Dr. Michelle Jorgensen: Your Teeth Are Making You Sick-The Mouth-Body Connection to Chronic Disease

0:00 So, we're going to talk about two sources. One is root canals, and the other is areas where you've had teeth removed previously. And a lot of people will say, "Well, I've never had a tooth out." I'll say, "Well, do you have your wisdom teeth still?" Oh, no. I got those out. That's what I'm talking about. So, a large majority of people have had wisdom teeth out. These infections are hidden. The problem with that is you don't really know that anything's going on. And there is research, crazy research, showing things like infection in the mouth. Whether it be gum infection, root canals, or where your teeth were removed, those infections will kill you. Like 78% of clots that killed people either from a heart attack or a stroke had mouth only bugs in them. I have yet to find a person with cancer or has had or has cancer that doesn't have an infected root canal or an infection in the jawbone where a tooth was removed. I've not found one yet. I've not found one yet. There are zero. In fact, I was told this by another. >> Welcome to the Deconstructing

0:45 Conventional podcast. This interview is brought to you by Healing United, a private membership association committed to helping you reclaim sovereignty over your health, life, and future. You could say our tagline is question everything and rebuild intentionally. In the audio format of the show, there's additional commentary before each episode, and there are also over a dozen audio only episodes. You can find the show anywhere you listen to podcasts, including the Healing United PMA app. Look for it in the app store. And if you want to learn more about the work we do and especially how we help people heal when the doctors have no answers, visit us online at healingunited.tday. Now, on with the show. All right. Hello everyone. Welcome to today's show. My guest is the lovely Dr. Michelle Jorgensson. She is a functional integrative dentist, a boardcertified

1:32 traditional naturopath. She's also received certifications as a therapeutic nutritional counselor and a certified nutritional autoimmune specialist. Uh she also has an amazing line of dental products, which we'll talk about in a little bit. She is the author of six books, including the one where I first came across her work called Healthy Mouth, Healthy You. and she has a new book coming out next week, May 20th, called Living Well with Dr. Michelle. And just to give you a sense of the baller that is Dr. Jorgensson, she also teaches and coaches uh healthc care professionals like not surprisingly dentists, but also chiropractors, naturopaths, medical doctors, nurse practitioners, uh nutritionists, massage therapists, and coaches like me about a truly integrated model for what I would call real healthcare. uh a a major inflection point in her life or her

2:18 professional career was 10 years into practicing dentistry. She became quite sick and realized that the cause of her illness was from exposure to mercury from drilling metal fillings out of people's teeth without proper protection. So, we'll get into that story in just a little bit. Um she's also become quite the homesteader and gardener and offers classes to learn for other people to learn to do the same. She's a wife and mother of four. She claims to be a grandmother, which I don't think she's she doesn't look old enough to be a grandmother, so I'm skeptical about that one. But anyway, Dr. Jorgensson, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. >> Thank you. I'm glad to be here. And I am a grandmother of two. My favorite two little humans on the planet. >> Okay. So, it's confirmed. I we get we want some video or visual evidence of this, but I'll take your word for it. So, thank you for coming. All right. Well, there's so many things about you that fascinate me. So I I I told you

3:04 before we started I limited myself to one of your books but um give the listener a brief background about yourself. What led you into dentistry and then talk about the journey of becoming a biological dentist and then eventually a naturopath. >> Yeah. So to to get to dentistry was a pretty easy thing for me. My father was a dentist, my grandfather was a doctor and actually I had an interesting experience when I was a senior in high school. I knew I wanted to do some sort of medicine. And what I did is for a project for school, I went and interviewed every doctor in my neighborhood or every doctor I knew. And I interviewed every dentist I knew. And I asked them all, should I be a doctor or should I be a dentist? All the doctors said be a dentist. All the dentists said be a dentist. I said, well, consensus seems to be be a dentist. So that's what I did. I started right off school and actually I moved

3:50 quite quickly through school. Graduated when I was 23 years old from dental school. So, I've been doing this a really long time. >> Wow. >> Yeah. So, that was it was an early start for me. >> Well, I'm fascinated why all the doctors told you to become a dentist. What was their rationale? >> They just said from quality of life standpoint, you know, there's no rounds in the middle of the night. There's no, you know, things like that going on. So, if I wanted to be a mom, which I did, they said from a quality of life standpoint, your dad has a better life than we do. So, go be a dentist. >> There you go. Okay. Well, talk to us about the journey of becoming ill from mercury. like how did you connect the dots that that's what was happening to you and what were your symptoms? >> That was not as easy as my decision to become a dentist. That one was a lot harder. Uh you know I was watching my dad. We were actually practicing

4:36 together and he's still practicing in his mid70s and I just thought that that's what I would do that I would just keep practicing forever you know and everything would just go along like it had for him and I was enjoying practice and about 10 years in I started to get really sick and I didn't know what it was. So I started doing what we all do, you know, going to doctor after doctor and doing things that I could like changing my diet and you know the things you do like everybody does at home. You you stop eating certain stuff and you you know whatever. And some of it helped a little bit but the doctors didn't have any answers and I was doing tests and X-rays and still no answers. And my biggest issues were my gut. I couldn't even drink water sometimes without pain. So something was pretty off there. Um my memory was just shot and I've always had a good memory. I couldn't complete

5:21 sentences. I couldn't remember patients names from room to room. So again, something was pretty pretty noticeably off there. And then the third one was just really bad painful numbness in my hands. I couldn't sleep at night. I couldn't blow dry my hair. I couldn't hold my my dental instruments anymore. So it got to the point where I just actually put my practice for sale. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was a young mom of four young kids, mid-30s. My husband worked for the practice as well. So this was our entire livelihood going up and smoke right here. and nobody could give me any answers. And I thought, well, I'm interested in nutrition now that I've been working on my gut health and diet. So, maybe I'll be a nutritionist in a dental office. So, I found a dentist that had a nutritionist in his office. And I just said, "Could I could I call and talk with you? How does this work?" I called and talked with him and he

