RE: Teeth & Root Canals -- Battle between tooth and bacteria!

February 28, 2005

Over a period of three sessions, I recently had all the mercury/silver

amalgam removed from my mouth. During my last visit the dentist worked on

three contiguous teeth. A nerve became irritated later and I had a

full-blown hideously painful toothache. Because the teeth were right next to

each other it was impossible to figure out which tooth had the inflamed

nerve and so there was a big risk of performing a root canal on the wrong

tooth. I was told I had to wait until the tooth died and the pain went away.

Ten days and three bottles of Vicodin later the pain stopped " naturally " .

But instead of proceeding with the expected root canal, the endodontist sent

me home. He had tested all three teeth and all three were healthy and fine!

He explained why this happened:

Any sort of filling cannot be 100% flush with the tooth. Bacteria reside in

that tiny space between the filling and the tooth. When the tooth is drilled

and the amalgam is removed that space is exposed and these bacteria are

displaced. They swarm. They are looking for a new place to reside. Since the

drilled out amalgam is often deep and quite close to the root of the tooth,

the bacteria will naturally try to inhabit the root. The horrendous pain you

feel when that happens is the result of your immune system trying to fight

off infection by those bacteria. Your body is fighting for your tooth! Since

the bacteria win " in almost every case " dentists will perform a root canal

and effectively kill the tooth freeing you from pain. But OCCASIONALLY (they

say) the immune system wins, the pain goes away and you have a healthy

tooth.

This is all what my endodontist told me and of course you may wonder as I

do, " how do dentists and endodontists KNOW " that your immune system almost

never saves an inflamed tooth if they rarely wait until the pain goes away?

Anyway, for me, for once, my immune system won. After this past miserable

year I am still thrilled by the ridiculous victory (and yes I got off the

Vicodin.) It's only conjecture but I think all the fermented food and garlic

I've been munching on helped my cause. Maybe that's another reason to put

garlic or cloves on the gums..

~Robin

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