankfully, that's part of how they, you know, run their business.
is they do the homework every year
to make sure that those materials
are the same, and if they've changed,
they make those changes in their tests.
You are right about it's not you that's changing.
It's the manufacturers,
because I think about Teflon.
And Teflon, you know,
everybody became aware of how poisonous that was.
And so they just changed.
They just used different letters.
It's just a different term now.
And people think it's safe.
They're like, it's non-toxic, blah, blah.
And so now they just,
They don't even realize it's actually Teflon.
But so they just change things.
They change the names.
They remarket things.
And so, yeah, I think what you're saying is right.
Because we just don't know what's going on.
Well, in the dental world, I mean, I'm this going back again, maybe 15 years ago.
But I remember when BPA was a big thing.
You know, like plastics of BPA.
And so what do you think dental companies came out with?
We have BPA free composite now.
Well, they just changed the BPA to like BPB now.
You know, it's still like it's still.
Still chemical to which you might be sensitive, but it's, you know, it's a great way for people to hop on board of marketing, you know, bandwagons.
How are our teeth connected to other parts of our body? Tell me about oral and systemic health.
You know, imagine you're in dental school and you're learning about embryology and looking like, okay, so where do, where does your eye cell and your tooth cell and your toenails?
Like, where do these things originate from? And so the teeth originate from the same.
same tissues that ultimately form your central nervous system.
So energy flows through every part of our body, every cell, you know, and it's kind of funny
how we think we're, or we treat people, I should say, as though we're inert, you know,
when in fact, like just being in each other's presence, there's an energy that we share because
of our electromagnetism.
Like, that's just scientific fact.
but we wonder why it's so uncomfortable to get into somebody's space to be in doing an invasive
procedure and you know when I think about like why I believe God called me to do this like we've been
doing this for centuries ignoring the fact that when we don't have like a loving trusting
relationship between us how can we then perform care on systems that are integrated to your
whole body and just pretend like it's nothing you know it's like it's like
There's going to be even emotions.
Like teeth for people who are emotionally heightened, of course, are going to be more sensitive.
I mean, it's interesting.
Like for patients in our practice, we'll oftentimes have them use a pemp unit, like a pulse
electromagnetic field therapy unit, and then some biophotonics, like a red light,
infrared light bed before their treatment.
Hold on a minute.
You're doing red light before your treatments?
Red and infrared light therapy.
I'm obsessed with you.
I have to fly to Portland now.
It's so awesome.
Oh my gosh, I'm obsessed with Red Light.
So that's a whole tangent, but I just think that is one of the greatest, like my favorite health and wellness little things lately.
I love it.
It helps a lot with me because I have like autoimmune issues and inflammation and joint pain and stuff.
So it's just, it's really helpful.
Well, all we hear is positive things from patients.
You know, they come back over.
We have like kind of a wellness wing side that we've developed over the years because we see the benefits.
And they come back to the dental side and it's like, wow, you know, everything's down regulated.
I mean, how nice is that?
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What are some small warning signs in your mouth, like little grooves or sores or things
that somebody could just feel around or look in the mirror and see right now that would tell them you might have certain vitamin deficiencies or there's certain problems with other organs in your body based on your mouth.
Sure. I mean, the list is so long. Let's say we're looking at teeth and there's a considerable amount of wear. And the person's 35. Let's say they've lost two. They've worn through their own enamel. I think of like a, you know, let's say God gave you 100,000 mile tire, you know, supposed to last you forever, you know, in your mouth.
and you burn through it in your first 35 years or, you know, maybe 30 years of adult life?
It's like, okay, what's going on there?
Is it you just enjoy grinding your teeth?
I mean, maybe that would be on the list.
Seems kind of silly.
But, you know, is it that you're sucking on acidic things all day long while you're
staring at your computer and typing away and under stress?
Is it that you have chronic parasitic infection in your gut?
I mean, there'd be a list.
And this would be where, you know, we is holistic.
or do you want to call it biological,
or do you want to call it functional, integrative,
or whatever the word is you're using, right?
Someone who cares enough to reach out to another health care provider
where we start connecting with their health team to find out,
tell me about what you're seeing, you know,
have you done stool sampling?
What are you finding that's going on in their gut?
What might be impacting their reason for which they are clenching and grinding?
It's like your tooth detective.
Yes, yeah.
Most of our new patients say like,
this is like Sherlock Holmes stuff.
Yes.
This is how we get to the bottom of it, you know?
And it's great because then once we remove roadblocks that have been presented for that person's energy and healthfulness,
then the body becomes, you know, healthy on its own and self-maintaining.
Right.
Okay.
So what are some other sores or visual things that you guys see that might say you have something wrong somewhere else?
Sure.
And the tongue can be a really good indicator depending on, like let's say you had redness at the tip of your.
your tongue, different from the rest of the mouth.
So when we're doing our photographs of new patients,
you know, that might be one of the photographs we would take is like,
go ahead and stick out your tongue, we're going to take a photo of your tongue.
So we can objectively look and they go, huh, isn't that interesting, you know,
or maybe they've got massive scalloping on the side of their tongues because, you know,
maybe there's an airway issue.
Maybe they had orthodontics to squish their arch together, you know.
But let's say the red tip of the tongue, I would ask some questions, like,
tell me about, you know, what's gone on with your heart?
Or, and they might say, well, my heart's fine.
So, okay, well, you know, tell me about, like, did you ever have wisdom teeth extracted?
Oh, yeah, you know, I had these wisdom teeth out.
I was probably like, you know, 19 and how was the recovery?
Well, I had two dry sockets on the lowers, you know, it was pretty bad.
They put me on antibiotics, blah, blah, blah.
And we start thinking, like, is it possible that those sites where your wisdom teeth were
that are connected to your heart meridian?
that would also show up on the tip of your tongue, right?
It's all reflective of the same system
that that tip of the tongue would be giving us a clue
about what other questions to ask about your health.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Yep.
Or, you know, you see like the sides of people's cheek
where they're biting on them all the time.
Oh, I do see that.
What's up with that?
It could be a number of things, you know.
This is when we pull out our list
and start asking questions.
Okay, well, speaking of asking questions,
So I have loved my dentist
gone to a traditional dentist for years and years
and they're amazing and they're great
and I would recommend them.
But just because I'm like in this crunchy journey,
I've been wanting to switch all of my doctors
to being holistic.
Like I got a holistic eye doctor and all this.
So I go to this holistic dentist
and everything seemed fine to me
because I don't know any better
and I'm just like she says she's holistic.
Okay.
And then she offers me Botox.
Yeah.
Is that normal for holistic?
dentist to offer Botox.
For my practice, that would not be something I would bring in.
I do understand that dentists are doing it as an additional revenue stream or they're doing
it to decrease clenching or whatever reason that they're using to legitimize putting botulinum
toxin in people's bodies.
Personally and professionally, like, I don't feel that's consistent with a holistic mindset.
That's what I'm worried about because I'm not anti-Botox.
My mind is open.
Maybe I will be in a few months.
But right now I'm not anti-Botox, but I'm anti-Botox coming from my holistic dentist.
Yeah.
So that was weird.
Okay, I'm glad to know that I feel reassured that my gut instinct was telling me I need to find a different holistic dentist.
Yeah.
And I think you make a great point because it's like, is it within their rights to offer that?
Absolutely.
And if they can get training and they love doing it and there's good reason for them to do it, great.
I don't think that that's, I think when you start mixing these terms and that's why it's so challenging to say like, well, we're holistic.
but then they're offering you thing.
It'd be like you go in and they say we're a holistic practice.
And they've cleaned your teeth and they've made, you know,
maybe there's some patchuli oil in this corner or whatever.
I mean, I'm being funny.
But, you know, like, what if they then say,
okay, so we're, Alex, we're now getting your fluoride trays ready for you.
That's the thing.
It would be the same to me.
The way I felt them offering me Botox would be like walking into a holistic doctor's
office and them saying, by the way, couldn't we offer you a Coca-Cola?
That's to me.
I'm like, wait a minute.
That doesn't make sense in this environment.
Yeah.
Twice a year, I'll have my Dr. Pepper.
But, like, I don't want that coming from my holistic dentist.
Right.
Could an unknown tooth infection actually be preventing someone from losing weight?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
So if you think about chronic infection, imagine you have, I mean, just we'll use a silly example,
but it would make perfect sense.
If you had a massive infection, the whole palm of your hand was bleeding and oozing pus.
This is absolutely disgusting, of course.
but like that's what was happening.
And you're like, no, no, it's been this way for three years.
It's fine.
You know, I mean, I just kind of wash it off and wear a glove, put some gauze in there.
It's fine.
You know, and you went to talk to a health savvy physician.
They're like, wait, and you're here for weight loss?
Like, you're in a state of chronic inflammation.
Your whole body is aware that that's going on.
Okay.
Now, this is very obvious.
The problem with root canals is that we take out the nerve, we take out the blood supply,
we, you know, drill it and fill it.
The entirety of the root that's all made of Denton, as I mentioned before,
it's porous, like a sponge.
The pores are 10 to 20 times wider.
The diameter is wider than the microbes that live in that environment under the gums.
It was like they have no problem, you know, filling up the tooth,
which is where all the black stuff comes from, you know.
I started sending these roots out about eight years ago
to a lab in Denver that does DNA diagnostics to help us see what's in there.
It's shocking, you know, bacteria, viruses, parasites, you know.
I know.
And by looking at the root, too, you can't, you know, because many people who come to see me,
they've read my stuff.
And, you know, they remember the spooky looking teeth, of course.
Like, oh, my gosh, did my teeth look?
Did it look horrible?
I'm like, yeah, I mean, it looked a little bit dark, but it didn't look spooky.
But let's send it in and find out what's been living in there because my eyes don't see microbes.
And so if your body, you're saying if your body is focused on that infection that you are not even aware is there, it's not going to cooperate in losing weight or doing these other things that you need it to do.
Literally those microbes are entering your bloodstream from those dead teeth into your lymphatic drainage system, which goes right back into your venous blood supply and circulates.
So how are you going to, you know, get away from chronic inflammation when what's in your mouth, when you have root canals, is like,
letting microbes come in 24-7.
I'm thinking about all of the people that try to write off all of this, like, non-toxic
living, whatever.
And I'm listening to what you say.
And I'm like, when was the last time that you had any doctor explain things like that
to you?
How can you say that this stuff is a gimmick or that it's not worth your time or it's not
worth it?
It's not worth the money.
No one else is willing to share that information.
That could really change your life.
Yeah.
When I started my toxic tooth tour, three, no, four weeks ago in Miami.
we had a root canal specialist come.
Her friends who were nutritional therapists were like,
you've got to come to this.
I think you'd really like it.
And I was like, wow, I mean, that's amazing.
I've never had a root canal specialist come to one of my talks before.
And I've got to say it was such a wonderful connection
and her eyes got opened to at least thinking about,
I mean, she and I just talked this week on the phone.
I said, here's my cell phone.
You call me if you ever have questions,
just reach out to me. I'd be happy to mentor or guide or whatever, just offer whatever I can
to help you find what makes you most happy in the profession. And she's been having a real,
you know, test of faith, so to speak, about going straight from dental school into
root canal specialty and never really questioning what are the health ramifications. She understands
very clearly what the health benefits of a root canal are. You get to keep the tooth, you can chew on it,
it looks nice. Those are real benefits, absolutely.
but at what cost.