6:07 said, "Your symptoms sound a lot like mine. Have you looked into mercury poisoning as a possibility?" And I said, "Well, no, no. I don't have any mercury fillings in my mouth." Because I knew that silver fillings are have 50% mercury. We were taught that in dental school, but I was also taught they're perfectly safe. >> And so, you know, and I said I said, "No, I don't have any fillings >> and they're safe anyway." And he said, >> "Well, first of all, is it, you know, maybe it's worth just getting tested to be sure." And he said, "It's not the fillings you have. It's the fillings you've been drilling out for the last decade with no protection." And that was literally the first time I'd ever heard those words. So, I got tested for mercury poisoning and that's what it was. Mercury off the charts. So now all of my neurologic symptoms made sense because mercury is a neurotoxin. So it was affecting my brain and my thinking. It was affecting my hands and all the nerves there. It was affecting my gut,

6:53 which is very much nervous gut brain, you know, gut brain connection there. And all of a sudden, everything made sense. But I didn't know what I was going to do. The doctor said, "Well, if you're going to keep being a dentist, you can't keep putting it in while you're getting it out. You know, you're not going to get better if you keep just dosing yourself every single day again." So, I had to find was there a way to remove these fillings and not get more mercury in me. And I found there was. There was an organization I had never heard of before who had protocol for this. It's called the IAOOMT. And they had their smart protocol, which was an entire list of things you could do so that you didn't get exposed to mercury during removal. I had never heard of them before. Never heard of these protocols. So, I started doing all of this because basically in dental school, I had been told if I told my patients that their fillings could affect their health, I would lose my license.

7:39 >> So, that was the only information I had about mercury was that it won't and you'll lose your license if you say it does. So, we had never I had never ventured down these paths. These weren't these weren't like safe paths, you know, so but now I had to. So, I started going down that path and I would walk into the operatory now to, you know, remove fillings with a hazmat suit on and gas mask and my patients would say, "Um, excuse me, >> what's going on here? >> What's going on here? This is a little different than last time I came in." And so, I would explain the story and I'd say, you know, this is for me. And they would say, "Well, but isn't this probably good for me, too?" Um, yes, it is. Well, my my mom might be interested in that. She's actually been feeling really sick and maybe, you know, or my doctor would be interested in that. she's kind of getting into this kind of stuff. So then patients and doctors

8:25 started asking me things like, "Well, what are your thoughts about, you know, fluoride? Do you still believe it's the best for you? And what do you think about root canals?" You know, and I said, "Well, I've done, you know, like a thousand of them. Well, what do you think about them? Are they healthy long term?" And these questions from people outside of the industry made me stop and say, "Wow, if I didn't even know that I could get sick from doing my job, what else in my job could be impacting not only my health, but all of my patients health?" And that opened an entirely new door that I never intended to go through. And now we have a multi-pety, multi-docctor office campus really where people come from around the world to improve their health. And it's all based on the foundation that mouth health affects overall health. In fact, 60 to 80% of chronic disease can be traced

9:10 back to your mouth in some way. So that is the very short story of a very long journey to get where I am today. >> Wow, that is well well said. Very succinct. And I guess I'd say a few questions now. What percentage of the people that are trained as a dentist actually know what you know? Is it is it f are they finally teaching this or is it still you're not allowed to talk about this with most dentistry training today? Oh no. You'll never hear this in a school ever. Gez. >> Yeah. And schools are always I mean in any profession, it doesn't matter where you're at, schools are always about 10 to 15 years behind the actual profession, behind advancements in the profession. Schools are that far behind. So it doesn't matter if you're going to medical school, wherever, you're going to be 10 to 15 years behind really where the front runners in the profession are. That's just the way it is. It's just a

9:56 slow evolution. So my whole emphasis now is teaching people like your listeners because if they know what they should be looking for in a dentist, then they'll start to go and ask it of dentists and dentists will have to say, "Well, okay, I had literally five people this week come in and ask me about this. I guess I can go see what this crazy talk stuff is all about. And then they can go and they'll seek out, you know, either my courses or other courses and start to learn because from inside the profession, I mean, we're probably 1 2% at most. and dentists are not interested in hearing what I have to say. >> Wow. Well, and you didn't lose your license. You're still here and you're still able to talk about these things. And so, obviously, there's a way forward for that. So, anybody listening to this, take heart that that's you don't have to be under the thumb of we will take away

10:43 your ability to transact and feed your family if you talk about truth. So, >> yeah, research is on the very front end. So, research is even ahead of practitioners and practitioners ahead of schooling. So research has now proven everything that I say, you know, that mercury is released from fillings 247 that you can get mercury toxicity from the vapors coming out of a mercury. Like I can say all of that now because now we have research that's actually proven all of that. But when I was starting this 15 years ago, we didn't have that, but we do now. >> Great. Well, thank you for being having the boldness to speak up and I look forward to unpacking more of that as we go. But before I get there, what did you do to overcome your own mercury poisoning? How did you get that out of your body and get rid of those symptoms you were dealing with? >> Yeah, that's when I had to learn a lot of other things, too. I had to learn that first of all, there's different kinds of mercury. There's the kind of

11:29 mercury that's in fillings, and there's the kind of mercury that you're going to find in fish and vaccines. And they're actually different mercuries. There's elemental mercury and um anyway, different different versions of mercury. And so, the kind of mercury that I had from fillings actually excretes through kidneys. So, what does that mean? Means my kidneys needed to be healthy. My whole entire, you know, urinary system needed to be healthy. So, I had to get that working to be able to get rid of it. I had to figure out where the mercury was hiding because mercury just goes and hides in, I call it neighborhoods, you know, it just goes hangs out and it's, you know, behind the shed back there and you got to, you know, use your search light and get it to get it out. And so, you have to use something called a chilator to pull it out to then be able to excrete it. So, kidneys working first, then I had to start using chilators. And I found real quickly I could not use very intense ones. So, I was using things like cyto

12:15 detox, a bunch of different others, and I got sick as sick. I mean, literally, I got down to like 110 pounds. I was so ill. My mom said, "You look like a walking skeleton. Like, what is wrong with you?" I'm like, "I can't eat a bite. I'm so ill." And and so, I just said, "I cannot I cannot try to get it out of my body this fast. I can't do this. I'm just going to I'm not going to survive this." So, I had to slow way down. And I've since learned, so what I started using was a lot of chlorella and just plant foods. Um, green foods have a lot of chlorophyll in it, which is also a very good just gentle natural detoxer. So things like lettuce and spinach and arugula and bok choy and those kind of green foods. But I found that I actually have a genetic variant that doesn't allow my body to get rid of toxins very

