There is a lot of material on the dangers
of mercury, both in dental restorations and vaccines (not
to mention airborne vapors and seafood.) While most
officials in the U.S. are burying their heads in the sand
and pretending the problem does not exist, Germany and Sweden
have taken a totally different approach. In Sweden,
mercury is taken so seriously that deceased individuals must
have the amalgams removed prior to cremation.
When I was in Santa Fe, I associated
with quite a few environmental dentists, one of whom taught
me to see mercury cations in the microscope. The first
patient seen was the daughter of a miner who had allowed
her to put her hands and arms in vats of mercury, wonderful
game for a child. As practitioners, we always learn
the most from the truly serious cases because virtually all
the symptoms can be ascribed to the known causal factor. This
poor lady was struggling for a grip on life. Fortunately,
she had a fabulous personal philosophy and a commitment to
recovery.
I consulted in Germany for
a while, but the only patients with amalgams were foreigners,
often with serious neurological conditions. However,
in Switzerland, there was an incredible mix of persons who
had amalgams and those who did not, including a husband and
wife who both had signs of mold in the blood, but their management
of the infection was so very different that we attributed
this to the mercury.
We know that when toxic metals
are chelated, yeast infections tend to go ballistic. Here's
the rub: while there are toxic metals, the immune system
is tangled up in a futile battle with the toxins and usually
does not sufficient resources for other tasks. What
I have observed in live blood is that many, many white blood
cells will gang up on the cations but they do not win. They
die. Not only do they die, but there is debris in the
plasma because of the dead white blood cells. It's
a deathless cycle.
In studies done on sheep,
amalgams that were 49-53% mercury at the time of installation
leeched so badly that after six months, they contained
only 9-13% mercury. This is a serious issue because
mercury is extremely toxic and has been associated with ever
so many medical conditions, basically everything from autism
to Alzheimer's. However, the current theory is that
there are good excreters and bad excreters. This explains
why children with ADD and autism were lower than than peers
in hair analysis and urine. The idea is that some people
are better able to eliminate the toxins so there are higher
measurements in substances that are excreted or discharged
than in comparably exposed individuals with lesser ability
to unburden themselves of the insults to their health.
In short, a hair analysis test
may not be a reliable indicator of toxicity but it is the
least expensive and least invasive test for metals and so
is widely used.
Amalgam Removal
I was actually vaguely aware of
the hazards since childhood because my grandfather was a
metallurgist, but I had a mouthful of amalgams and had begun
replacing them with composites. The dentist doing this
work had said, "Ingrid, if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I
was asymptomatic, but I thought replacing them was a good
idea. As it turned out, I was more intolerant of the
composites than the mercury so I stopped after one quadrant.
After becoming exposed to mold,
I realized I would lose my margins so I decided to tackle
the amalgam issue. This time, I did an extraordinary
amount of research and stumbled on a restoration called Cerec. To
make a long story short, in environmental dentistry, the
patient is protected during amalgam removal with a rubber
dam and suction. Some dentists supply masks and IV
drips but the minimum to protect the soft tissue in the mouth
from absorbing the vapor is a rubber dam. The tooth
itself is prepared in the same manner as any other procedure
for removing decay or a failing filling. The irony
is that while it is still argued by many that mercury is
safe, when it is removed, it must be disposed of as hazardous
waste. Dentists who are complying with this regulation
have traps in their plumbing to prevent the mercury from
entering municipal water.
Now, for the Cerec, a camera
with three lenses is used to photograph the prepared tooth. The
images are triangulated and sent to a computer which has
a special software program for designing restorations. The
color is matched to the adjacent teeth and dentists tweaks
the image and when satisfied, he saves his settings. He
is then prompted to insert a ceramic block into a machine
that mills the restoration while you wait. A very simple
onlay takes about three minutes and a complex crown about
fifteen. So, instead of filling your mouth with some
gagging material to take impressions and then getting a laboratory
to design a porcelain or other restoration, the Cerec is
a one-stop process that spares the patient the bother of
temporary fillings and two office visits and two anesthetics. More
importantly, the Cerec is very strong and inert. It
does not chatter with other teeth or pick up radio signals
or do any other crazy things other restorations have been
known to do.