And, you know, I mean, I present a lot of cases when I, when I'm,
or people's stories, I should say, when I'm doing my toxic tooth to her.
And it really woke her up.
And it was, is, I'm so glad, right?
Because now at least she's thinking, like, okay, what, what's this mean for me and my profession?
Well, that's the thing.
I think there's a lot of hygienists, dentists, I mean, just people in the dental industry who have
been in traditional dentistry and they do have some kind of moral issues with some of the
stuff going on and they're considering leaving. What is your advice for people that are currently
working in dentistry that feel this poll like maybe I should leave and switch to more
holistic dentistry? Yeah. I encourage them to reach out to me so I can teach them how to run a
practice like we've, I've learned through the School of Hard Knocks for 25 years what it takes to
build a practice that first and foremost starts with the connection of human being to human being.
Like our Mondays now, and for the past almost four years, all we do on Mondays is meet new people.
That's it. We don't do any dentistry. We don't pick up lasers, drills, anything like this.
We might use the red light therapy bed, you know. But no dentistry. It's one-on-one connection.
Each person gets two, maybe two and a half hours of time.
That's another thing. When you talk about the differences between traditional
dentistry and holistic dentistry, two and a half hours to meet with your dentist and go over
everything that's been going on with you to do that detective work. Yeah. That's not happening in your
regular dentist appointment, your regular doctor's appointment, your wellness checkups are 10 minutes.
Yeah. Well, and, you know, healthcare providers. And I would say that medicine somewhere along the
line, you know, just got, they got off path. It's like, you know, we're no longer listening to people.
it's all about numbers and what pills can we prescribe you.
You know what I mean?
Like it's just, and dentistry is kind of the same way.
If we think that in 90 seconds when the dentist comes in, oh, oh, hi, Alex.
You know, I'm Dr. Bollett.
Good to meet you.
And go and open your mouth there.
We've never met, by the way.
You know, how weird is that?
Just, you know, go ahead and just open your mouth and you do it, you know, because you're like,
okay, I don't want to avoid conflict here.
And you do it.
And they're, oh, yep, you need four fillings and a crown.
And you can schedule that next Tuesday.
And then they wheel out on your little chair.
And then you just, you, you escape into the abyss of the office on that little wheelchair.
Yes.
The expert is spoken.
What are you, you know, like who are you to question, let alone even understand?
So, so what about hygienists?
I mean, what are they supposed to do?
Just say I'm putting my two weeks in and then apply to a holistic dentist office, or how does that work?
The most effective onboardings that I have had with dental hygienists that we hire are those who came straight out of school and they don't know anything.
Yeah, because it's easier to.
to shape them to be doing things the correct way than reversing what they've already learned.
In the deepest sense of humility that we can, like we understand there's not a whole lot we know
about you, you know, I'm going to learn more and more by asking. The idea that like, well,
my job is to teach you and tell you, that really doesn't hold water, you know, I mean, we,
that might be true for a few of the patients you see, you know, but most people,
people have been struggling with trying to say something or share an experience or what's,
and we don't listen.
We don't take the time to ask questions.
So it's a massive part of our practice.
I mean, every single morning, believe this or not, we sit down and go over emails and
phone calls and we review them and we talk as a group about, do we feel like the energy of
how we were responding or considering responding to this email?
How's the energy feel?
Is there a more effective way or a more effective way?
efficient way we could ask or state or what have you. So, and this is why when I think back 30 years,
like, why did God have me go through four years of, you know, working on a crisis line, working in
high schools, working on communications with other human beings? It's to appreciate that communication
is massive, whether it's providing health care, working, you know, living with your spouse or
raising children or whatever, you know, I mean, communication is a huge skill that isn't
required to become a doctor or a dentist.
Do Dennis ever tell you that you need a filling when you really don't?
In my experience, yes.
So about a year ago, when I, we went from having an associate dentist and me and four hygienists,
we went down to just me and pretty much one hygienist and another part time.
So our capacity to provide the same cleaning and hygiene services changed massively.
The point of me sharing this is that all those people used to come to us for their
re-care services had to go somewhere else.
So in the past year-ish, we have received a number of phone calls from patients.
And I'm thinking of one young lady in particular.
I started seeing her at the age of 12.
She's now 23.
So I've pretty much seen her since she got all of her permanent teeth until a year ago.
She went to dentist X who said you need like, I don't remember, it was eight or ten fillings.
Whoa.
Unbelievable.
And so I asked her like, well, do you, did they share why?
And, you know, they didn't really.
Like your joking point that kind of wheeled out, right?
You know, we need eight fillings and, you know, see you.
They got out of there.
So I said, you know,
have her come in.
We'll take a look.
I mean, she's been a gray patient for 10 years.
We can do her this solid of taking a look.
Let's get the copy of the x-rays that they just took.
And let's compare them to the x-rays we had from 10 years ago when she was 13.
Just for fun.
Well, lo and behold, these areas of, quote, unquote, darkness that they were using to legitimize drilling and filling her teeth have been there for the entire time she's had her adult teeth.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
Because, you know, as a 10-year-old, 11-year-old, when her home care habits weren't so grace, when she was in orthodonic treatment, she developed some loss of mineral.
The body then healed it.
You know, I mean, that's what the body's designed to do.
Body healed that.
Remineralize those teeth, and we've been observing it for years.
It's all fine.
Nothing has changed.
So on first glance, I actually just saw a woman yesterday.
Her husband was like, why didn't you just go see Dr. Ballagia in the first place?
but she went to a new practice as well.
Oh, you need four fillings.
And she's like, okay.
And of course,
and it was so interesting.
It's so fresh in my mind because she just told me this yesterday.
They even told me like,
with your insurance,
it'll only be $40.
And so she's like, wow, you know,
I mean, how nice.
It doesn't cost me anything.
That would be me 100%.
Yeah, like, oh my gosh, it's cheap and you can do it right now.
Great.
What saddened her is then I pulled up the DSLR photos we had taken,
like high resolution photos that we took four years ago of her teeth.
I'm like, okay, do you remember like this is what they looked like?
And yes, there was some stain in the groove of your tooth, which is natural, right?
It's like having a wrinkle from smiling too much.
We're like, we need to resect that.
You know, that that wrinkle is getting in the way of your living.
And, you know, it's only going to be $40.
I mean, it's insane.
But literally they cut her tooth wide open, put a filling in there.
And unfortunately, then her.
bites high, the tooth is sensitive. I'm like, geez, all for something that, based on my experience
of observing her for four years, was completely unnecessary. Okay, but why would they push for her to have an
unnecessary filling if it's only $40? How much are they actually making off that filling? Probably,
I mean, I'm just guessing, right? Let's say it's $300 a tooth and they're doing two of them because they're
right next to each other. So in maybe 30 minutes, they're producing $600, let's say? I mean,
I'm just making up numbers. So it's like the C-Sys.
section epidemic of everybody getting C-sections because it's quick money. We have,
we have Dennis who are just given out feelings like crazy because it's quick, easy money.
Had I not taken the photos when I first met her, how would I know what it ever looked like?
And this is the disservice that I think is happening to so many people because if you don't,
we as providers, if we're not providing you evidence that this is what we see so that you can
understand what it is that we're talking about, how are we to trust that what they're saying
is truthful?
Yeah.
I mean, wouldn't it be nice if we could just trust everybody and we're all on the up and up?
But unfortunately, I mean, I see this all too often where, in my opinion, there's a lot of
inappropriate care.
I mean, we don't ask the question.
First, tell me what's going on in your diet.
You know, for how long have you observed those stains in your teeth?
I mean, is it possible that you have old x-rays from your old dentist?
they don't you know nobody asked for that stuff so it's just like oh I see what it looks like today
uh time to drill and fill do we actually need to get cleanings every six months for a lot of people know
everything in my life is a lie let me just tell you that yeah I went from every six months
diligent my entire life since I was a kid my parents have been very good about that every six months
then I was told recently you got to speed it up you got to come every three so I'm coming every three
and then and finally even though I come every three months out of nowhere they tell me I've got to do
a whole deep clean $2,000 deep clean situation because I've got all, I don't know, all this
gum inflammation or whatever. And I'll tell you in a little bit about more on that and get your
opinion. But I'm just like, I don't know what is real. Yeah. Well, and are there people for whom
that's appropriate? Like, absolutely. It's kind of like somebody who has heart disease. The person
who's out there in, you know, 42 years old, they eat a very healthful diet. They exercise everything.
well, you know, do they need the same prescription of cardiovascular management as the person who smokes two packs a day?
Right. And that's what I didn't understand. I didn't understand you see me every three months. How is all of the sudden I need a deep clean? How did we not see this coming or how did we not curb this before? Like that was weird to me.
Why do some people who eat hardly any sugar keep getting cavities?
Stress would be one of the first things I would ask about. The old idea of like when I was a,
kid that, oh, you know, if you're drinking, you know, a bunch of Dr. Peppers or whatever,
that notion that like it's a soda mouth thing, it doesn't hold as much water today can.
Certainly.
I mean, somebody's drinking Mountain Dew, let's say.
I'm not picking on Mountain Dew.
Just, you know, it's an option.
If they're drinking that all day long, your teeth are going to melt.
The sugar is not going to play well with the microbes in your mouth.
They're going to have a party and make a lot of acid.
And the beverage by itself is acidic.
I mean, look at what they use as a preservative.
You know, you've got phosphoric acid in the soda.
So think about all of the other things that are either sugary and or acidic these days that are very hip and cool.
I mean, have you seen gone by a Starbucks lately that didn't have a line?
Well, just think about their four pump frappuccino that people are sipping on for three to four hours.
And it's my, quote unquote, it's my coffee.
I'm also thinking all of the ultra processed food, doesn't that turn to sugar on our teeth?
Absolutely.
Because people think it's a cracker.
It's not sugar.
That's not causing my cavities.
Refined carbohydrates.
And this goes back over 100 years to Western Price's work, you know, looking at like the diets of native cultures that weren't eating refined products generally had straight teeth, big jaws, open, airways and no decay or gum disease.
Like, wouldn't that be nice?
But we want convenience.
You know, we want to be on our phone sipping our kombucha all day.
You know what I mean?
Do you see a goldfish cracker epidemic of cavities with kids?
Just saw it on the plane today.
Coming to Phoenix.
Goldfish teeth.
Goldfish in hand.
And it's interesting because I was in particular watching the behavior of the probably four-year-old, three-year-old, eating multicolored crackers.
You know, I'm like, ooh, I wonder that those dyes are doing.
But, you know, but as it relates to oral health, so you take the crackery stuff or the squeasy tube stuff.
Like the squeeze applesauce?
Right.
Wait, that's bad.
well, just think about it, sugar, you know, and it's got a lid.
It's not like a, I think back to when I was in high school in the 80s,
if you cracked open a can of Coke, it was a can.
You know, you couldn't put a lid on it.
So you'd share it with your friends and be like,
who can help me to finish this up?
Because I'm going back to class.
You can't take it with you.
Nowadays, everything's a screw top.
So you take a, you know, hit of your whatever, your sugary stuff.
And you're like, great.
You put a lid on it.
You know, 15, 20 minutes later, no, go again.