13:03 easily. And you may talk about this. I'm sure you probably It's called MTHFR. I got one from my dad, one from my mom. So my dad was fine, you know, because he didn't have both. I got both of them. And I don't label toxins very well. So I like to think of it like a UPC code on, you know, it comes into the body, your body goes, "Ah, bad. Get rid of that one. Oh, good. Keep that one." You know, my body doesn't label things very well. So I couldn't get rid of the mercury. And on top of that, I've since learned that women who are expecting a baby detox about 80% of their mercury into their first baby. >> And guess what? I was in birth order >> number one. And my mom had a mouthful of mercury fillings. >> Wow. >> So, I think I probably had a mercury burden from birth. And then I had the

13:48 genetic inability to get rid of it. And then I started adding it. And you know, I started working in my dad's dental practice when I was like 14. So I started adding it early on and then went to dental school and I think by that point like it was just you know game over for me. So I because it I think it was over a lot of years getting in I had to take a lot of years to get it out. So I was doing slowation slow detoxing for about eight years before I really felt like my brain was back. >> Wow. Well that that is more of an involved story than I was expecting. That's quite a journey. And for somebody who's been through what you've been through to think eight years I might be at this detox thing a while. There's there's a recalibration that goes with that to find your path to detox. That's a good helpful intel. Thank you for sharing that. Uh before we get to some

14:34 of the particulars of the dental industry, I guess I just wanted to humanize this a little bit more. Tell us if you will like the the emotional side of what you learned because you basically had to come to terms with like being part of an industry that was causing major amounts of harm in millions of people and more or less reinvent yourself while being threatened you'd lose your license if you spoke out. So what was it like emotionally going from traditional dentist to biological or holistic dentist? You know, it was really hard particularly because my father is very much traditionally, you know, my we were both traditionally trained and so there was a lot of mistrust, a lot of even um making fun of, you know, of these principles. It just even internally and so we were practicing together when all this started. And that was very difficult to

15:20 say >> I don't really have a choice here. So, I know you don't believe what I'm doing, and I know you're even making fun of what I'm doing here, and you know, the team's watching you. So, this is really hard because they also need to do what I tell them to do here. So, that was certainly challenging. And >> I had to just decide what was the most important thing here. Was it my own pride, my own, you know, all of these things, my own, you know, version of me? or was it the truth what I was finding? And >> I've always been one that I've been underestimated pretty much my entire career, you know, going into dental school. All the I was, you know, one of a very few at the time. It's not 50/50

16:06 in dental school, but a 50-50 male female um students, but not when I was there. We were very much the underdog. And they all said, "Well, the only reason you're here is because they have, you know, status. They need they need a certain amount of women in the class. They have to have a certain amount amount of women in the class." So, I was very used to these un, you know, underestimations. And I said, just watch me. And basically, that's what I've done the entire time with this as well is, you know what, I'm not about I'm not here to change your mind or to preach to you or do anything like that. And that's really how I've navigated this. I've just said, you know what? Just watch me. >> Just watch me. And if you see me getting better and if you see me helping people to get better as well and changing lives, then you can choose to believe and to be on board as well. If you don't want to and that doesn't fit for you, then you know you are absolutely, you know, able to have your own beliefs and

16:52 your own belief systems, but I'm going to do what I believe is right for me. And I really had to also come to realization that I don't have to save everyone and I can't. >> Yeah. >> But I can do what I can do because as I started learning, I wanted to share with everybody. I started buying everybody blenders. They could make smoothies and you know, I mean, all this stuff and buying them recipe books and so excited and listen to this podcast and listen, you know, read this book and nobody did it. And I was really offended at for a while >> and then I realized, you know what, we're all on our own journey. >> So I learned if somebody asks me a question about what I'm doing, I answer the question. >> If they ask me another question, I answer that question. But I let people take their own pace, their own path. And that really was a thing that I had to figure out emotionally as well is it's okay. I'm doing this for me, for those

17:38 that I'm going to influence. And if people want to follow, I'm here for them. But I can't make anybody do what they don't want to do. >> Yeah, that my admiration for you just went up. I've resonated with a lot of that over 20 years as a health coach. I've had to come to terms with I can't I can lead them to the water, but I can't make them drink. And the best I can do is show up and answer the questions or ask them thoughtful ones and get them thinking. It sounds like very similar path to you. And another thing I admire is just the guts to do it while you're still talking or while you're still in the profession because I've I know of other dentist people who've retired and will talk about, yeah, this is where my industry is not helping. But to do it while you're still in practice and to take some of those arrows or to have awkward moments with your own dad in practice, that's there's some some guts

18:24 and resilience in there. So well done. That that's awesome. >> I have an interesting story actually about that. So, I was I had been taking a really long continuum, a continuing education continuum. So, it was nine sessions, and each of these sessions was about $6,000. So, you can start doing your math, adding this up, okay? And each one was a three-day session. So, I had to travel to Seattle, time away from work, the cost of travel plus the cost of the the thing there. So, I was at the end of the nine sessions and the last day. So, you can see everybody that is at the at the table with me would have committed a lot, right? These are the top of the top in the dental profession, the people who have really committed their time and their money and their everything to becoming the best. So, I was at lunch on the very last day surrounded by, you know, these other dentists that had gone through the same process and someone at the table started

19:11 saying, "Oh, yeah, there's this crazy dentist in my office who wears like this hazmat suit when he's taking out mercury fillings." And the whole table started laughing. >> So, I sat there and I thought, "Do I say something? Do I not say something?" And I always say something. So, so >> I spoke up and I just said, "You know what? >> Can I share my story with you?" >> And then I shared my story. The same story that I shared with you just now. I shared my story. And of course, they were all very embarrassed and very apologetic. And I said, "That is not why I shared my story. I shared my story because if I can save one of you from going down the path that I went down, that will be worth it. That's worth all of it. if I can say one of you from that exact same path. And what I've learned

