Mercury Amalgam Fillings and Root Canal Alternatives (Part 1 of 7)
I need to revisit the dental issues, as we’ve had a ton of email about it.
What to do instead of a root canal, you’re asking? It’s a very good question that I have, too. I interviewed Dr. Ulm’s office in Lindon, whom I will talk about in a minute. They told me Dr. Judson Walls in Bountiful (Utah) is a phenomenal holistic dentist. A couple of you had sent his name or mentioned it here on the blog, too.
I called Dr. Walls’ office, and it turns out his staff are GSG readers who’ve read my books—and his home page says you’ll be served a green smoothie in his office! I LIKE HIM ALREADY! After our chat, I promised to visit their new office when they move, soon.
There in his practice, also, is Marietta Bergdorf, NMD, funny, because I just recommended her today to a Stage III lung cancer patient who sought me out at the gym two days ago and asked for my help. I invited her to my house to use my infrared sauna, where she was in tears today because of pressure from the oncologist and his staff—and her husband and children—to get a needle pumping poison in her vein TOMORROW. The oncologist, as I predicted to her that he would, scoffed at the idea that her diet has anything to do with the cancer, or its reversal. She questioned him about the drug he wanted to prescribe, which has been used since 1974. She said, with he and his nurse and everyone in the room looking at her sternly, “I felt so small.” I reassured her that she is not small, that this is HER life and her choice, that she has time to research before submitting to a therapy from which you can never go back, and that her questions are good ones.
Dr. Bergdorf helped cure Parker Jensen’s grandfather of Stage IV colon cancer, and she helped my mother get the LDS Church to approve thermography instead of mammography for her to be able to go on a mission.
Ah, back to holistic dentistry. Dr. Walls will not do root canals. That is courageous. Instead, they extract an abcessed tooth and wait six months until it heals. Then, your options are a bridge, partial denture, or zirconium implant. His staff said he is an “artist” and makes these options look beautiful and natural.
A traditional endodontist believes teeth must be saved at virtually any cost and considers himself a professional failure if he extracts.
What if extraction is NOT the worst option? What if the most toxic pleomorphic organisms on the planet, according to some experts and much research, is the very worst option? The kind that evolve when a dead tooth is mummified on top of miles of tubules full of decay and bacteria that become deadly when deprived of oxygen?
Every holistic dental text I have consulted praise the work of Weston Price, whose research was apparently thorough and methodical, with very high standards. Every time he took a diseased tooth and implanted it under the skin of a rabbit, that rabbit developed the same diseases the owner of the tooth. The evidence that trapping a dead, infected tooth in the mouth forever is incontrovertible, that it’s highly disease-causing.
Dr. Robert Kulacz, DDS, says this in his book co-authored with Thomas E. Levy, M.D., J.D., called The Roots of Disease: Connecting Dentistry and Medicine:
“After a total immersion into both the remote and current research on dental products and procedures, I discovered that my beliefs about many of the currently accepted views on the safety of some dental materials and….procedures, such as the root canal procedures, were wrong. The link between dentistry and systemic health was real and absolutely undeniable. Furthermore, much of the most pertinent information I discovered has been known for a long time and seemed to me to have been covered up. I became angry about being misled in my education and I immediately changed the focus of my practice—and totally regained my health.”
Dr. Kulacz had been experiencing mercury vapor toxicity signs for a while before studying the issues, and he didn’t know what he would later learn, that the U.S. EPA stated in its 1997 report to Congress that the highest body burden of inorganic mercury comes from amalgam fillings. The average American with eight surface amalgam fillings is over 35 times above the U.S. Public Health MRL (minimal risk level) for chronic mercury vapor exposure!
If you search on the internet, you can find ADA-apologist dentists claiming that mercury fillings are safe and that eating a can of tuna gives you far more exposure! Infuriating and ridiculous. Your mercury fillings are constantly offgassing, every single day. The tuna isn’t.
Why would the A.D.A. allow this? Drs. Kulacz and Levy say, “The ADA has backed itself into a corner by continuously declaring amalgam completely safe. Even now, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, this amazing assertion continues to be ADA’s official stance. To admit now that the use of amalgam should be discontinued or even that it might be harmful would undoubtedly invite a barrage of lawsuits. Furthermore, if amalgam was banned, the insurance industry would be hit with a major increase in claims, as the alternative fillings are most costly and people would demand that their amalgam be replaced. It would cost…$250-300 billion to replace all the amalgam fillings…in the teeth of the American public. It would cost an additional $12-15 billion a year to use alternative non-mercury fillings from this day forward.”