And people do that.
And it's, kombucha is one of the ones I've seen as though.
It just seems to be trendy these days, you know.
And again, I'm not saying anything against kombucha.
I personally like the flavor.
But if you're putting something that is already acidic and has sugar in it and you're rinsing your mouth with that,
I mean, it takes about a half an hour for your saliva to bring your mouth out of the acid pool.
So imagine if you keep sipping every 15 minutes for two hours, three hours.
three hours, however long it might be, you know, like you're never out of the acid pool.
The teeth are going to lose that battle.
I mean, there's no fancy toothpaste.
There's no nano-hydroxy appetite that's going to, you know, beat out numerous hours of harmful exposure.
What is the truth about fluoride?
Is it a neurotoxin?
Is it rotting our brains?
Because these are the things I'm hearing and I try to Google it and it's like no one is telling the truth, it seems.
Yeah.
So I've leaned into PubMed for that.
When I put in fluoride,
comma, IQ,
the list of studies goes on and on and on about the decreasing of brain function
by measuring IQ of children typically.
I mean, that's typically who the studies are done on,
from the exposure of fluoride.
Now, in all fairness, I believe in fairness,
if you expose tooth enamel to fluoride
and it bonds to an enamel surface,
it absolutely will make the enamel more acid resistant.
And that's been the platform for fluoridation, like since the 50s or whatever.
It's, well, look at that.
You know, I mean, it's going to make your teeth fight against acid.
Isn't that great?
Which really just means, like, now you can eat a riskier diet and get away with it longer, you know.
But there's no way you can put fluoride on a tooth without your cheeks, tongue,
all these mucosal, moist mucosal surfaces rubbing up against it.
You think about fluoride varnishes these days, which is all the rage in the dental offices,
because it's faster.
You know, you get the person out of the chair faster so you can see another person per day.
It's more production.
You put that varnish on the tooth, let it dry up.
As they're going home, I mean, their wet cheek is rubbing up against it.
And you're absorbing, like, oftentimes, like, 5,000 parts per million of fluoride.
It's a ton.
And what does fluoride do to the body that's not good?
A couple of things based on my understanding, both, like, neurology,
neurologically, it degrades nerve functioning.
It also has a negative impact on bone health.
So people who have, you know, like, I think of people who, let's see, lived in Colorado in an area where it was naturally, very highly occurring in fluoride in the water.
We would see it in the teeth.
So fluorosis, big white, sometimes even brown patches on teeth just due to too much fluoride when your teeth were developing.
and also, you know, creates brittle bone issues.
So it's, you think about, like, how many millennia did human beings live on the planet without fluoridated water or, you know, fluoride in your toothpaste and managed, again, you go back to Weston Price's work.
That stuff wasn't in the system and people still had healthy teeth, wide arches, big airways, and didn't have decay.
What about, I cannot say these words,
nano-hydroxiappitate?
Good job.
Did I say it?
You're right in the ballpark.
Allegedly, that's like a good alternative to fluoride or no?
You're asking me at the right time?
I was just at a talk about a month ago about this exact thing with one of the world's leading experts.
Nano-hydroxyapatite, it comes in different forms.
So a lot of people are putting it in products and getting the cheap version where the, it takes a very specific particle size to help aid the body and really the saliva, your natural occurring remineralizer, since we're using big words.
So what we're doing is using nanohydroxyapatite to try to encourage remineralization of teeth.
And that will only occur to maybe a quarter of a millimeter depth into enamel.
And that's that.
And this is supposed to be the safer alternative to fluoride or what?
Yes.
Yeah, I mean, generally speaking.
Is it?
It is safer.
Yes, I would say it's definitely safer.
You're not going to have that we understand now anyway.
The same absorptive issues that you would have neurologically with fluoride.
Okay.
So it's a hot topic.
I think, you know, 10 years from now, what do I?
I mean, I've been doing it long enough to see trends come and go.
It's a hot word, buzzword right now.
Will it still be as hot of a topic, you know, in 10 years?
We'll see.
What are your favorite non-fluoride toothpaste?
I'm using Dr. Jens.
Do you like or no?
I have not tried Dr. Jens.
Okay.
So when I'll have to try.
My personal favorite.
I can only share my personal favorite because I've tried a lot.
You know, there are a lot I don't care for from the taste standpoint, but that's just me.
I like the Jason brand power smile.
When I scan it with my phone using my environmental working group,
Healthy Living app or whatever they're calling it now,
you know,
tests very safe.
So that's what I suggest to people when they ask me.
Like,
well,
what do you think about this?
What do you think about that?
Please pull out your phone,
download this app and scan it and see what the safety level is.
What's the environmental working group determined their safety level to be on the product first?
And then if it's safe, great.
Boka toothpaste.
Wait a minute.
you like or don't like boca.
I like the science of it.
I like that people like it.
I personally don't use it because I don't like the taste.
Because I've heard conflicting things.
I've heard that it's not that great of a toothpaste.
I'm the wrong guy to say this.
I will admit.
But I do have a wife and two daughters and I work with almost all women.
It'd be like trying to say like, well, what's the best shampoo and conditioner?
And it would be like, where are you going to go with that?
See, now I understand what you mean.
I mean, believe me, when my wife and daughters, when they start talking,
about this stuff, I'm like, I really, you know.
Okay.
It escapes me.
So Jason, you like the Jason.
I like it.
But I grew up on crest that was minty and refreshing and, you know, like I have this association
with clean.
What about tooth powder?
Is that a scam?
No, I think there's some tooth powders out there that are actually very helpful.
I judge this a lot by what people tell me they're doing and how, you know, we ask a lot
of questions as we've talked about.
Like even oil pulling, you know, coconut.
oil pulling. I've seen many people where I'm like, wow, whatever you're doing, keep doing it.
Your mouth looks amazing. If what you're doing works, it works. You know, there's no perfect way to do it.
There's no dogmatic way to it's going to help everybody. Is coconut the only oil you should be
pulling with or is there any other options? I've heard of some folks using sesame, but most of the
people that I have met use coconut.
Okay.
And if you,
if you want to try it,
you know,
make sure you spit it in the garbage can,
not in your sink.
Why?
It will harden,
you know,
think about you running cold water down there
and it solidifies.
It becomes like hard oil
once it goes down your pipes.
And if you do enough of that.
Oh, it's like bacon grease?
Uh,
well,
yeah,
like coconut oil,
most coconut oils are hard.
So you take a little spoonful of the hardened oil
and put it in your mouth.
And as your mouth warms it up,
becomes liquid.
Oh my gosh.
Plumbers across America love you.
You should put on your website, number one, Dennis for Plumbers.
Yeah.
I never would have thought of that.
So thank God you said that.
Why are all of these pediatricians telling moms, you need to stop breastfeeding
because your kid's going to get cavities?
I'm not a pediatrician.
I don't know.
I mean, I would say from a biofunctional standpoint, like babies come out of the womb.
Number one, they're, you know, ideally.
they're going to go through the birth canal.
I know that's maybe contrary to a lot of people's birthing experiences.
We've had Dr. Stewart Fishbein on the show to explain this.
We should be able to acknowledge that there is a more ideal way, but it doesn't mean that
you're less of a mother.
Right.
Absolutely.
But there's a biological function to it.
Right.
So similarly, like the act of breastfeeding, and I think Stephen Lynn's book,
The Dental Diet, he reviews Weston Price's work on this so beautifully.
succinctly. So it's not like, you know, a thousand-page read. Just looking at what happens when a
baby's mouth is on a mother's breast, the position of the tongue, the ability to breathe through
their nose, the way that they're training patterns that will then become helpful to their health
throughout their life happen at birth. Are these mothers being told this because they're breastfeeding
like toddlers? Like it's like they have teeth coming in and are breastfeeding and they're saying
this, if these little kids are getting cavities, they're saying it is the breastfeeding. I mean,
Is that accurate?
Well, what I have seen, and, you know, I haven't seen children in my practice
for the most part in 25 years, right?
But when I was first in practice, I shared space with the pediatric dentist.
And I did see a lot of patterns in his practice as well.
What I observed and also through listening to him is that babies and young children
who have open access to breastfeed any in all times,
and particularly through the night.
So like they nurse, nurse, nurse,
you know, as they're getting teeth, let's say,
the sugars from the breast milk are in the mouth,
and then 30 minutes later,
then they, you know, they might become awakened
and they soothe themselves by nursing.
I have seen situations where that chronic exposure
and there's no letting up, you know,
can lead to tooth decay.
But in all things, I mean, there would be a balance.
I mean, it's interesting too,
because you look at, and I'm here to me,
make no judgments about how long mothers breastfeed. There's a lot of different, you know,
schools of thought on that. But I think it's a risk factor to consider that when teeth start
coming in, those will be impacted by, you know, chronic exposure to sugars and or acids.
So then what should you be doing something special on their teeth if you're going to continue
breastfeeding once they're older like that? What I found helpful, I mean, again, we've had two children
of our own helping them see the benefits to, you know, oral health, like brushing your teeth.
teeth. Make it fun, you know? Like, practice cleaning your teeth before your one-year-old goes to bed.
It's really helpful from a, I mean, I remember both my daughters went through phases where it was like,
no, you know, like they didn't want to brush your teeth. Like, well, you know, there's different ways
we can go about this, but helping them see the benefits. And then they make it a life practice.
And hopefully, you know, they become adults whose bites work, who don't.
don't have any gum issues, like, you know, no gum disease and no decay.
And they're in health.
Like, what a concept.
You know, that we're not chronically managing a disease of any sort.
We're actually the way God intended us to be, which is living in health.
Yeah.
That's possible.
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What is wrong with the most popular mouthwash brands?
Oh, man. Where do you want to start? First of all, nobody needs mouthwash.
Wait, we don't need mouthwash?
No. Think about like, again, millennia of human existence, no Walgreens or whatever.
Yeah, but then people are going to be like, well, they had stinky breath.
We might make that assumption. Maybe they didn't. Maybe they weren't eating for
medical carbohydrates and having stink breath, you know? Who knows? It's such an interesting
experience for me when I walked down the oral health aisle at like a Walgreens or a Target.
And it's, you know, it's just like rose upon rose upon rose.
of brightly colored liquids that are made to taste, you know, minty.
I even see it in like some dental training facilities,
one of which is here in Phoenix area,
where it's like, come get your pump of, you know,
freshening breath stuff.
And it's like, oh, you know.
I mean, what's interesting is your breast will be fresh on that stuff
for about five minutes, 10 minutes.
Smell that breath in an hour.
It won't be fresh, you know.
The alcohol is very disruptive.
to the oral microbiome.
You know, there's a balance, and when you not only ingest alcohol, but intentionally
swish it around in your mouth, that's a disruption that you're causing.
Reading the ingredients on that stuff is a hoot.
I mean, just look at the names of the product.
And heck, scan the barcode with your, you know, healthy living app.
See what it says about its toxicity.
But nobody needs that stuff.
That's my opinion.
Does everyone really need to get their wisdom teeth removed?
Ooh.
No.
I had so many problems with my wisdom teeth removal.
Major infection.
And you know, you have to sign that thing that says if anything goes wrong, you can't come after us.
So I have no feeling or it's like really numb feeling in this like left corner of my mouth.
Yeah.
It's really dull.