19:57 is that no one can dispute your story >> because it's your own. >> Yeah. >> They can dispute a statistic. They can dispute an anecdotal story of someone else that you share. They can dispute all of that. But they can't tell you that your story and your journey is wrong. So lean on your story. Those of you who are listening, lean on your journey and stay there. And anybody who wants to follow you and learn more from you will come to you. And I hope that the people that were at that table that day have made some changes for their own health, for their own health's sake. But it's just all about sharing your story. >> Oh, it is. I can just feel it. Well, I imagine being in that room and the way that you navigated that. I love that you started it with permission to tell your story. You asked a question first and it

20:43 you got the permission to Okay. Well, and a story like you said, nobody's going to dispute that. But yeah, it was there was a conviction in you that I can't be quiet about this in a room full of these people. And yeah, who knows how many lives you saved or will save just because you're talking to me today. So, well done. I I love that. Okay. Well, you mentioned earlier the statistic you you estimated 60 to 80% of health problems start in the mouth. So, give the listener some context for those percentages. How could the number possibly be that big? >> Yep. So, a lot of chronic disease, most chronic disease is inflammatory based, right? I'm sure you talk about this all the time. You know, it's inflammation. And inflammation, I I've heard it phrased inflammaging, you know, basically aging is simply inflammation.

21:29 It's the body's own response to something in the in the world. And you talk about this all the time, you know, with toxins and cleaning things up. And so, the body's response to any sort of insult is going to be inflammation. It's the way our bodies are programmed to fight for us, right? It's our own body care of ours to take care of ourselves. So, our cells are super good at it. Um, and it turns on inflammation, but if it can never get away from that inflammatory burden, then the inflammation never turns off. Well, there's three biggies inside of dentistry that can lead to that chronic inflammation that a lot of people aren't familiar with. So, the first one is the mercury. Like I just talked about, mercury is very inflammatory. So, if you're going to get mercury fillings removed, please only do it if you're going to do it safely. Because if you go to just any dentist and they're going to

22:15 drill it out, you're going to breathe it in, you're going to swallow chunks, you're just going to get more mercury in your system, you're going to be more inflamed. So, make sure you're going to the AOOMT.org directory or I have a directory on my site, living wellwithdrml.com. Go on that site, go find a dentist who's been trained to do that. So, that's number one. I won't spend a ton of time on that because it's pretty cut and dry. Do you have the fillings or do you not? Get them out safely. Can I ask you one thing you pointed out in your book that I thought was profound and like how did I not see this before? You talked about temperature changes and you talked about frequency related to mercury. So talk about those quickly for the listener so they have a sense of oh yeah of course that would be impactful. >> Yep. So very interesting. If you think about if you have a a jar of jam at your house that has a metal lid on it and you can't get the metal lid off, what do you

23:01 do? You go put it under hot water. Why? Because heat expands metal. So then it expands and it comes off. It loosens the metal the metal lid on that jar. So when you have a metal filling with temp with heat, it expands the metal. With cold, it it shrinks the metal. So it has this expansion contraction going on inside of the tooth at all times. What does this do? Well, it actually cracks the tooth. So I started telling people about the mercury fillings years before. I mean, why was I removing mercury fillings and got sick? You know, why were they coming out? But because they crack your teeth. They're really actually bad for your teeth themselves. So that's why I was removing them long before I knew that mercury was the problem because they actually are really really bad for your teeth. They just crack your teeth. So that's reason alone to get the filling out just to preserve your tooth and save your tooth.

23:47 >> Frequency is another piece that's super interesting and this isn't just the metal fillings. It's also metal implants. This is the place that really it was found because that's another source of metal in the body is metal dental implants. So this one's an interesting one. This information came out of research in the orthopedic world. So hips, shoulders, knees, I mean, how many metal parts are we putting in people's bodies every single day? Thousands of them. Right. >> Right. >> And in the orthopedic world, what they found is that our world has changed. We are now surrounded by frequencies. So that's Wi-Fi, cellular frequencies, all of those kinds of things. Well, frequencies are simply a wave. And I, you know, the one that people understand the best is a microwave, right? You put a metal pan in a microwave and what does

24:32 it do? It starts to spark. If you've never done this accidentally, don't try it. Starts to spark. It can start your microwave on fire because those microwaves, those frequency of electrons passing through the air, they pass through the metal and they heat the metal up. It's why you can't put a, you know, um, aluminum foil wrapped, you know, baking potato in the microwave because it won't get through the metal. It heats up the metal, but it won't get through it. The same thing happens with metals in your mouth and other frequencies called Wi-Fi. Cellular, they are all frequencies of electrons moving through the air like this. And when they pass through the metals, they heat them up. So now, because we have so much Wi-Fi, so much everything they're finding in orthopedics that that heating of the metal is literally burning or

25:17 kind of killing off the bone surrounding these metal implanted parts and pieces. So they're seeing higher rates of failures because of these frequencies. and we simply can't get away from it. We opened a new uh office on our campus and I told my husband, I said, "I don't want Wi-Fi in here." And he said, "Pull out your phone right now. I want you to go on to Wi-Fi right now and tell me how many Wi-Fi networks pop up." >> He's like, "It doesn't matter if we have our own Wi-Fi router." He said, "You're literally getting 50 different routers right here as it is." >> So, there was no way other than simply doing Faraday cages around our entire building and blocking off all EMFs. you know, I do some of those things in my bedroom, but you know, at other places, but we're just surrounded by it on a daily basis. So, it's heating up the metals, which then destroys the bone. So, in our practice, we don't do

26:03 titanium dental implants. Like 1% of the time, maybe we do ceramic dental implants because they don't conduct electricity and they don't heat up. And there's a lot of there's actually been an increase in dental implants that have failed. >> And people think they blame it on gum disease. They blame it on you're just not brushing your teeth. Then what do I blame it on? Frequencies. >> Yeah, >> it's melt to the bone. >> No, it makes so much sense. I'd never thought of it. Like mercury is what we use in thermometers and it's super sensitive to temperature. So a hot drink, a cold drink, like duh. Like how did I not put that together before? Yeah, but that's such an important point to make if somebody has those. You're whittling away at the integrity of your tooth. >> Yep. >> Okay, so I interrupted you. Your first big one was mercury fillings or mercury infillings. What's the What's the second one? >> Second one's a real biggie. It's hidden

