5 DENTAL WORK: THE BIGGEST HURDLE
If you have no amalgam fillings or other dental work that involve mercury, you can chelate right away and skip the misery and expense of dental work. You can also skip the rest of this chapter and go to chapter 7. If you have or have ever had silver fillings, or if you have crowns, inlays, onlays or root canals, continue reading below.
5.1 Dental work and what you need done
Before you start chelating, it is essential that no current source of exposure to any chelatable heavy metal. The chelators get into all your body fluids and will pick up even the tiniest bit of metal, redistribute it, and make you very sick.
For most adults, no current source of exposure means having all your mercury fillings (the silver or black looking ones) replaced. Mercury fillings are usually replaced with white composite fillings by a specially trained dentist who knows how to protect you and himself from exposure.
Before attempting to chelate, it is a good idea to get digital bite-wing x-rays of your entire mouth, even if your amalgam removal has already been done. Get these double-checked by a competent dentist to make sure that all the amalgam is gone. Even very tiny flecks of amalgam will cause problems when you chelate. Sometimes little bits can get lodged in to the gums or jawbone and these will need to be removed surgically. You are better off going to a mercury-free dentist for this check-up because they are less likely to tell you it’s fine when it isn’t fine. If you had fillings removed by one dentist and you are concerned in might not have been done correctly, go to another to verify all amalgam is out.
5.1.1 The difficult issue of crowns
If you have a crown and are not sure whether amalgam exists under it, it must be lifted and visually inspected before you chelate. An x-ray may not be able to show what is underneath a crown. It is not easy to figure out which crowns may be hiding mercury. One possible indicator is black discoloration of the gums around the edge of the crown. Another is gray on the gums immediately adjacent to the crown margin. Old dental records or your own memory of the procedure may help. Sometimes, if there is amalgam present, it extends far enough down that x-rays from different angles will show it.
You can try to pry off a crown with sticky candy or have the dentist take it off intact. This will save you money because these crowns can be reused. Unfortunately, it is often necessary to cut into the crown to remove it, which ruins it, and a new one must be made. This can be very expensive.
If you have crowns, inlays, onlays, bridges or other types of dental restorations you face the difficult decision of whether to try to chelate and hope there is no mercury, or replace the crowns or other work to be sure of it. If you chelate with mercury in place you will not improve and may make the situation worse. There is about a 40% chance there is mercury under any given crown or bridge.
5.2 Further comments about dentistry
Dentists are trained to leave as much of the actual tooth intact as possible. Even the best holistic dentist may think it is okay to leave a tiny fleck of mercury behind before putting back a crown. They were originally told amalgam was totally safe. When they figured out that wasn’t true, they were told that amalgam that was “sealed” under crowns and was safe because of that. This is not true, either.
Some situations may cost you extra money or discomfort. For instance, a bit of amalgam extending down close to the tooth root might end up causing you to need a root canal. But you must remove every single bit of amalgam. Be strict and thorough. Remember that you are the paying client. It is your health that is on the line. When in doubt, ask to see a mirror or ask for an x-ray to prove there is no amalgam remaining.
Sometimes, people will get scared when they see something gray or black showing through their new composite fillings. This is usually silver oxide staining and not mercury. It is not a problem for chelating. If you really aren’t sure whether it is a stain or amalgam, an x-ray will answer the question. If it is a visible white spot on x-ray, it is a solid piece of amalgam and needs to be removed. The silver looking margin on a crown may also scare people. This is an actual part of the crown and usually made of nickel, stainless steel or zirconium. It is not a problem for chelating unless you are allergic to nickel.
Sometimes the most practical thing to do is have a tooth pulled. Be careful because you don’t want an open wound in your mouth when the dentist is removing amalgam. If an amalgam chip gets healed in to a wound, it will have to be surgically removed. The only way to absolutely prevent this is not to have an open wound and an amalgam chip in your mouth at the same time. For this reason, be sure to wait at least one month or longer after an extraction before getting any amalgams removed. This is to give the socket time to heal. Wait at least one day after getting amalgams removed before having any extractions done.
You will definitely need oral surgery and possibly a tooth extracted if amalgam got implanted in your gums or jaw. An example is if a “retrograde amalgam filling” was placed. This is a small bit of amalgam that is placed at the tip of your tooth’s root during a root canal procedure. It must come out along with some tissue around it as the area will be heavily contaminated. This situation is very obvious on a dental x-ray.
5.2.1 Precautions you must take with the dentist
If you get your amalgam fillings removed without proper precautions, you may get an acute dose of mercury and suffer symptoms for a very long time so find a dentist you can trust. Avoid any dentist who still puts in amalgams because they think the material is safe. Even if they don’t use it with you, you may still get exposed to vast amounts of mercury dust and vapor in their office, and they may not be careful to avoid leaving amalgam bits in place when they remove your fillings.