I mean, I can feel myself tapping on my face, but it's very dull compared to the rest of the sensation.
What is it you want to come to Portland?
I know.
But I mean, this is jacked up.
Like I'm never going to get that fixed, right?
I just live with this?
Not necessarily.
Really?
Yeah.
Biophotonics, ozone, you know.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
There's some possibilities for nerve regeneration that aren't surgical.
You're saying not everybody needs their wisdom teeth taken out.
How?
So think about if somebody's jaw size is such that the teeth come in on their own.
Like every other adult tooth that you had.
You know, if they come in on their own and they're in a functional bite relationship,
like why would we take those out?
It makes no sense.
But most people do need it?
I wouldn't say most.
I'd say there's a good percentage of the population.
And not because of the tooth itself, but because of their orientation.
So like, let's say, for instance, your wisdom tooth isn't coming in straight.
It actually, who knows why, it's turned 90 degrees on its side and it's literally growing into the back of your second molar.
but there's a gap between your gums and the second molar where microbes are getting in and around
that wisdom tooth. It's an area of chronic infection you can't even access with a toothbrush,
floss, water pick. You cannot clean it. Right. So in those instances, it's riskier to keep the
tooth. You want to get that out with the bone heal well, you know. Is there a better age than others
to get your wisdom teeth removed? I would say probably in your
maybe early 20s.
It would depend, though.
You know, there's a wide variety there.
So, like, for my daughters, you know,
I just watched them come in and for the older one,
I was like, yeah, just let them come in.
And they came in sideways.
But they came in, and it was easy to remove them.
So I didn't think, like, well, you're 16,
we better go diving in there.
You know, sometimes you just let things ride.
There are instances where, like,
maybe a 15-year-old where you can see that those teeth are going inside,
like literally sideways.
You can see this on a three-dimensional cone beam CT scan.
It's like, well, before the whole root forms, it might be safer so that you don't end up
with nerve trauma like you experienced.
So you really want to judge that from person to person.
I just don't understand.
If I have nerve trauma, which is exactly what I think it is, I think it's like nerve damage,
how would that be potentially fixed?
So we've done over the last year, a little more than a year now, we've been doing a study
using what's called neural therapy.
So we're injecting prokane,
we're injecting ozone,
and we're injecting sodium escorbate, vitamin C
adjacent to the bone, not in the bone.
And we're seeing for some people, not all,
for some people who had chronic bone issues
called cavitations,
that's how they're popularly referred to,
is these areas where they had wisdom teeth out.
The bone did not heal well.
They had dry socket or whatever.
some people's bone, by increasing the energetics of that space, the body gets turned on to start
healing itself.
We measure that using what's called acupuncture meridian assessment, where you could use muscle testing.
Like there's different ways of measuring the energetic flow along those meridians to determine
and track the rate of healing.
How does a holistic dentist optimize healing after an extraction compared to a traditional dentist?
God, my favorite question.
This is actually my project.
How did you know?
I don't know.
When I was at the American College of Integrative Medicine and Dentistry, this is what I did my final project on.
So one of the most important things is remove when you're taking out infection.
And again, this is, let's say, you know, root canal or a tooth that's severely decayed nabs, anything like this.
is you've got to remove all parts of the tooth.
Probably 10% of what I do is remove the residual infected roots that got left behind
that were hard to get.
And I appreciate that.
These things can be challenging.
But you've got to get it all out.
And you want to remove enough of that, whether it's gum tissue, whether it's, you know,
other type of soft tissue in the mouth, whether it's bone.
So that all the stuff that has seeped out into the lymphatic
system as much as you can safely.
Then we're in our practice.
We're using ozone to help disinfect the area.
And what is that for someone that doesn't know in a simplified way?
Yeah.
So think about like a gaseous form of hydrogen peroxide.
You know, I mean, we all understand like you pour hydrogen peroxide on a wound or in our
practice, we are ozonating water, putting ozone gas, which is medical grade oxygen
that's been put through a chamber where it's like a miniature lightning storm inside this,
this chamber.
So like, you know when it rains and there's lightning and you smell that ozone smell in the air?
That's what we're creating, like in a controlled fashion.
And why don't traditional dentists do that?
Well, I mean, they probably never heard of it.
I mean, it wasn't in dental school.
You know, when it talked about ozone in dental school, a big factor is the term that people can look up is called
L-PRF, leukocyte and platelet-rich fibrin.
We're able to do blood draws, use a centrifuge to pull out the clotting factors and the immune
cells of that human being, compress them so that we're getting rid of all the plasma and just
put the healing cells in that socket.
Like, just like when you're, you scrape your knee and it forms a scab.
Imagine taking all those healing cells that your body already innately knows how to use
and concentrating them.
Imagine if that had happened with your wisdom tooth extraction sites so that when they
sutured it up, all you have is just a big party of healing cells in there that can heal this.
I had to go to a separate person for my wisdom teeth removal than my regular dentist.
I remember that.
But you do all of it.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
But, you know, I mean, I've had extensive training in this in residency and surgery.
and we've just keep growing the effectiveness
and harnessing the body's own healing powers.
I mean, how many dentists have a Novathor red light therapy bed?
You know what I mean?
But we know that that amplifies mitochondrial function,
which is what we want when we're asking your body to heal
after invasive dental procedure.
What aftercare do you recommend patients do at home for wisdom teeth healing?
Yeah, I would say same thing for any other tooth extraction.
We send people home with,
homeopathics, five different types of homeopathic pellets that they can use at home.
Every patient that goes through surgery gets a take-home red and infrared light therapy unit.
Cool.
Yeah, it's theirs to keep.
We also, and this is getting out there in the energy woo-woo, but it works, is we imprint into a liquid medium.
So imagine we take all their infection and put it on.
what's called a remedy maker.
This thing measures the electromagnetic frequency or the signature of that infection
and inverts it into this liquid, which then they take home and put, you know,
drops of that in water and drink that three times a day.
I'm all in.
Yeah, it's awesome.
It's awesome.
Now, people want to know if you're holistic, does that mean that you're raw dog and all
these dental procedures?
There's no pain meds?
I would say probably 90% of our patients choose not to take pain medication.
90%. And it's, but it, I mean, it's part of our protocol to ask, like, have you gone through surgery before?
Would you like to have this on hand in case?
But how do you do?
How do you cut into them for wisdom teeth?
I don't understand.
Believe it or not.
Some people come out of that, having had the source of aggravation or cellular disruption or energy disruption removed, and their body feels relief, particularly because we're harnessing the power of all their healing.
cells in concentrate. But you're not numbing? You're not doing any mouth numbing or anything? Oh, you got to
numb it up. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. That's what I'm wondering. Even if they're asleep,
you know, which many of our patients choose to work with a dental anesthesiologist or a nurse
anesthetist. They go to sleep. We're still numbing them because the body knows, you know, even if you're
asleep, it knows what hurts and what doesn't hurt. But as it relates to, like, narcotics,
you know, we don't prescribe a lot, but that's by patient choice.
holistic dentists still recommend braces?
In the right circumstance, yes.
My feeling, after watching people grow, you know, in my own kids and their friends,
my preference is if you can wait until your early to mid-20s, which is for a lot of people,
the point at which your skeleton is then finished growing, then you can move the teeth
around predictably.
the idea that we're going to create this straight smile at 12 or worse yet,
and this is what was happening a lot when I was a kid,
you know what, there's a lot of crowding in here,
keeping in mind their skeletons small,
and the teeth will always be the same size.
Let's extract these set of premolars.
You're not going to need those.
And then they compress the arch back,
which leaves little room for the tongue,
and then the airway gets compromised, so on and so forth.
You know, it's, um, or what if they have a tongue tie?
They can't move their tongue around.
How's the tongue supposed to like move like it's supposed to to help form the arch as a baby
who's probably, you know, hopefully breastfeeding?
Yeah.
You know?
Let's talk about tongue ties.
Tongues.
Do we have to get rid of those?
We put them in a little mason jar on our nightstand.
What are we doing?
Yeah.
Ideally, that would be picked up just after birth.
Like if there's, if the, if the child's having a hard time.
latching. It's not just because they're like, well, they're a cantankerous little kid and,
you know, what a stinker of this little baby. Like, look at what's going on. Is, are they,
in fact, is their tongue restricted in its movement? We see it frequently. Again, I'm an adult
practice. So we see it in adults. Matter of fact, just in my own team in like maybe three weeks
ago, I had a team member say, hey, you know, I've had this tongue tie, you know, my whole life and I can't
stick my tongue out and there's areas of my mouth. I might. My, my,
tongue doesn't even go. I can't clean my teeth there. You know, for those of us who have mobile
tongues, we don't even think about that. And so we used a laser to just gently remove that, you know,
and you're releasing it more than cutting, you're not cutting something out, right? Yeah. I mean,
there are cases where you might cut something out. But yeah, I mean, having a tongue that moves
is helpful. It helps. I like the idea that your tongue, your lips and your cheeks are God's
orthodontist. Those are the things that were designed to help your arch form into the size that
they were supposed to become in the first place. I mean, you know, orthodontists aren't going to want
hear that, but you know. But we were just, I was just talking at lunch today, actually, about the
idea watching, we must have been someplace close to a school because I saw a lot of high schoolers
coming into this restaurant. And I was observing the consistency of small. And, you know,
mile design, you know? Like, like socially it's become a norm to have straight teeth. It hasn't
always been that way. I mean, I remember TV shows and movies in the 70s and 80s where, you know,
you didn't think twice as somebody had crooked teeth. It was just normal, you know, because that is
the human experience. Some people have crooked teeth. Some people have open gaps. Some people have
straight smiles. How much do you hate the veneer obsession? Yeah. Yeah. I will say,
say this, if you want a permanently, permanently wider smile and you love drinking coffee and tea,
you know, you might want to consider a, in my hands, a non-prepped veneer. Like, you can make a veneer
as thin as a contact lens and lay it over a tooth without grinding anything off the tooth.
That's possible. I really, really, really didn't like the idea of veneers until I understood
technologies were available to do that. The typical veneer procedure where they are grinding your teeth
and the nubs? Is that causing problems in your body doing that?
It can. Absolutely. I mean, one of the worst things I see that happens from it is, you know,
think about this. You've got a dental drill that's spinning at 200,000 RPMs, you know,
creating friction, and your nerve is two millimeters away. The number of times I see people who have
cosmetic dentistry done that's aggressive, okay, just to be clear, not minimally invasive
of cosmetic dentistry, but heavy-handed dentistry, let's say.
The nerves are screaming sometimes after that.
And then, you know, they go in and go my two-thirds now.
Oh, you need a root canal.
Oh, well, you know, Dennis said I need a root canal.
I better go get a root canal.
And now we're going down the path.
It's like they never intended to, as a consequence of having a more beautiful smile
for them to end up with chronic headaches, metal sensitivity issues,
autoimmune or what they're now calling immune mediated health issues.
That wasn't the path that they intended.
And sadly, I mean, we usually meet the people after, right?
Because I mean, we've treated people from around the country who had beautified smiles
and then went bad.
I think everybody looks like they have piano keys in their mouth.
When it looks too good to be true, you know, it's like, I don't know, is that the,
you know, one of the advantages of being in Portland and the great.