26:49 infections. And this is the one that leads to so much inflammation in the body. And I mean, there's research that shows that. So, we're going to talk about two sources. One is root canals, and the other is areas where you've had teeth removed previously. And a lot of people will say, "Well, I've never had a tooth out." I'll say, "Well, do you have your wisdom teeth still?" Oh, no. I got those out. Yep. That's what I'm talking about. So, large majority of people have had wisdom teeth out. And these infections are hidden. And the problem with that is you don't really know that anything's going on. And there is research, crazy research, showing things like infection in the mouth, whether it be gum infection, root canals, or where your teeth were removed. Those infections will kill you. Like 78% of clots that killed people either from a heart attack or a stroke had mouth only bugs in them. >> Wow. >> Um Yeah. It's just it's enormous the the

27:35 amount of things. I have yet to find a person with cancer or has had or has cancer that doesn't have an infected root canal or an infection in the jawbone where a tooth was removed. I've not found one yet. Let that sink in for a second there to the listeners. None. >> I've not found one yet. There are zero. In fact, I was told this by another practitioner years ago and she said, "If you can find one, I'll pay a thousand bucks." So, I've been looking hard. Like, I want a thousand bucks, >> right? Dang. >> And I have yet to find one. So, let's talk about why. What is the connection here? You know, and it's it's kind of interesting because I have three brothers who are also I have two brothers that are orthodontists and another brother who's an oral surgeon. And they are on other dental forums. that are not the forums that I'm on. Well, now I've made way way onto their forums, but they ridicule me greatly. My brothers don't, the other people on the

28:21 forums, but they tell me, they're like, "Oh, you were on our forum again today. Guess what they guess what I heard this time?" You know, but it was a it was a forum that had a bunch of endidonists, people that do root canals. >> And the guy was complaining and saying, "How are we supposed to make money anymore because all these crazy people on the internet are telling people that root canals can lead to cancer, you know?" So, this was on this forum. I'm like, "I have arrived." >> Right. Congratulations. >> Yes, I have now arrived. H anyway, so let's talk about this. It's all about the anatomy of a tooth. So, inside of a tooth, there's a main canal. This is called the root canal. Have you heard the word root canal before? The root canal. The canal inside of the root. It's like a six lane superhighway. Okay? It's where all the nutrients come in and out. It's where all the nerves come in and out of the tooth. From that super

29:09 highway, there's little said there's little exits that go off into all the other areas of the tooth, all the way up and down the tooth. That's why when you tap on your tooth, you can feel it >> because there's a nerve channel, a little nerve nerve extending that goes all the way out to the outside of that tooth through something called a dentinal tubule. Every dentist knows about this. We were taught at year one in dental school. There's a mile of these little tiny tubules, these little tiny roads going off of that main canal. When they do a root canal, they clean the main superighway out. They clean out the nerve, they clean out the blood vessels, disinfect it with bleach. That's actually the disinfectant of choice, disinfect it with bleach, and then fill it up with a material called gutaperta. It's kind of this rubbery stuff. It's tree sap from a tree in Malaysia. So, they fill it up with this rubbery stuff. That's what a root canal is.

29:54 >> The problem is all that mile of little tiny side roads going off, they're too small to clean and they're too small to fill. So dead tissue, dead blood vessel tissue and nerve tissue stays out in those little tiny channels. No matter what, no matter how well, no matter how meticulously well a root canal is done, there's going to be dead tissue in that tooth. So I liken this to let's say somebody's been told they need their gallbladder out. Well, what if they took your gallbladder out, cleaned it up, you know, soaked it in bleach, filled it full of rubber stuff, and then put it back in your body? Would it work? No. because it's no longer connected to a blood supply, which means you can't get immune cells there, which means you have no blood flow. The body will reject it and bacteria will find it. And that's

30:40 what's happened to these teeth. Bacteria finds this dead tissue inside of the tooth. So now is where the problem arises because your body has to deal with that. Your immune system has to deal with that. that lowgrade chronic inflammatory burden infection on the body 247 never ends, never stops, never goes away. So now your body's immune system is distracted and tired and worn out and it can't deal with the other stuff that's going on. So I'm not saying that a root canal causes cancer. What I'm saying is that a root canal diminishes your ability to deal with everything else that your body naturally knows how to deal with. It just can't do it anymore because it's worn out. Not only that, but the infection, it's like a piston. Every single time you bite on that tooth, you're forcing that

31:26 infection, that bacteria into the bloodstream and around the body everywhere. They've now isolated it out of hearts. They've isolated it out of kidneys. They've isolated it out of um colon cancer lesions out of everywhere. These are bugs that are mouth bugs. Why are they there? Because they got sent all over the body at the ends of these failed root canals. And here's the kicker. You can't feel it because the nerves gone. >> So, you've lost your early warning system. You have no idea that it's reinfected until you get what's called a cone beam CT scan. This is a specialized dental X-ray where I can see everything in three dimensions. I can literally flip you upside down, turn you inside out, and see what's going on on those root canals. And oh my gosh, you cannot believe what I find on a daily basis on

32:11 these. I just saw 12 patients two days ago. Actually, was that just yesterday? Yesterday, apparently yesterday was a long day, >> right? like it was two days ago. Um there was one woman in particular. It was it was just actually blew me away. She'd had three massive sinus surgeries. I mean massive. Had just like whittleled away all of the turbinets in her nose, cleaned out everything in sight. And no matter what after she had the surgery within about 3 months, infections would come back. >> She went back to the ENT and the ENT was like, "I literally don't know what else to do for you. Like I cannot take anything else out of your nose unless I just take your nose off your face. Like I don't know what else I'm going to do." and you can do another antibiotic. She'd been on like 15 at this point, you know, it killed her gut because of it. And so finally she was like, "Well, I heard this lady talk about like maybe a root