Mercury amalgam is not officially approved by the FDA. Federal law requires that any material implanted in the body for 30 days must undergo extensive evaluation for safety. The FDA didn’t put amalgam in this category because dentists manufacture it in their offices so by their reasoning, it doesn’t need to meet safety criteria. This goofy reasoning has led to no safety studies conducted on amalgam.
Just because amalgam has been used in dentistry for a long time does not mean it’s safe. For many years, “experts” told us asbestos, DDT, dioxin, and Agent Orange were safe, too.
One dentist wrote that people should not remove intact fillings. I am not here to advise all my readers to run to a dentist to get their metal fillings drilled out and replaced. I have, and I know many people educated on this subject who have. I know several traditional (not holistic) dentists who will not put amalgam in their children’s mouths.
I do not believe that only cracked/damaged fillings are dangerous. Both holistic dentists whose offices I called this week state that even intact mercury fillings are not completely bound in the materials and are significantly off-gassing.
What I have written here should simply give you a starting place to do your own investigation. If you ARE going to have your amalgam fillings replaced, I now feel that it’s important to go to a biological dentist with the high-suction vacuum, extra training in mercury removal, latex dams, etc.
Posted in: Dental Health
Dentists have one of the highest suicide rates among professions. They are around mercury all day. I asked a dental student at my church and he said it was because people are afraid of dentists. They don’t want to even consider the mercury.
I recently took my daughters (7 an 5 yrs) for their 6 month cleaning. My 7 yr old has her permanent back teeth coming in and the dentist said once they are all the way in they will need to be sealed. Of course I questioned this and they found a pamphlet on it that was buried in the back of a drawer. I know it has been there awhile b/c there are water stains on it.
Anyway, it is called UltraSeal XT plus. Do you have any insight on this? The sealant is a resin material that is applied to the pits and fissures of back teeth and will act as a barrier, protecting the enamel from bacterial plaque in cavity prone areas. The pamphlet goes on to say that children are more susceptible to tooth decay than adults so the sealant should be applied to their teeth before decay has a chance to begin.
I am sure I will be giving a big N-O at the next visit along with my constant no to fluoride 🙂
~Laura
Dear Laura, I’m pretty sure I can guess what Robyn will say, but I wanted to share my own experience with sealants. When I was a young girl, I was treated with the first generation of sealants (I believe I was part of a test group, but I can’t be certain). The sealants were applied to the top of my “crunching surfaces” of my molars. We were a family that went to the dentist every six month without fail. By the time I was an adult, I had fillings in every single one of my molars…every single one…only on the crunching surfaces…none between the teeth, none at the gum line…only on those “protected” surfaces. Why? It is my understanding that the sealants cracked and allowed bacteria to get below them and, because I couldn’t get to the tooth surface, I couldn’t solve the problem. In my entire life, I’ve never had a cavity anywhere else…but I’ve had to deal with the problems created by the “sealed, protected” teeth for 30 years. I didn’t let my kids get sealants (obviously) and I’m so frustrated by dealing with my own teeth (even with all the composite fillings), that I urge you to say “no, thank you”. Just my two cents and good luck!
Interestingly enough there was an article today in msnbc.com that talks about sealants. Anyway, I’m wondering if there are problems with certain materials used in crowns, etc. I was convinced and now feel a little bamboozled by my dentist that insisted I put crown on 3 of my teeth because the fillings needed to be replaced but the cavities were too large to replace. Instantaneously of the dental work I got a raging sinus infection but the dentist said there was no correlation. I’m not so sure as the 3 teeth are in the upper right of my mouth. I feel like I live in a world where everything is going to kill us sooner and it is overwhelming!
A link to your blog came through Google alert was in my email today. I’m delighted to know you’re among the people fighting to keep this issue alive. I have a long sad story and am trying to alert the dental care consumers to this issue as well through my blog, facebook and twitter. Are you aware of MercuryExposure on facebook? If not, you might want to look them up.
Keep up the good work! Sandy
Robyn,
I am a biological dentist practicing this way for 17 of my 22 years as a dentist. The first 5 years of my career I was a traditional dentist, and I believe in many ways traditional dentistry is harmful.
On the subject of sealants…… I am a fan of the philosophy, but not a fan of the procedure or the material. Here’s why:
First, sealants are typically done in the busy office NOT by the dentist, but by the assistant. That means the tooth cannot be drilled (or cleaned out properly) before the sealant is placed. That means the sealant will be placed over a small amount of decay and or stain down in the groove of the tooth. It is like trying to paint over a metal object covered in rust. The paint will not stick, or if it does, it won’t last very long. And even worse, when the sealant becomes unbonded anywhere along it’s margin, then underneath you have a world of problems, and decay will progress rapidly.