Bronola-ishness and us, you know, being weird or whatever, is that rarely do people come to me and say,
hey, can I make them look like piano keys? I want it to look like a fake denture. You're going to
notice that being in Scottsdale, total different vibes than you get in Portland. Yeah. And I get it.
Different social norms. I do appreciate that, you know, but I want to make things like, you know,
my personal preference in my profession is to make things look awesomely real. I don't want people go,
oh wow, I love your veneers.
You know, it's like, oh my gosh, I love your smile is a very different compliment.
Yeah.
You know?
Can old dental fillings with mercury affect a woman while pregnant?
Yes.
How?
So the vapor comes off.
And this is affecting her from the day it goes into her mouth.
The mercury vapor is coming off.
You're inhaling it.
Goes into your lungs.
It's absorbed.
Just no different than smoking.
You know.
goes into your lung, those cells absorb it, goes into your body.
It loves the tissues of your brain.
You can, you know, go on YouTube and look up like how mercury affects nerves, University of Calgary.
You can find some crazy cool videos from over 20 years ago where they showed what happens
to brain cells when mercury attaches to these, you know, little areas of developing nerves.
So if we know this and it's been that long that we've known it, why is it?
Why is it legal to put that in a human being?
I cannot tell you.
I know that the pack money that's behind, you know, keeping this okay, shall we say, is pretty significant.
I mean, the American Dental Association's power is vast.
Most dentists in America are members.
I mean, I'm not.
I gave it up years ago when I was like, look, I want to support the profession, but I also want to
stand in truth. And we can't say we're about health when we're misleading people into believing
that having mercury in your mouth is safe. It's not. So the right time, again, I don't want to be
dogmatic here, but I'm going to say the right time to start thinking about when should I get this
mercury out of my mouth for the sake of my child, would be.
be before you get pregnant.
What can it be doing to the baby?
So it comes out through the breast milk.
And from what I understand, working with, you know,
birthing specialist, naturopas, functional nutritionists,
the first child experiences a greater exposure of whatever toxins
mom's been exposed to throughout her life as the body is, you know,
going into a very different state of existence now trying to help this new human being
come to life and sustain life and become healthy and, you know.
So if you are somebody who's grown up, you're an adult and you're like, man, I have so
many health issues that are unexplainable, if you know that your mom was somebody who
had like so, like tons of dental problems and mercury fillings, then maybe that could be like
the woe of all of your problems.
And we've seen it.
As a matter of fact, like, I remember maybe eight to 10 years ago talking with different health
care providers about what I had observed in families. I'm like, I don't, I don't understand,
like the first child seems to have all these issues and the second and third don't. And then when
they explain like what happens with a woman's body as they're developing breast milk and for
the first child in particular and how the body detoxes to make that happen, I was like,
whoa, that's pretty interesting. Yeah, that's fascinating. So like, wouldn't it be swell
if before you get pregnant, you're thinking about those things. Now, I'll
Oftentimes we get the phone calls like, okay, I'm weeding my, you know, fifth child.
And now I'm thinking about getting my mercury out.
And it's like, well, it's never too late, of course, right?
Never, never a wrong time to make the right decision.
But if whenever possible, you know, you can detox your body prior to creating a new life.
That would be awesome.
For somebody listening that definitely knows that they have mercury fillings.
Yeah.
How soon do they need to be making an appointment to get that out?
I mean, are we talking like this week or is like you've got, you know, as long as you go within the next six months, you're good.
Yeah, I would first suggest get on, get on the internet and Google search for a quote unquote, smart SMART, safe mercury amalgam removal technique certified provider.
It's somebody who has through the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology gone through, you know, jumped through the hoops, bought the.
technology, let's hope they're practicing all the steps that are suggested in that protocol.
Because when you're taking it out, you don't want to be swallowing it or inhaling it.
You want to control where the outgoing mercury is going.
You don't want it up your lungs or, especially you think about my team members who get exposed
to like potentially thousands of these per year.
Yeah.
How do you handle the dental professionals?
Yeah.
So, I mean, we have a ridiculous.
looking suction device.
I mean, it looks like, I don't know if you ever watch Sesame Street and snuffaloopagus,
and the big snuffaloopagus nose.
It looks like that.
This thing sits right in front of the patient's face and it's pulling up like, I don't
know, 300 and some odd cubic feet of air per minute sitting right by their chin.
So as that, you know, there's going to be some vapor that's created, even though we're
flushing it with water and all this suctioning everywhere.
You want to capture that stuff.
coming out of there and direct it into a mercury filtration system.
Just like we have mercury filtration in our outgoing water lines in our practices,
wouldn't it be safer and smarter to also control the aerosols that are coming out of
the patient's mouth?
Is it possible to reverse cavities?
Yes, with the caveat that there are many situations that it's like you're past the point
of return.
That tooth is, I mean, I've seen some miracles happen.
I will say, you know, I mean, honestly, patients ask me, what if I do this?
Like, okay, well, let's entertain it.
I'm open to anything.
But the breakdown on an x-ray, it'll always look broken down.
Yeah.
So that's going to be information.
They'll want to understand.
So we would, let's say we're seeing somebody and they live in Nashville.
And they're going back to Nashville to see their dentist after we've done with the things that we're doing.
And we say, you know, just so you're aware, this is what this looked like.
we're going to provide you with a copy of it.
We want you to share this with your dentist.
So they understand what we're trying to accomplish here.
Because otherwise, they're going to look at it and go,
up, big hole, time for a root canal and buildup in a crown.
And that'll be five grand and some sickness.
You know, it's the, sadly, that's the standard for many practices where it's just
look for the hole and drill it and fill it.
So somebody has a little baby cavity.
Yep.
And it really is that beginning seizure is like, it could be popular.
to reverse it. What things would you tell them to do to potentially reverse their cavity?
Yeah. So I would first look at why did it happen in the first place. Tell me about your diet,
your nutrition, the frequency with which you eat. So it's how frequently we're ingesting is
maybe even more important than what we're ingesting. If somebody's, you know, snacking on
something that doesn't seem that like a granola bar. I'm just going to pick us up, something out of the blue.
granola bar, but I have like one every couple hours because my blood sugar gets low at work and
I want to snack, snacks, snacks.
You know, that's going to present risk.
So are you open to considering other foods if you like to snack more that might have a lower
glycemic index?
It's also going to decrease your risk for diabetes, blah, blah, blah, right?
Just better for your health in general.
So we want to solve that because no product I give them is going to beat out what they're doing
on the daily, you know, during their waking hours.
What is the best non-toxic option for teeth whitening?
I have to say, I mean, I've seen people throw out a lot of things.
The only thing I've seen actually effectively work is some form of peroxides.
Carbamide peroxide, hydrogen peroxide.
What I've seen work most effectively long-term is low concentration hydrogen peroxides.
In our practice, and I mean, you know, we've been doing teeth whitening for over 20 years.
I mean, I could remember when we had like the late.
laser whitening in this whitening system and I'll tell you what those high concentration
whiteners.
Ooh, you know, people don't like you very much when their teeth are giving them zingers left
and right.
I've one time in my life tried to do the professional dental whitening thing.
Yes.
I have never experienced such excruciating pain.
And after I got those zaps where it felt like somebody was stabbing me in the mouth and
I was like never again will I do this.
So is that like that's the thing?
Everybody's going to experience that if you do any type of whitening or is there something
you offer that like doesn't do that.
So yeah, what we came across maybe eight years ago,
it's a system called perio protect.
And the idea with this product on the front end was this dentist was,
he's out of St. Louis, Missouri,
he's trying to design a system of trays that would deliver hydrogen peroxide under the gum line
to help his mom, you know, have less gum inflammation.
Great idea.
And he developed a wonderful product.
what they've all, and it's been very successful for our patients who have gum issues as well.
But it turns out when you have a like 1, 1.2% hydrogen peroxide gel,
I think maybe in eight years of using these, I've seen one person have sensitivity.
Most people use them daily, have no sensitivity at all, and their smile slowly gets wider and wider.
To whatever extent that goes, right?
Now, if you're like, oh, this awesome, I'm going to be whitening my teeth once a day, but you also
love three cups of coffee a day.
You know, I mean, pick your poison.
Are there any teeth whitening products at the store or online that somebody can just buy
like whitening strips or anything, any brands in particular that you're like, this is a good one.
Yeah, we keep some on hand actually at the office that are non-custom.
It's like, I think we get them from a company out of Colorado or something.
And it's nice if somebody wants to boost or you can use, and I mean, like somebody like you
who has a beautiful straight smile,
like you could put a crest white strip,
and again, I'm just picking that one
because people are familiar with it.
Because of the form of your smile,
you could easily lay that over your teeth.
It would have a positive impact
in terms of brightening.
Now, would it cause sensitivity
based on what you experienced last time?
Probably, and I mean, I've experienced that too.
It is horrible.
Crest white strips, though, are those toxic?
The challenge with crest white strips is
you've got it on your tooth,
but how do you put it on your teeth
because it's not custom, and it's also getting on your gums and you're going to absorb
whatever's in it in your gums or your, you know, mucoza in your mouth.
It's charcoal teeth whitening legit?
I have had some patients come in who said they've used it and they found it helpful.
Whether I could appreciate that or not, I don't know.
But I've had people say that even the oil pulling with coconut oil whiten their teeth.
again, like you'd have to, how do you judge that?
You know what I mean?
Because somebody's going to look at it in the mirror and go,
oh, I love it or I didn't, you know, it's subjective, I guess is my point.
When they're at our office and we're using a shade guide,
we're like, okay, well, today you're A2,
which is, you know, a decent, nice looking shade for most adult humans.
When they whiten, if they get to a B1, let's say,
or something even brighter than a B1, that's like, ooh, you know,
that looks bright to us.
Yeah.
But at home, like, how are you, how are you gauging that?
How much of a game changer is tongue scraping?
All right.
I love it.
So, this is something my wife super pumped up about.
I'm so pumped up about it.
Scraper.
She loves the metal one.
I broke up with a guy once because he said he didn't scrape his tongue.
He had never heard of it, actually.
He had no idea what I was talking about.
I said, we cannot be together.
I love it.
Well, it's good because people, you know, you swap spit.
It happens.
Like, you're going to share.
microbiome.
Yeah.
I mean, we have a lot of patients.
Matter of fact, that's also part of our home care kit is a tongue scraper for patients.
Why is this the biggest thing in like dental care right now?
I like analogies that people get.
And I'm old enough to remember the shag carpets.
You know, like my mom trained my brother and me to go around with the vacuum and, you know,
clean off the carpet.
You know, why?
Because stuff gets in there and you want to stir it up and, you know,
keep it clean. And it's a great way to keep it clean. It's not the only way to keep your tongue
clean, but it's, it is succinct. It's quick. It's easy. I will say for gagers and, you know,
some of those people out there are like, oh, that's me, you know, be cautious. Start easy. Start
towards the front of the tongue, perhaps. And when's the best time to use a tongue scraper?
My advice would be before bed. Oh, at night? Not first thing in the morning? You could. I mean, you could
use it in the morning as well. That's when I'm doing it. I just try to think of like,
well, you might do it twice now. You never know? So think about you want to set the stage for like
this, this time of calm. You know, you've eaten stuff all day long. You've drank stuff all day
long, whatever, you know, some people are smoking stuff all day long, whatever. And it's like,
okay, we're going to clean this up before your mouth gets a six hour, seven hour, eight hour,
however many hours you're sleeping at night. You know, vacuum the carpets.
mouth taping, scam, or absolute amazing new frontier in health and wellness.