32:58 canal. Came into the office, took a comb beam CT scan. She has a massive abscess on the end of an upper molar tooth. It's it had broken through the bottom of her sinus because anytime you have infection like that building, it needs a release valve. And the the bone on the bottom of the sinus is kind of like an eggshell. It's actually fairly thin. So, it's either that bone or it's either come out the cheek side, which is a lot harder bone. So, it's going to actually break through the bottom of the sinus first. So, this tooth had been refilling her sinus after every single sinus surgery. And it had the ENT had never looked at the tooth to say, could this infection be because of her tooth? >> Yeah. >> It was just crazy to me. So, that tooth coming out and her sinus infections will go away. It's just there's so many

33:45 direct correlates with failed root canals every single day. >> Man, I can imagine why you get fired up about it. The the reality that so few people ask about your dental health when they ask about your symptoms. It's just I shouldn't be surprised by it. But yeah, that seems to be the way it goes in healthcare. And some I read I watched the documentary root cause, which I think you and I talked about before, and it's it does such a great job of laying this out if the listener wants to go check it out. But one of the points they made was there's no such thing as an uninfected root canal. Like they all have it. And to your point, there's there's no other discipline in the entire world of what you could call healthcare where we leave dead tissue in the body and just put something in there that can't the immune system can't get to and think there's no consequence to that so we can save the tooth. And man,

34:32 what a what a world. Anything else you want to say about root canals that we didn't cover? It just leads to inflammation and infection and then the body has to defend itself from it. So I had a patient who also had skyhigh cholesterol. She was doing everything she knew to get it down. Nothing worked. Finally her doctor said thankfully, you know what, maybe it's her teeth. I don't know. There's crazy talk about maybe teeth can be related. Let's see. So she came in, had three root canal teeth removed. I saw her three months later because she brought her husband in for work and she said, "I've got to tell you the end of my story." She said, "I got those three teeth out. I went back in a month later and got my blood tested. My cholesterol had dropped 90 points and I had done nothing except get those teeth out. So cholesterol is your body's insulator. Yeah. >> It's your body saying something's not

35:19 right here and so I'm going to create more of it to insulate you more from it. So it's so important that we pay attention to the symptoms, >> right? >> Because the symptoms are where the answers lie. instead of taking a drug that will lower your cholesterol that's now turned off the symptom and left things just to get worse and worse and worse. So, it's important the most important thing is to go get that cone beam CT scan and determine are those root canals healthy for you and is it time just to get them removed because people will always ask well what do I do instead? So, we remove and replace them with ceramic dental implants or a bridge or nothing. Sometimes people it's the very back tooth and they say I'm really fine without it. I really don't need it. Great get let's get it out and just take it out. But also people will say well

36:05 what do you do instead? That's usually the biggest question I get. What do you do instead? And the answer is it depends on if the tooth is still alive. So if you still have a real sensitive tooth, a deep cavity, but you can feel that tooth still. What we do is we remove the cavity all the way to the deepest spark part but leave the nerve alone. So we don't uncover it. Don't get into that root canal area. ozone right there to kill all the bugs and then we fill over top of it and keep the tooth alive. >> So, if you've been told you need a root canal, go get a second opinion. Go see if you can find somebody who does. It's called biomimetic dentistry. Basically, it's using ozone and fillings to save teeth and keep them alive once they're already dead. If you've got a big old fat cheek and it's swollen and it's already dead, replace and remove and replace the tooth. >> Yeah, great perspective and amazing

36:53 stories. I'm sure you got hundreds of them, but okay. What was the third category you were going to give us? >> Airway. >> So, this is all about air. And people think, well, why would a dentist talk to me about my sleeping or breathing or anything else? Because airway is largely >> structural. >> It's largely structural. And in our world today, most of us have a very small mouth. Mhm. >> So if I meet anybody and they have had braces or they've had their wisdom teeth out, then their jaw did not grow adequately because if you look at schools 300 years ago, they had straight teeth and they all had the they had all 32 teeth. They did not take their wisdom teeth out. >> Why? Well, the first bone affected by malnutrition is the top jaw. So are we

37:39 malnourished today? >> Yes. >> Exactly. Because our food does not have the nutrients in it that it once did. Our food supply has drastically changed. So we might be getting, you know, food, but it's not food with nutrients. So we are malnourished and the first jaw or first affected the top jaw, we get crooked teeth. We all end up with braces and we all end up taking out four teeth because they don't fit in our mouths anymore. Well, if the teeth don't fit in your mouth, neither does all the tissue. That means the tongue, the soft pallet, the uvula, all of that also has to fit inside of that mouth. And if it's small, it doesn't fit. So, I liken this to like having a big long extended cab pickup truck and a teeny tiny garage. >> So, you got this big old pickup truck in this teeny tiny garage. And so, the back

38:24 end of the truck spills out into the driveway. Well, the driveway is the airway. That's where air passes from your nose and mouth down to your lungs. So, now you got the back end of the pickup truck out there. So, it's blocking off what's supposed to be flowing past. And it's not that the pickup truck is wrong, like your tongue's not too big. It just can't fit in the teeny tiny mouth that you have. So, one of the very worst things I call the ambient generation. It's this entire generation of people who had four teeth taken out for braces. It was the easy way out. They went, "Oh, your teeth are crooked. Great. Let's just take a few of them out. That way that there's enough room for all of the rest to fit." Well, you take teeth out and what you've done is now permanently made the mouth too small >> because you have to pull all the teeth together to close all the spaces. So, they pull all the teeth together and now there's no room for anything. So, we have an entire generation of people like

39:09 60 to 80% of people nowadays. I mean, it's so high, it's unbelievable. They can't fall asleep. They can't stay asleep. They wake up at 1:00 a.m. like wide awake, toss and turn for another hour or two. They are just not feeling refreshed when they wake up. They may feel like they slept, but they wake up and they're like, "Why do I feel like I just got run over by a truck?" Like literally, why do I feel like this every single morning? It's about oxygen. >> If you got that back end of the pickup truck hanging out into that where the oxygen's supposed to pass, you simply can't get enough oxygen. So, what does your body do? These are the cool things because this is the stuff we look for. Your body clenches the teeth. Why? Clenching the teeth tightens up all the muscles in the airway. So, this is why people clench their teeth at night. Wake up sometimes with headaches and sore

