by I’m not for terrifying people much, but when you have a mouthful of crowns and new niches for bacteria are available, you can become slightly unhinged reading about teeth and whole body healing.
I knew the ancient Egyptian Kings died of infected teeth — eating stone ground bread back then actually had bits of stone in it and that wore away teeth and enamel — but I had no clue that modern day dentistry could still kill you:
Boyd Haley, Ph.D., a researcher, at the University of Kentucky has estimated that 75% of root canalled teeth are infected. Another researcher, Hal Huggins, DDS, has shown that the toxins liberated by infected root canalled teeth are almost 1000 times more toxic than botulism. Botulism is the most toxic substance known.
Austrian researchers have exhaustively studied the finer details of the entire dental structure. They have established that there is a lively metabolic interchange between the interior and exterior milieu of the tooth, and that this two-way process takes place along many thousands of hyperfine, capillary canals joining the pulp cavity to the exterior surface of the tooth.
Very careful conservative measures may possibly seal off the vertical central dentinal canal, but it will never reach the lateral “twigs” branching off from this tube. Nor can it ever close off the innumerable capillary canals. Some protein will always remain in these secondary spaces. If this protein becomes infected, toxic catabolic products, such as thio-ethers, thio-ethanols and mercaptans will be produced, and conveyed into the organism.
Yipes!
A young friend of mine tells me his primary care physicians demands he take antibiotics the day before, the day of and the day after any dental visit because of the risk of a bacterial infection that could easily spread to the blood stream is so great.
“Think about it,” my friend said, “your dentist is in there poking around in your mouth with sharp things and making your gums bleed and cutting you and drilling into tooth and bone, and if you have crowns or bridges, you have a lot of bad bacteria hiding in there and the dental work exposes all that bad stuff hiding in your mouth and puts your entire body at risk.”
Double Yipes!
It all makes sense. I guess the best way to not let your mouth kill the rest of your body is to be vigilant about cleaning out the bacteria several times a day and asking your doctor if you need antibiotic therapy before, during and after every routine visit to your dentist.
Makes me want to bring in industrial strength equipment to the office for regular teeth maintenance, David!
Yes, it’s definitely worth the prevention, Gordon. Some people say you should just pull a tooth and never do a root canal because the tooth is really never completely sealed.
The top of the tooth is sealed, but the rest of the inside of the tooth can still interact with your body. There was an experiment done where some radioactive material was put into a fresh root canal, sealed, and 20 minutes later that radioactive substance was found in the thyroid.
Now substitute “Botulism” for “radioactive material” and “heart” for “thyroid” and you’re in the middle of an intravenous catastrophe.