I have seen massive benefits for a lot of people.
Yeah.
I'm obsessed with this.
Tell me everything.
Why should we be taping her mouth at night?
It's not for everybody.
I will tell you this.
If you're claustrophobic, be careful.
You know, that it's, or if you have jaw joint dysfunction, like people say, I have TMJ,
temporal mandage of a joint, meaning I have problems with my teeth.
Be careful, right?
Like locking things up with tape might cause some pain.
So just, you know, it's not, again, there's no one thing for everybody.
But for those people where I've seen pretty significant impact,
it's helping them get into a state of more nasal breathing,
which ideally, apparently that's how we're supposed to breathe.
So if you're sitting there, think about like,
the open mouth breather at night, you know, mouth wide open.
And, you know, all these microbes that are supposed to be living in this nice bath of saliva,
it's like the desert here.
It starts drying up, you know, and the nature of how it functions in your mouth changes.
The tissues get more red, you know, it's just not happy.
So a little bit of mouth tape.
People's tongues, you know, hopefully are coming forward up on the roof of the mouth,
start breathing through the nose.
whether or not that, you know, helps with snoring or anything else might be a different issue, okay?
For most people, better sleeping, better quality sleep.
Most who tolerate it well, better energy and better overall, like, oral microbiome.
I know that's a big word, but like happier bugs in your mouth.
But it gets a thumbs up from you.
Yeah, absolutely.
Do frequent sinus infections have to do with teeth?
They certainly can, particularly root canals.
So, and it's, it goes, it goes both ways.
So a sinus infection, let's say somebody had a cold and something got in the sinus
and it just gets inflamed.
That inflammation is going to be sitting right directly on top of the nerves that go into
the teeth.
So if there's cellular activity and it's like, oh, man, my tooth kind of hurts up in here.
And believe me, I've seen this, it's shocking.
Sometimes people go in and go, my tooth hurts.
but the dentist doesn't have a 3D cone beam so they don't bother to take a cone beam.
And they just go, oh, if your tooth hurts, you know, you probably need a root canal.
I mean, it's sad to say, but I've seen this more times than I can count.
And usually what it looks like is you've had a root canal in your second molar, your first molar,
and your second premolar.
Those are all the three teeth that are adjacent to your sinus floor.
Like, do you ever get sinus infections?
Oh, yeah.
You know, I went through this phase, sinus infections.
You know, but it can go the other way as well where they've never had a sinus infection in their life and maybe they have a big filling or, you know, something happens with a tooth such that the tooth now hurts.
You know, maybe a common one is, oh, you need a crown.
Do we really need crowns?
In my opinion, the vast majority of crowns are an overtreatment of a tooth that could have used something smaller.
okay. I was at a, it's actually at a class last fall here in Scottsdale. And the dentist was one of the best things I'd ever heard. He's like, you know, I hate doing crowns. I think it's a, you know, an atrocity to just blindly grind all the enamel off of a person's tooth because it's easy. You know, it's very mechanical. And sadly, this, we got taught to do it very quickly in dental school. Like, you know, the faster you do it, the more money you can make kind of an, that's the mentality. I'm thinking. I'm thinking,
you're like, how do I preserve what's healthy?
Because I want you, you know, there is no crown filling anything I can put in the mouth that
beats a perfectly healthy tooth.
I mean, your own stuff is the best, right?
So as soon as we, let's say you have a one surface mercury filling in your mouth,
but, you know, because you've chewed on it for 20 years.
There's some little black cracks in there.
And you've never had a day of pain, by the way.
Never hurt to chew in on it.
It feels totally fine.
Oh, we see.
cracks in your teeth.
You need a crown.
That's all they tell you.
And then they do that nice little slide out, right?
You're like, oh, okay.
Oh, by the way, it'll only be $150 with your insurance or something.
You know, so you're like, okay, I'm in.
And you come back in, they get you numb and they grind the all,
not only to take the mercury filling out, hopefully,
hopefully they take it all out, but all the enamel comes off the tooth so you can do a crown.
It's like you're reenameling the tooth,
but with something that's fake and with glue that doesn't stick that great.
You know, when you do that, the nerve is, it's absolutely possible because we see it every day,
raises its hand.
It's like, ow.
That really, really hurt.
And so you go back in, my tooth hurts.
It didn't hurt before.
Oh, you need a root canal.
There is a great lack of thoughtfulness.
And I'm not, I mean, I know that there are thousands of really conscientious providers out there.
The trick is, like, how do you find those people?
I think if you ask them, like, how often,
do you do crowns? I mean, my team will tell you, pretty much the only time we do crowns is when
we're taking off old crowns and we're putting on new crowns. You know, like maybe getting the metal out.
So that's a good question. When you call the dentist office, the holistic dentist to see if they're
legit, ask them, how often do you do crowns? Yeah, because we, I mean, there are quote unquote
biological dentists, holistic dentists where I live. They're banging that drum. You know,
I'm a holistic dentist and press. And their patients come and see us after they've had treatment with, you know,
a mouthful of new crowns and their teeth hurt.
It's like, well, let's take a look at what your teeth look like before you start it.
And there's these tiny fillings in it.
It's like, I get it.
This is how we're trained in school, you know, kind of see this, do that.
Unfortunately, it's costing people a lot of healthfulness.
Because when you go down that path of root canals like...
It's a cascade of interventions.
Yeah.
And we're not ever going to consider the root canal as a potential source of whole body disruption
because we deemed it to be a necessary and appropriate treatment.
I constantly see photos of moms putting pictures of their like toddlers teeth online.
And they're like very, it's always crunchy moms.
It's always people that are obsessed with non-toxic living.
But these teeth are jacked.
They're like spotted, brown.
And they're like, what's wrong?
I'm using only non-toxic toothpaste and all this.
And that is freaking me out.
Even as a non-toxic person, I'm like, what is that?
Why do I keep seeing so many crunchy kids have these weird discolored brown looking teeth?
You'd have to have an understanding of like what is their daily experience?
Unless a mom can explain, well, okay, walk me through.
Since birth, what has that child been eating?
And when?
Like with what frequency?
If they're sharing, you know, whatever comes out in there, there's going to be a reason.
Because I'm just freaked out that it's something about the toothpaste.
I'm freaked out that there's some ingredient or an ingredient we don't have a non-toxic toothpaste that we really need and that's why it's causing that.
But it wouldn't be that.
You don't think?
I don't think so.
I mean, I do see like I've talked to a woman recently where, you know, she was saying she nursed her child until five, which, you know, I mean, that's what you do.
That's what you do.
I don't know.
But the child had a lot of, you know, decay issues.
And again, I don't treat kids.
So we make referrals for that.
But I want to ask, you know, and it can be a very touchy subject because how we're feeding kids is a, you know, it's a family decision.
I think we enter into communication and relationship in a very non-judgmental way.
I really don't care what you're doing.
I just care that if you want your kid by the time they're divorcing themselves from their baby teeth to understand what a positive working relationship looks like with their adult teeth, something's got to change.
Because if the system's the same, the same thing's going to happen to their adult teeth.
Is it possible to get rid of a CPAP machine naturally?
Yes, for some people.
I mean, I'm not going to step on a physician's toes that's like, you've got to use this forever.
But if I were using a CPAP and I hated it, which I don't know the exact statistics,
but I know the vast majority of people who try a CPAP like this sucks.
There are certain dentally provided therapies.
one of which is called night lays,
where you use two wavelengths of laser light
to stimulate the soft tissues of the oral pharynx.
So basically behind the mouth,
kind of where your nasal airway meets your oral airway.
And you can tighten up those tissues.
It would depend on where's the constriction.
You know, if you're like trying to force air,
I mean, my brain thinks of like,
are you apnic because you had a lack of a CPAP?
Like, is that how it developed?
Oh, yeah, every human needs a CPAP.
I mean, that's just silly, right?
So I would want to look at where, what is it that's causing the breathing problem?
Is it neurological?
Is it a disrupted, you know, parasympathetic and sympathetic state of balance from your energy?
Like, to me, it could be a lot of different things.
I saw this holistic dentist and she.
She posted about how she had a patient in like his mid-20s or something that had a CPAP machine that young and that he was started on it as a teenager.
He was having all these troubles breathing or whatever.
They put him on it and then all these years later things are getting worse.
I don't remember what, but there's problems with his teeth.
She looks into it.
He is a dead tooth.
He has a dead tooth that like got knocked in sports or something that had been like there was a whole infection brewing.
And then that was what was causing his sleep problems.
breathing problems, but nobody ever knew.
And they just said, we're just going to give you a CPAP machine and all this.
And I was like, man, that's one of those examples.
When it comes to holistic dentist, like he finally went to go see a holistic dentist because
nothing was working.
And then she thought to look into that, found that dead tooth, and now he breathed like a normal 20-something.
Yeah.
Should we be removing tonsils?
I have seen people where it's like, that's, you know, here's an interesting one.
People who get wisdom teeth out where it doesn't heal well, they develop these cats.
avatations, let's say. The tonsils are doing work to clear that garbage as much as they possibly
can and can harbor, you know, the longer it's there, that they can be disrupted from a state of
health where they don't serve you a purpose and it could be wise to remove them. Now, obviously,
you'd want to look at like, well, why are the, the tonsils job is to raise its hand when
something is creating, it's not supposed to be there. It's creating an immune response. You know,
It's raising its hand for a reason.
Could it be food sensitivities?
Could it be something in the air in your home?
I mean, you know, you'd want to consider all the possible chronic exposure things.
Sometimes the person's airway is better off by removing them.
Just depends.
And I've seen both work.
Like, let's look first at gut health.
Let's look at food sensitivities.
Let's look at, is there anything in your daily care practice that might be, you know,
you might be absorbing that could be inflaming that stuff.
Are you gargling with who knows what at night?
Like, I don't know.
Could be a lot of things.
Put on the sleuth hat and start asking questions.
There's no quick way to do that.
We talk about like the mouth washes and how some are toxic.
Are there certain dental flosses that you would never say that somebody should use because of how toxic they are?
I've heard a lot of people say, you know, negative things about glide floss, you know,
Teflon and all that.
usually the people who are like, well, I don't know, what else am I going to use because their teeth are so stinking tight?
Like to try to drag wax floss through there.
How do you feel about cocoa floss?
It's a big hit in our practice.
I like it.
It's a big hit in my home as well.
It's because of the colors.
It's cute.
You have to admit there's something to be said for good merchandising and marketing.
Yeah.
You know, they did a good job.
But you think it's a decent product?
Yeah.
Oh, it's a great product.
Okay.
What is your body telling you if when you're,
you floss, it reeks like a dead animal.
It's going to mean that there is infection of some sort.
The most common thing that people think of is like, oh, do you know, do I have gum disease?
Some of the savvy people that I have met, they come in and are like, you know, I floss every place in my mouth.
It doesn't smell like anything.
When I floss around this crown, it stinks.
Now, thankfully, I've been in dentistry long enough that I was due, I was a dentist.
before, you know, all ceramic crowns existed.