This is the good news. The
bad is that the restoration still has to be bonded to tooth
and this requires a cement of some type, most of which are
hugely estrogenic. One day, my dentist was out of the
bonding agent normally used and he used a different brand. I
told him that Menopause had been a breeze in comparison to
that cement. Most of these substances are hugely estrogenic
so with mold producing estrogen and xenoestrogens in the
glue, I was on a hormonal roller coaster after that particular
visit.
For those who are concerned
about aesthetics, Cerecs are absolutely beautiful. For
those who are practical, this is the best available restoration
material. Personally, I prefer Cerec to noble metals
and porcelain. Obviously, there will be those who disagree,
but all I can say is look into these. There are online
referrals to trained dentists who use this technology. Often,
when I mention them, people say but "I never heard of this." In
Switzerland, we did a quick search and found five Cerec dentists
within a short distance of the clinic. I found a dentist
in Bremerton who is terrific and only 40-45 minutes from
my home. My cousin found one in Portland, Oregon.
Teeth and their Relationship
to the Body
At a seminar on oral toxicology
in Santa Fe, I was astonished to see how many toxins are in
mouth. For some people, this is another source of stress: toxic
metals and microbes. Many people writing me after reading
pages on this site have described dental problems, enormous
dental problems. Personally, expensive as it is and
traumatic as it can be for some people, I think a point comes
when amalgam removal is imperative.
I did a lot of research before
deciding on my local dentist. To tell you the truth,
he was the fourth dentist I visited in the Northwest. Knowing
so many excellent dentists, I guess you could say I am a
connoisseur and was not easily satisfied with the work of
most of the dentists I visited. This said, I considered
several other options. I knew of the clinic Hal Huggins,
the father of environmental dentistry, founded in Mexico
and I knew of a very highly regarded dentist in Tijuana. I
also found a clinic in Costa Rica that offered excellent
work. I could take a three week vacation in the sun
and get all this work done and have more change in my pocket
than by seeing a local dentist; however, I would have to
go through everything at once and I was not up for that. This
said, my best friend made the opposite decision and we are
both alive to tell our tales.
By going the route I did, I
had a chance to compare my procedures to the theory of teeth
and their relationship to other parts of the body. One
of my colleagues has a web site with a chart
showing these correlations. I was fascinated by
my process because I could really feel the changes in supposedly
unrelated systems each time another tooth was addressed.
The Rub
Here's the problem. I
suspect that while amalgams undermine the immune system drastically,
they also hold certain other microscopic populations in check. Parasites
and mold are inhibited by the presence of toxic metals so
while the immune system is compromised, so are some pathogenic
organisms. So, what I saw with the husband and wife
was that while she was mercury-free and manifesting cancer,
he appeared to be healthy. However, he also seemed
to be an accident waiting to happen while her accident had
happened. What I am saying is that the decision
to remove amalgams must be thoroughly considered and side
effects have to be managed. In my own case, I took
chlorella throughout the removal process and when it was
over, I added cilantro to the protocol. I also supplemented
my diet with seaweed and trace minerals.
There is a metaphor in Chinese
philosophy called "catching a tiger by his tail." The
less said the better but obviously, one should be more concerned
for the teeth than the tail!
In the meantime, it is empowering
to know that the option of enhancing immunity through amalgam
removal is there. However, as we saw with the sheep,
most of the mercury was gone already after six months. Likewise,
there are hiding places in the body for mercury so immune
system restoration involves chelation, not just amalgam removal. There
are claims that chelation can be completed in three weeks. I
keep reading these stories, but have yet to encounter a single
individual who succeeded in such a short time. This
said, the original study by Dr. Yoshiaki Omura involved terminally
ill patients. These are people with a prognosis of
30 days or less. Chelation reversed the prognosis for
most of these patients and that is something to consider.
Many blessings,
Ingrid Naiman
17 October 2006
See
material on cilantro on Kitchen Doctor
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