The rate of decay at that point will be a function of how mineralized, or how “hard” the tooth is. There is no way to clean in there, or get fresh saliva in there to buffer the newly formed, highly acidic environment. But if a dentist were to go in there and thoroughly clean out the decay, debris, or stain, then at that point it is technically considered a filling. You have to pay more and it takes more time, but it is absolutely worth it!!
Secondly, I do not like the sealant material, and here’s why. It contains high levels of BPA which means it is a plastic toxin. In fact all plastic materials in dentistry have BPA, but sealants are the worst. Filling material is better. And filling material is MUCH stronger, which is the other reason why I do not like sealants.
I have not placed a sealant on anyone in over 17 years for these reasons. But I like the idea of sealing any cavity-prone area of the tooth with a material that is least toxic and will last for as long as possible.
The only way to know for sure is if you have this conversation with your dentist, and be adamant about how well the decay is removed FIRST before any filling material is placed, and that the filling be placed in a non-contaminated environment. The use of rubber dams really help with that. It takes more time, and thus costs more, but it is absolutely worth it!!
For more information, your readers can go to my web site http://www.biodentist.com. Keep up the great work you are doing on helping your readers make more informed dental decisions!
Yours for Better Health,
Dr. John Augspurger
I became a patient of Dr. Wall’s two and half years ago. He has been one of the biggest blessings in my life. I thank God all the time for him and his wonderful staff. When I first went to Dr. Wall’s office I had 11 infected root canal teeth. I had no idea they were like this and the effect they were having on my health. I was in very poor health. It has been a slow road but I am getting my health back thanks to the wonderful care of Dr. Wall. It makes so much of a difference when you don’t have all those infected teeth and mercury fillings in your mouth being absorbed into your blood stream. And oh yeah, he got me hooked on green smoothies. I have one almost every day.
I had all of my old metal fillings taken out and replaced with porcelain a year ago. (The dentist said he did it safely, but I’m not so sure he did…I don’t remember anything like a dam being used.) I have just been through the most horrific year of my life, and am just now suspecting mercury as a major culprit. I’ve had the worst depression and then dementia-like symptoms…and I’m only 55! This is so scary. My doctor has done the ‘usual’ blood tests, but everything came back in ‘normal’ ranges. Since then I’ve heard that most tests are normal for the average white 40-year old male, so what’s the use? How do I know if it’s mercury poisoning and what do I do about it now? Would it last this long, or is the brain-damage reversable? Ackckckckck!
Having gone down this road myself, I can only say – go here http://www.noamalgam.com/ and start on your road to good health.
My aunt had all of her amalgam fillings replaced because she wanted to rid herself of the mercury poison associated with that type of filling. She got severe mercury poisoning that crippled her. She went through a lot of natural cleansing, detoxing, and even went to Montana for several months to receive Naturopathic care. After about a year she was able to start walking again with limited endurance. Now, almost 2 years later she has fully recovered through a whole foods diet, natural supplements, and much prayer. Thank the Lord Jesus that she is fully healed. When I asked her if she would recommend people removing their silver fillings, she said, “absolutely not. The risk is too high!” So, I would not get the amalgam fillings that I currently have in my mouth removed unless absolutely necessary.
Hi Robyn, I know this series was written awhile ago and I’m not sure if you are reading comments anymore but i want to thank you for sharing this information. Sorry you had to go through all that and I was amazed to learn what I have through your posts. I’m now thinking an extraction and implant is the way to go over a root canal; something I have done with one tooth! So I’m doubtful I want to go that route again. On to part 2 …
hi Deb, sometimes i do see new replies on old posts. if you’re local, go to michelle jorgenson in american fork, utah. i LOVE her.
Hi Robyn,
I, too, want to express my gratitude for your in-depth research on mercury toxicity and dental work. I especially appreciated the podcast I listened to today (on day 17th of your de-tox program and loving the results) where you interviewed Dr. Judson Wall. I have 2 root canals, one 10 years old and another 18 years old as wells as other crowns and inlays. Never was advised anything about the root canals failing over time, the trapped bacteria, affect on my immune system, pros and cons of root canal vs. extraction. The usual story! I am surprised that I can’t seem to find as good a dentist as Dr. Wall in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I am going to fly to Salt Lake City to have a consult with him and go from there. Thank you for introducing Dr. Wall! I am also considering doing a heavy metals de-tox (I have many elevated levels) using Quicksilver’s Dr. Chris Shade’s protocol. Have you come across Quicksilver and/or Dr. Shade in your research travels? His testing and protocols seem superior to others I’ve read about.