So when I got out of school, the only way you got a porcelain looking tooth was to have
metal underneath it, you know, just it was what it was.
These days, the most popular material for crowns because it is cheap and fast is called
zirconia.
And biologically, it's not necessarily a bad material.
But it's like insanely harder than your own natural enamel.
It doesn't flex like a two.
you know and I have seen I mean I've cut off hundreds if not thousands of these things
where you peel it off and in the cement underneath it it's just black brown you know pus
laden gross and so when somebody says like yeah I smell this it's like it's got to go you know
how long you've been noticing that oh you know ever since maybe six months after they put the crown on
so it's not normal for every single time you floss your gums to bleed
No.
So you should floss no blood, nothing.
That's right.
That would indicate health.
So if you pushed on the base of your fingernail, you know, if that bled and created discomfort,
you'd be concerned.
You'd know like, oh, yeah, I had a hang nail there.
That's not normal.
That's not healthy.
I put some stuff on.
It's healing.
Okay, great.
Same thing in the mouth.
Like, if you floss, it's bleeding.
That's your gums telling you, like, we've got inflammation here.
And we know that, I mean, that's, if you have inflammation in your gum,
that increases your risk for heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer's.
I mean, this is like decades-old science stuff.
That's where things like these parapetect trays, ozone, laser therapies,
whatever is appropriate for that person.
And maybe that person who's more prone to inflammation, let's say,
for them, maybe seeing the dentist every three months might be more helpful.
Is there a connection between autoimmune disorders and gum disease?
Yes.
Think about your inflamed gums as being,
a disrupted barrier to the body.
You've heard of leaky gut syndrome.
So think of this as leaky gum syndrome.
You know, microbes that live in the mouth now have the ability every time you chew,
pick at your teeth, floss, you know.
When you open those capillary beds, bugs go in.
The body's immune system then says, hey, what the heck is this doing in here?
You know, we're supposed to have integrity in our lining.
outside, inside the mouth, all the way through the GI tract.
So imagine, you know, if you gently touch the inside of your cheek and it just immediately
bled, you'd be like, this is really concerning.
But because it's so common for people to floss and a little pink in the sink, you know,
we just like thought, we don't think that much of it.
Or we just say, oh, you know, like, well, then buy more of our, you know, rents, you
know, get more scope or something. And it's like, it could be a matter of, there's some stuff that
needs to be cleaned out. It could also be that your body's in massive stress. Find out that I have,
I have an autoimmune disorder. Okay. Also find out at the exact same time, I have severe inflammation
in my gums. They want me to do a whole deep, clean PRP thing. I have fours, fives, and sixes.
So that is bad, right? It's, yeah, it's your body.
being inflamed or your gums for sure.
Here's the thing. Also, I do this food allergy test that tells me what foods are causing
inflammation in my body or whatever.
The 15 things that come up on this test are the foods that I eat every day.
My theory is that maybe it's not leaky gut where the food is getting in, you know,
going through holes in my stomach into my bloodstream and causing problems.
is it possible?
And I was dying to ask you this
that the food I'm eating
that's showing up in my bloodstream
was escaping through the gum
pockets I have.
Studies show that.
It translocates.
So then what I need to do
is now I did the whole deep clean thing.
They did the ozone.
They did the laser.
And should I wait a few months
and then do that blood test again
and see if it's still coming up?
Like how do I know
if it is holes in my gut
or if it's escaping through my gums
into my bloodstream
that's causing inflammation or showing up.
And also is this test fake?
Typically, that's going to, not always.
I mean, it's usually going to flag high for the foods to which you're exposed most frequently.
That's why I cannot.
I'm like, is this real or not?
I know this isn't dentistry, but.
No, no, I mean, I've had experience with it both professionally and personally.
I mean, I remember when I did this years ago and I was like, like, I was really high for lobster.
I'm like, I couldn't tell you when the last time I had lobster was.
It's not something we come by frequently at the Oregon Coast, you know.
But most of the things were like, oh, yeah, I mean, that's like, I eat that every day, almonds, you know.
It was for me something I thought like, okay, diversity would be good.
But to your question about, is it possible that the gum inflammation that was going on could be leading to disrupted gut functioning?
Absolutely.
I mean, that's the functional nutritionist with whom I've worked.
a lot over the past five to six years.
She's now out speaking to dental people.
You know, at dental meeting saying,
hey, people, this is what I'm observing
and working with me.
And we're seeing like, and studies are,
pardon me, studies are showing that in fact,
those same microbes that are in the mouth
through the bloodstream,
when we get bleeding and flossing and on,
you know, and chewing as well, right?
Because the tooth's moving around
as it's getting beat up and pounding on food.
Yeah, it's all connected.
The thing with autoimmune is that it's attacking some kind of infection in your body.
And I know I found out that I have this gum inflammation.
Could the gum inflammation have caused the autoimmune disorder if I've been struggling with this for years?
Or is autoimmune causing gum inflammation?
Yes and yes.
Like there's possibilities.
Okay.
You've shared something interesting.
If we can, you know, just reflect on what you shared about your wisdom tooth extraction site.
Mm-hmm.
There were issues enough.
so that you mentioned, like there's a section of your nerve that clearly isn't fully functioning,
right? So if there is an issue of chronic inflammation in that site,
such that, imagine if the pH of that area tends to consistently be lower than average,
the way that it's going to break down your own nerves, you know, cells that like support around your
nerve will then is it breaks that down your immune system is like what what is all broken down
protein stuff in here that you know it's not supposed to be there we need to respond to it you know
so there's a guy named jerry buco who's been doing studies for over 30 years looking at
jawbone cavitation lesions and you know i heard him explain this about two years ago at a meeting
and i was like wow like because where's that connection the body wasn't designed to reject itself
why would it do that?
When you look at what are commonly done to millions of people every year, root canals,
wisdom teeth extra, again, there could be other extractions too, right?
But wisdom teeth are common.
I mean, we literally have people call our practice and say, this blows my mind, by the way.
My 18-year-old is due for their wisdom tooth extractions.
Like, it's something to check off on your list.
Like get your driver's license.
That's what I was told.
You know, start voting.
Oh, and get your wisdom teeth out.
You know what I mean?
Who knows if I really needed it?
I don't know.
Those things are all kind of on my curiosity list.
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How do you feel about elective permanent retainers? I got Invisaline. I wear my trays every
single night, but I also asked, I asked, to have a permanent retainer put in behind my bottom
teeth because those are the ones that move the most very quickly, and I don't trust them,
even though I am diligent about wearing my tray.
So I usually ask people a question, how would you feel if your teeth moved? Let's say they
have one on. They're like, oh, I don't want it. But I've also asked them, like, how do you
do with cheap earrings? You know, you went to Clares when you were young and you probably had the,
oh, man, my earlobe blew up. And they've got this wire.
with all sorts of, you know, metallic elements in it that for some people's health is not going to be
compatible with their body.
I got to do that dental test.
I have to do the thing that tells me what materials I'm allergic to.
Yeah.
What if that is also causing some of these problems?
You weren't designed to have metals affixed to anything in your mouth.
So, like, how do we decrease risk, but also maintain the stability of teeth?
You know, there is a way.
And I just did it this week for a gal.
She's had this same metal retainer for 20 years.
She's like, I want the metals out.
Because her health keeps going down.
And she's like, I just want, I want bio, like, biologically acceptable materials.
So we, thankfully, we have a laser that helps remove the bonding.
So I don't have to cut into her teeth, you know, get the composite off the teeth that are holding the metal in place.
Get the metal out.
It also is nice because if you're not drilling on it, you can't, you're not going to release metal shavings in their mouth.
Right. So lasers are kind of cool.
We then use a, imagine using a very, very skinny fiberglass mesh, much like you would use for a cast,
like two millimeters wide on the tongue side of those teeth, and we're bonding the fiberglass mesh using composite.
Like, you know, and it just looks like tooth. Now you don't have metal in your mouth.
The teeth cannot move. Literally, you've put a, maybe, even, you know, maybe you're,
even more effective retainer than what we see with metal.
Because I've seen people with metal retainers where, let's say they got placed at 16,
the power of the jaw to move and grow is like nothing else.
It's just, you know, it's like, it's going to do what it's going to do.
And they're like, how is this possible?
Like my teeth still went crooked and one of the ends popped off.
And if people don't want movement, you have to retain somehow.
But I think we should also think about like, okay, you went through well-intended
orthonics, straighten the teeth. Let's hope that everything, you know, your teeth all fit
together nicely. A lot of times after orthonics, they don't. But let's say, oh, great, it feels wonderful.
But the teeth then start to move. If they're starting to move, then inherently, your body is saying,
this is not where I find stability. Some of us are destined to have crooked teeth. Like, we,
and we need that for our health. The jaw would say it's more comfortable in going there. For
some reason. You know, I don't know why. And it could be giving us adverse health effects to try to force
it to go somewhere it doesn't want to. Right. So we could take the, the tongue-tied person. We've widened out
the arches and like, you know, this is all great. And we take everything off. But their tongue lacks the
ability to fill the space and be the retainer from the tongue side. Right. So if that's the case,
then things are just going to collapse and go back to where they started because the whole system wasn't
considered. Phrases are primarily, you know, influencing teeth and bone, not doing a whole lot
around tongue management. I would say that over the last 25 years I've watched this, more and
more dentists and orthodontists are becoming aware of and paying attention to things like tongue,
you know, tongue movement function. You know, like you see more, at least in Portland, I've seen more
and more biofunctional therapists. Yeah, are those good? I got asked about that if those were worth it.
Yeah, I mean, matter of fact, one of the hygienists who used to work for me years ago has pursued that as kind of a passion, you know, in her line as a health care provider, you know, as a licensed hygienist.
And that can help with mouth breathing and bad sleep and stuff as well, right?
Absolutely.
Okay.
Learning to, I mean, because it's one thing to release a tongue tie.
But matter of fact, the first tongue tie ever released, I'll never forget the experience with this woman.
We release the tongue tie.
Now her tongue can move.
There were muscles underneath her tongue that had never fired in her whole life.
They physically couldn't move.
And I said, go ahead and stick your tongue out.
As soon as she did, all those muscles cramped.
You know, just...
She looked like Toast the Dog.
You know Toast the Dog.
I don't know Toast the Dog.
Famous dog on social media and its tongue cannot stay in its mouth.
It like hangs out.
I often look up.
Toast the dog.
I think we covered a lot.
I mean, the one thing you and I talked about before we went on the air is the
the nature, and this is like my passion, the nature of language.
And I think that dentistry is a unique space where,
granted, there are other branches of health care
where people might feel uncomfortable, you know,
just because of the, you know, I think of women going to the OBGYN,
like you're getting into spaces that are, you know, private and all that.
In the mouth, it's so, we're so getting into somebody's space.
and when we use words that like need or should,
and we're using the power of our professional opinion
to tell you we believe you need this or you should do this,
I'm now putting onto you my belief system
because of how I feel about interacting with other human beings,
I want for your choices for your health to be about your goals.
So when was the last time, you know, you had a conversation with a dental professional where they asked like, what, tell me about what the goals for your health are, you know, long term. Like when you're 50 years old, when you're 75 years old, tell me what the vision is for your health, your smile, you know, as it relates to your whole body as well as, you know, your oral health. I like to dig into that because I want to know, like, are the things that we're doing today going to help you get there or not?