39:54 things here. Or I see it very often as worn teeth right here in the front >> because when you clench your teeth, it tightens up the muscles. And when you bring your bottom jaw forward like this, teeth tip to tip, it brings the tongue forward and it makes more space for air to pass. So, anytime I see worn teeth right here in the front, I'm like, "Oh, you don't you don't sleep very well, do you?" People are like, "How did you know that? >> These are my teeth. What are we talking about?" Yeah. >> Exactly. Because I see what your teeth I see the accommodations or the adaptations your body is making to get more oxygen. It's bringing that bottom jaw forward. Wearing your teeth out. >> Yeah. >> So, the problem with this is when the body goes through sleep cycles, it goes through light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep, and then back up to light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep. REM sleep is defined by paralysis. No muscles can move. I've heard it hypothesized. Maybe

40:41 it's so we don't act out our dreams, you know, so we're not running around and whatever. So, there's literal paralysis in REM sleep. If you engage a muscle, you're popped out of REM sleep immediately. Guess what? Clenching your teeth is engaging a muscle. Guess what? Bringing your bottom jaw forward is engaging a muscle. So, if you are having to do these accommodations to breathe, you're never getting into that deepest level of restorative sleep. You might feel like you slept, but you feel like trash in the morning. You never really got the oxygen you needed. And oxygen fuels the energy production at every single cell of your body. So if you do not have oxygen, you do not have energy. Period. >> So we detect this on these comb CT scans. I can see what is hanging out

41:27 into your airway. You know, is there room for you to get air? And if not, we make the mouth bigger. Again, we expand in adults and in kids. We try to get ahead of the game in kids. We go, "Oh, wow. you don't have enough room. All right, let's start directing your growth. Let's make enough space in your mouth. We train the tongue to come up and forward. We have lasers that can shrink all the tissue in the back of the throat. Basically, we get you breathing and living again. So, that's the big piece that nobody knows is related to dentistry, >> man. No, I've been fortunate to meet some dentists who do, but you're right. You're such a unicorn in that industry, and it is it makes so much sense why we have so much of a sleep problem. But talk to the people who maybe like myself who at, you know, the right of passage we go through as teenagers now was just to have your wisdom teeth taken out. So

42:12 in that scenario, is it still pallet expansion? Is there any wisdom ever to having the wisdom teeth taken out or is that always a disservice? >> It's always based on the space. Okay. >> So still we have, you know, kids we tell to get their wisdom teeth out because if the teeth don't have space to come in, >> then they are potentially going to create issues in the future. And the longer the tooth's in the mouth, the harder the bone is, the further the roots go down to the nerve. And then if you have a problem, let's say you're 40 and now you've got a real big infection around that wisdom tooth, it's much more dangerous and risky to take a wisdom tooth out at 40 because the roots are longer, the bone is more dense, higher chance of nerve damage. So that's why we say get it out when you're 18, 15, you know, because the nerve is less dense, the roots aren't long, it's not going to damage your nerves. So we have to anticipate, is this going to create an issue in the rest of your life? Is there

42:59 space in here or is this going to create an issue? If it's going to create an issue, we're going to get them out. Preferably, I'm going to see you at eight and I'm going to say, "Oh, your mouth's too small. There's not enough room for that, you know, teeth in there. Let's expand. Let's make more space. Let's get your tongue doing what it needs to do so that when you're 18, you got plenty of room for all those teeth." That's my preference. >> Okay, gotcha. So, if somebody's had them taken out, there's possibly still expansion that you do just because it taking them out shrunk the mouth. And there's other benefits to having obviously better sleep and and deeper air or deeper oxygenation while you sleep. >> And also a lot of those areas where the teeth were taken out don't heal properly. There's a ligament surrounding every tooth called the periodonal ligament and it doesn't come out naturally with the tooth. So the tooth comes out, it doesn't just come out. And when we're removing wisdom tooth, we

43:45 don't go back in and dig it out because there's like nerves down there and there's sinuses up there. Like they're way back there. >> So usually the ligaments left behind. When that happens for about 10 days, the body doesn't know that a tooth's gone yet because there's still the ligament there until the ligament necrosis and dies. Then it's like, "Oh, wait, trouble. Tooth's gone. Okay." But by those 10 days time, the gum tissue has grown over and down into where that bone should have grown. So, you got this dead ligament with tissue that's not bone. That dead zone creates all sorts of inflammation in the body. In fact, there's research that showed that it sends up all these are called cytoines. All these cytoine flares telling the body trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. This is a huge source of inflammation in the body. And we talk about, you know, how that relates to chronic disease.

44:31 Yeah. >> Huge source of inflammation in these dead zones in the jawbone. Again, we find them on combium CT scans. And when we find them, we have to go in, clean out that dead stuff, and fill them up with stem cells. I have the craziest stories with these. Like a woman who had horrible eczema, could not get rid of it. cleaned out these wisdom teeth areas. Eczema 95% gone within a month. >> Wow. >> Gone. Because it just dropped her inflammatory burden. Just boom. Like that. Another lady who' literally been bedridden. She'd had to move back in with her mother and was working from her bed. Couldn't even hardly work. Got these cleaned out. The next morning her mom found her up doing the dishes. She said, "What are you doing?" She's like, "I feel better than I felt in a decade." So, it's just this huge inflammatory burden. And a lot of people say, "Well, I really haven't felt good since I was like in college." And I said, "Well,

45:16 when did you get your wisdom teeth out?" college. >> Yep. Light bulb just went on in that moment right there. Is that called a cavitation? Do I have that correctly? >> That's called cavitation. Well, that's kind of the old word. There's like a big long term for it now. I like to call them areas in the jawbone that didn't heal correctly. >> Okay, that's a longer term. Yeah, very technical. Yeah, >> exactly. It just didn't heal. A place in your jaw that didn't heal. You know, there is like a fancier term even than that, but I just like to call it it's an area that didn't heal. >> Yeah. It's like a a scar in your mouth essentially that is somehow got a pocket of infection that is potentially explained so many of your symptoms. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, I've got a few other question but you so you said 60 to 80% of health issues tend to stem from the mouth. What what in your estimation is the other 20 to 40%. >> It's a great question. A lot of things