Before you start your dental work, it is a good idea to think about how you want the dental work done and make a list of conditions for the dentist to read and initial. A good starting point in the list below is section 5.2.2. Review this list with your dentist before you start every session. It is OK if they propose a different reasonable method of meeting a specific need. It is not OK if they simply want you to trust them. NEVER assume that they know what they are doing. There are enough horror stories out there without yours being one.
5.2.2 Precautions the dentist must take
Here are some minimum precautions a dentist needs to take to protect you from mercury chips and mercury vapor. You need:
• a dentist who realizes these precautions are important. One who is not taking them just to humor you but will do the work properly.
• a rubber dam or a suction tip that clips around the tooth being worked on.
• high suction near the tooth.
• oxygen or air with a cannula (nose piece), some sort of mask, or at least some suction device or high airflow in the treatment room. This is to keep you from breathing the dust and vapor. If you can smell what is going on, you’re breathing it, too.
• lots of water to keep the amalgam cool while drilling.
• a low speed drilling technique that takes the old amalgam out in chunks. This is to keep the mercury from heating up and vaporizing and to keep from making a lot of fine amalgam dust.
• no chlorella rinse after the procedure. It is okay to use activated charcoal or Vitamin C. Be careful with Vitamin C before the procedure as it has been known to interfere with anesthesia.
• no chelators before, after or during the procedure.
• nothing to “bind” or “passivate” the mercury
At no time during the amalgam replacement project should you be left with any metal in contact with amalgam: neither next to it, over it (as in a crown or onlay) nor across from it in the bite (an example is a gold crown on one tooth biting down on an amalgam that has not yet been replaced.) You should not be sent home with this situation in your mouth.
When the metal components of a crown touch amalgam, a battery is formed. This battery is short circuited by your saliva (which is also the electrolyte). A current will flow causing the mercury from the amalgam filling to dissolve into the saliva, your tooth, or anything it touches at an extremely high rate. The electric current will also help drive the mercury into your tissues. This situation can make you sick very rapidly, even in just a few days.
Make sure that all amalgam is removed from a tooth before any crown is placed. Ask to look at an x-ray of the tooth before the crown is glued on. Have the dentist use an intraoral camera if he has one. Or have him show a friend of yours while the work is being done. This is extremely important, as chelating with amalgam under a crown can be catastrophic. It is very difficult to detect amalgam once the crown is on.
5.2.3 Be careful about advice from your dentist
Your dentist may want to treat your ‘cavitations’ and pull all your root canal treated teeth. Most root canal treated teeth are fine, though sometimes one may have failed and need to be extracted. The same goes for ‘cavitation sites’ under root canals or where a tooth was previously extracted. If there is an active, ‘wet’ infection you will need to deal with it, otherwise leave it alone. This issue is controversial, and many people believe that it is crucial to get all root canals removed and cavitations cleaned up. You don’t need to do this in order to chelate. All you need to do is get every last speck of amalgam out of your mouth. You can put off all this extra surgery and expense and evaluate the situation later when you feel healthier. Most people who get cavitation surgery butcher their mouths unnecessarily. Very few people actually need it.
NEVER let any dentist persuade you to do any of the following:
• NO chlorella rinse
• NO chlorella ever
• NO chelation before, during or immediately after the dental work
• NOTHING to bind or passivate the mercury
• NO special detox products, detox support or detox remedies
• NO special mercury remedies
• NO DMSA or DMPS before, during or the few days afterwards until you use it as a chelator
• NO EDTA
• NO R-alpha lipoic acid ever
• NOTHING containing alpha lipoic acid until you use it as chelator at least three months after the dental work
5.2.4 How to afford the dental work
It is a sad fact that some people can’t start chelating before spending thousands of dollars on their teeth. If you are really sick, this should be a high priority. If the situation is not urgent, get the amalgams removed gradually, safely and as you can afford it. If you take your time on the dental work you lower you chances of having a bad reaction.
Don’t let yourself get discouraged or give up! The dental work is the hardest part to get through because of the trouble and expense. Check into dental insurance. Check into getting the work financed. Most dental offices have financing plans that are easy to get.
Prices vary enormously. If you have a lot of dental work and the expense is great, it is worth getting several estimates. Dentistry is craftsmanship. If one dentist is proposing a particularly expensive way to redo your fillings, shop around. That might be the best or only way that dentist knows how to do it, but another dentist might be able to come up with a different solution that is less expensive.
For people in the United States and other expensive countries one way to keep costs down is to go abroad. Both Canadians and Americans have been going to Mexico for dental work for years. Thailand is an excellent place to go and some Eastern European countries are also possibilities.
Nowadays, because of the Internet, it is easy to find a mercury-free dentist. There are many online lists and internet groups that deal with mercury poisoning. Join one or more and ask people where they went for their dental work. It is these people who are going to be able to tell you if a particular dentist is good. There are also professional organizations for mercury free dentists such as www.iaomt.org.