So, and how can I help guide somebody to where they want to go if I don't ask?
You know, so it becomes a different conversation than when we're understanding risks,
dietary issues, home care, whatever, you know, I don't want to say, well, you should,
you should drop the Coca-Cola.
You know, how about we base things on what someone's shared with us about their own goals for health?
So for somebody listening who has not gone to the dentist in years, they've put it off,
they hate the dentist, what is your elevator pitch in one minute or less to convince them that they should go to the dentist?
Yeah, I'd say this is, you could not have found a better time in history to go see the dentist.
Most, not all, but most are going to be more caring.
I mean, in all fairness, we have more women in dentistry than ever before.
The ability for dentists to listen more is probably better than it's ever been before.
there are technologies that didn't exist 20 years ago.
And we just helped a woman this week who had severe gum disease.
And I remember the first day I met her saying, like,
it is such a blessing you waited until now to come see us.
Because, you know, a while back, you know, 10 years ago,
we wouldn't have had all this stuff.
We can help you save your own teeth now.
So the way to ensure that that's going to be a successful journey is
to accept what's happens, happen, and it's okay, can't change the past,
and that there are loving, caring teams of human beings out there that want to be of service.
It's going to take some work, making some phone calls. People can always reach out to us.
I mean, I help people, and my team and I, I should say, help people from around the world
find providers that are loving and caring like we are. Some of them ultimately decide to come and see us,
and that's wonderful.
But we can't see, you know,
however many billions of people are on the planet, you know?
Well, that's the thing I was going to ask you.
Is there a database?
Like, you're like,
go to this website.
This will pull up all the dentists
that would be people that, you know,
I would agree with in your area
because what's going to happen after this interview
is you're going to get 5,000 DMs of people saying,
I'm in San Antonio.
I'm in Denver.
I'm in Nashville.
Where do I go?
You know, where should they go to find a good holistic dentist?
So I'll give them some options because I believe
options and they can do their own work. They are, in fact, welcome to reach out to us and we would
be happy to help in any way that we can. Because I would tell you, what I would tell somebody is
this is who I would see for this kind of care in this location. I have met hundreds of dentists
across the country. I have wonderful relationships with dozens. And, you know, I would only refer
people to dentists, I would see personally. Or I would have my wife see, you know.
There are some groups, the I-A-O-M-T, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology.
They've been around for over, gosh, probably coming up on 40 years-ish now,
really started as a group against things like fluoride and mercury,
and their database is awesome.
So if we put a link to that in the description of the show here,
they can click on that and find a dentist?
Yep.
Great.
I-A-O-M-T-org.
the it's going to sound very similar iabdm international academy of biological dentists dentistry and medicine
another great group um most of the providers i know are members of both but they have databases
um do you take insurance do holistic dentists take insurance some do we do i mean we don't
participate in any insurance plans we help people with their forms
to get that sent off.
So if they want to submit for reimbursement through their plan,
they are more than welcome to do so if they have benefits,
we will do what we can to help them get those benefits.
But we don't participate in that.
As you can imagine, you know,
most participating insurance companies are going to try to dictate to you
the lowest common denominator,
which looks like fluoride treatments and mercury fillings and root canals.
And that's not,
I'm not going to play in that sandbox.
And how much more is it to go?
go to a holistic dentist, let's say,
than traditional dentist for just things like your six-month
cleanings and stuff. I mean, like price difference.
As it relates to when we were providing those services,
we didn't really charge people a lot more than we would have,
like maybe 20 years ago.
I mean, because I was trying to be sensitive to offering good care,
the best care that we could possibly provide to the greatest amount of people,
my feeling is like if I've spent
hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars
if not millions to buy technologies,
get trained in certain things and do all that,
like I have to recoup that,
but everybody getting a cleaning doesn't necessarily
need to pay for that.
Something in Portland I've seen, by the way,
which is kind of cool.
And I imagine, excuse me,
we'll see more of this around the country
if states allow it.
There's now a practice in Portland
that is focused only on clean
It's hygienist run. So it's just dental hygienists there. They don't have all the fancy
equipment that I have. They don't have the lasers, the 3D scanners, the, you know, printing
machines and all that. They have dental chairs and cleaning things. So the cost for those services
is much lower. And we've actually had a number of our patients for whom we used to do the cleanings
go there and be really happy. So I mean, again, you're going to have to find what works for you.
and I think is in terms of price, let's say you love this one practice.
They just keep increasing their fees.
And you're like, I don't even care because I love them so much and I have a relationship
there.
There's probably an amount they could charge you and you'd go, okay, I'm done with this.
But, you know, it's about relationship and finding out what fits in your budget.
But as far as us, you know, charging and other practices, I don't think they're making it up so
much on the cleanings.
Are you taking new patients in Portland?
We absolutely are.
To the tune of six new patients a week.
Wow.
Every Monday, we see six new patients.
I have two team members who's pretty much their sole responsibility is communicating
with the people who reach out to us, you know, throughout the world.
And finding out for whom can we provide the greatest benefit.
So sometimes we will have folks who reach out and they're like, man, I'd love to come and see, you know, it's like one mercury filling.
And I'm in Tallahassee.
I'm literally just making this up, right?
But it's like, okay, well, you know, I know Dr. So-and-so who's an hour south of you.
And that might be a better fit so you don't have to spend time, money, you know, all these resources to come out here.
When there's somebody who's got five, you know, abscessing root canals and two titanium implants that,
that's a lot more skill required to take that apart and put it together predictably.
You know, I mean, I know because it's taken me this long to do it.
So we're selective and we want to find people of a certain mindset.
You know, we want to work with people who take responsibility for their own health.
I can't fix people.
I can help remove roadblocks that prevent great health,
but it's psychological, it's emotional, it's nutritional, it's nutritional.
it's energetic.
And as we mentioned, like, you know, talking about pimp units and light therapy, those help.
But the body is going to take it and do what it can do with it, right?
It's their own inherent healing mechanisms that are going to flick the switch.
Yeah.
And somebody who's in a mindset of, I have this or I am that, I am diabetic.
I have the I have I have gum disease okay can you like is it going to be something you're going to own or do we just talk about that okay you're experiencing something it's not where your body wants to reside what's in the way of it's getting to help tell us about the toxic tooth tour thank you for asking it's a passion project so again going back to my calling you know around 2019 so I'd been a dentist for 20 years at that point I felt
felt God calling me to go. I mean, who, what dentist does this, right? Like, I'm in a book hotel rooms
across the United States and go out to talk to people that want to commiserate about oral health.
You know, they want to talk about their root canals and mercury filings and blah, blah, blah.
So we started organizing it in the fall of 2019. And then, of course, you know, early 2020, COVID hit,
and it's just everything stopped. And in an Oregon, it was really a negative experience. That's all I can say.
you know, very, couldn't do anything.
2001, I'm like, you know what?
I feel the spirit moving me to do this again.
And so we picked four cities, Kansas City, L.A., Dallas, New York.
And I went to those four cities and invited anybody who wanted to come for like $50 a person or something
to have real meaningful conversations about oral health.
And I usually spend about an hour and a half to two hours sharing my experience, you know,
trying to consolidate 25 years of experience and truth as I understand it with people.
And then I just open it up for questions.
Like we'll be Q&A all day.
I make the caveat.
I can't give specific health advice to any one person when I'm not in my own state because
I'm not licensed here.
But this year we're going out to eight different cities.
will be in Nashville,
and then we're hitting Austin, Texas,
Chicago, Denver, and Boston.
We finished, I think, on June 1st.
So, and it's awesome.
We've already gone to Miami.
My wife went with me to the first two.
I have my fearless new patient coordinator,
Heidi, with me on the next two.
It's so much fun to see people.
I mean, imagine this, in terms of energetics,
creating a space where there is hope,
there is almost a sense of like love and belief in health,
and there's no dogma.
And we're just accepting of whomever wants to come and have a conversation.
I stick around until people are done or until they start, you know,
emptying out the conference room.
Yeah, that's so nice.
Thank you for saying that.
I mean, I truly, after I did the one in Miami a month ago,
I had forgotten what an energizing experience it is for me to meet people and watch the hope light up in their eyes.
And where can they get tickets to the Toxic Tooth Tour and also find you on social media, you know, make an appointment at your practice, all that.
Absolutely.
So with regards to reaching out to the team and making appointment with the practice, my website's the best place.
Blodgettdentalcare.com.
That's also probably the easiest place to find, to get tickets or reserve tickets for the toxic.
Tooth Tour, you know, you pull up the website, the banner at the top pops up and says,
hey, sign up for the tour and just click on it. You can click on your city, get tickets there.
And social media, got a big ask for your followers. I truly believe that I was born and meant
to spread this message of truth and health. And on our Instagram channel, it seems to be where
I've connected with the most people. If every person that hears this,
this sends my, whatever you call it, your handle, out to 10 people that they know that they care
about and they want to see them live out the best, healthiest life possible, like somebody that
they would be crushed if they heard that they developed breast cancer from a root canal
or, you know, a heart attack from gum disease or something like that.
Please pass this on to people.
Share our handle so that we can spread this message because I, I'm positive.
I mean, I feel it in my gut.
It's going to be a grassroots thing where human beings finally say,
okay, enough's enough.
Like, whatever, what happened happened?
We use mercury for 200 years.
Like, but let's be done with this.
Let's move on to things like,
instead of all these root canals,
which is happening to the tune of 25 million a year in America,
I mean, it's an insane amount of dead teeth.
What else can we do?
You know?
I think once the human population starts demand,
for better, then dentists will become more inspired to pursue those solutions that help fit
their goals.
Yeah.
Thank you, Dr. Bellaget, for coming on the spillover.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Okay.
Let me see your teeth.
What do you think about that interview?
Are you interested in finding a holistic dentist or do you love the one that you have?
Are you influenced to go to any dentist if you haven't been for several years?
One thing that would be really cool and helpful, I think, for the audience, if one of you
wants to start a thread in the cute servitude's Facebook group where you could share the city that
you live in and the holistic dentist that you go to if you have one that you really like.
The Facebook group is linked in the show notes if you're not already a member.
Next week, I am bringing back one of my most popular guests ever to discuss her new book,
which helps women build a better life prioritizing their family over career.
It's a how-to guide on life as a woman who knows that one day she wants to have a family
or already has a family and a career, but currently needs help putting her family.
first in dialing back the career part. It's my first time to meet her in person, and both her and I have
been really looking forward to having this interview in person this time. We were supposed to do it
like a month ago, but I was really sick, and so we had to reschedule. So please consider being a
financial donor to the show. We're produced by Turning Point USA, like I said earlier, a 501c3
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And consider making lifelong friends
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I'll see you here next Thursday night
at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight eastern.
I'm Alex Clark, and this is the spillover.
Love you, mean it, bye.
Let's play who wants to be a millionaire.
Here we go.
Who are the 9 out of 10 Dennis
who always recommend?
I think they're kept in a cave
in the American Dental Association.
Why are they always recommending?
Are they made up?
Yep.
I actually have a buddy whose email is
fifth tooth doc.
Like the fifth one in the commercial?
Exactly.
Because he's pretty contrary.
You know, he's like, yeah,
we're going to question things.
And I'm like, God bless you.
I love that.