46:02 you deal with and it's the it's the okay, we've got to get the huge burden off. So, we've got to get the infection out that's spreading. We have to get your airway open so you can actually get air. Then we work with somebody exactly like you who says, "Okay, now let's do the hard work of getting everything out of the body, continuing to work there. Let's start adding good things to the body. Let's start eating the right fuel, eating the right things to give the body what it needs to actually get through those healing processes." So it's honestly the pieces and no sometimes we didn't talk about this but there's actually a huge connection with the each tooth connects to an organ system and so for example hormonal issues are connected to wisdom teeth. There's a direct line between hormones

46:47 and the entire endocrine system and wisdom teeth. So we'll often see chronic fatigue. we'll have to see, you know, some of these other hormonal issues, infertility. We'll go and look at these wisdom teeth areas and say, "Okay, is there that, you know, dead zone in that spot?" We get the dead zone cleaned up, but it doesn't it doesn't balance the hormones automatically. Does that make sense? >> Yeah, it does. >> So, then we send to somebody who says, "Okay, now let's figure out, okay, we've gotten the burden or the root root root taken care of. Now, let's work on fixing it." And a lot of times we're not the first place people arrive at because nobody thinks I think my dentist is the one who should fix my chronic disease, you know? >> We're like we're like the 10th place that people arrive because they've done everything else right and they still can't get there. And then somebody says

47:33 >> maybe it's your teeth. And then they come and see us and we clear up, you know, the major burden. And thankfully, they've already done all the work before they've gotten there. But they still have to keep then working to heal the body once that root cause is gone. So there's still work to do, but the work works, if that makes sense. >> Yes, it does. No, and I so resonate with the I'm usually 10th on the list of things people will come to. And often I can identify root causes pretty quickly. Like one, talk to a dentist. Let's figure out if there's anything going on in your mouth. Are you killing yourself with toxic thinking? Are you poisoning yourself with your food and water? Like there's obvious flashing lights and it's shocking most dentists or not dentists, most doctors don't answer or ask those questions. Like we don't even think to look for root causes. It's just there's

48:19 a whole host of symptoms. We can play symptom whack-a-ole indefinitely. And I love it that you're it's not surprising, I guess, talking to you, you eventually became a naturopath as well. You're like, "Okay, let me fix the root the first problem and then I'm going to go fix all the other. I have the toolkit to fix the rest of it." What a great skill set to have in one person. Um, anything else you want to mention about what we've covered so far? >> No, just hopefully this inspires people to go and find somebody who can help provide this kind of care for them. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, you you brought up fluoride earlier, so let's let's that's a touchy one these days because a lot of states and municipalities are starting to ban it. Florida, I'm proud to say, has banned it from our municipal water system. So, what are your >> first, which is my state, Florida was second, which is yours. >> All right. So, we've got we got two winning states here. So, what is give us your perspective on fluoride? Obviously

49:05 from a dentist perspective, but just fluoride in general. >> Yep. So fluoride, the concept of it is awesome. And you know, honestly, I am always of the positive intent mindset. Like I don't really think anybody's out there to kill any of us. You know, I really don't. Maybe there is, but I just don't go there. You know, it's just not worth thinking that way. I usually figure out that we're trying our best. We're all doing our best with the information that we've been given, and we just need to keep learning. That's really the case with fluoride. So originally they found that these pockets of pockets of people that were drinking well water that had higher levels of fluoride had more resistant to teeth. They had stronger teeth. They also had splotchy teeth, like brown and white splotches on their teeth, but they didn't get cavities. So they looked at this and they said, "Oh, this is great.

49:51 Let's figure out how to completely eradicate tooth decay. Let's put fluoride in toothpaste. Let's put fluoride in water. let's put it everywhere so that we can get rid of cavities. So again, positive intent, you know, we're trying to really fix something because I mean people die from cavities, you know, from abscess teeth and, you know, it's it's something and there's just a huge inconvenience and cost and everything else. I mean, it would be fabulous to never have another cavity. >> So this was the concept. This was the idea, but there's some big flaws that have really come to light as of late. The first flaw is, did it work? >> Has anyone gotten a cavity since 1930? >> I think so. Yes. >> So, it didn't necessarily meet the intended goal, right? Right. It didn't eradicate tooth decay. But the flip side

50:37 is it did do a lot of other things that it actually wasn't intended to do because fluoride will strengthen teeth. No question. It'll strengthen teeth. But fluoride doesn't just stay put, especially when taken systemically, which is what happens when we drink it in our water. >> It doesn't just stay on your teeth. So, what does fluoride do? Well, fluoride interferes with iodine, and iodine is what activates thyroid hormone. So, in the 70s, fluoride was actually given to patients that had hyperthyroidism. Their thyroids were too active because they knew that fluoride decreased thyroid function. >> I did not know that. That's crazy. >> So, now we're dosing it to every single person that drinks the water. So, how many people do you know that have thyroid issues and low thyroid function and how much of this could be related to fluoride usage? An enormous portion of

51:22 it. So that's one problem. Fluoride changes the structure of bones because it actually makes teeth and bones stronger and more brittle. Well, that's a problem when you get to bones. So it changes the the density and the structure of bones. So we've seen an increase in bone fractures due to fluoridation. The third thing it does is it affects brain health. There was a brand new study in January of this year that showed literally equal if you increased fluoride this much you decreased IQ in children this much and it was specifically male children. >> So very very neurotoxic changing the way the brain is developing >> and working when you're using fluoride. So let's put all these two things together. Okay, it strengthens teeth. Did it eradicate tooth decay? No. It

52:10 leads to all these other systemic health problems. So, was it worth it? >> No. >> No. Especially when there's another answer. And the answer is that teeth themselves are made of something called hydroxy appatite. It's the complex that you see when you smile. That's the mineral complex. Cavities aren't a deficiency of fluoride, >> right? >> Deficiency of minerals. So, instead of adding fluoride, which was never there and which will not stay put, let's just add minerals because guess what? Your

…