What do holistic-minded people do with a dead or dying tooth?
Dr. Nicole Vane explains some of the issues holistic patients can have with regard to root canals, ozone treatments and tooth removal.
Naturopaths and eastern medicine doctors often tell their clients that they cannot keep anything dead in their body.
When it comes to dead or dying tooth, these people often find themselves in a quandary. For the same reason, they are often told not to get root canals, because during a standard root canal procedure a dead ligament (the periodontal ligament) is usually left behind.
But… if they need a root canal in the first case, they already have a dead or dying tooth in their mouth!
So what to do? So many holistic people are confused over this issue.
Many of these patients cannot come to terms with losing a tooth. Others can not afford to replace it with an implant.
Here’s a few cases and answers:
Get a modern, pain-free, HOLISTIC laser root canal.
There is a fully-holistic way to do a root canal that involves using an advanced laser and ozone.
Other than being 100% holistic, this procedure also happens to have some very big benefits:
First, it’s completely painless (unlike traditional root canals, which can be very traumatic).
Second, the multiple cleaning steps in this procedure provide a far better cleaning of the tooth interior. In fact, it brings the tooth interior to a point near-sterilization!
Finally, bioceramic materials that do not contain the heavy metal barium (like typical filling material) are used to seal the canals.
Two Cases of Holistic Extractions
The following two x-rays are from patients that refused to get their tooth out. They wanted it ozonated, or to see if there was anything they could do to keep the tooth and avoid a root canal.
These images are a bit pixelated due to them being photos of photos on a screen.
Click to enlarge:
The problem was, there was already a large and draining infection present.
A large draining infection is painless and is called a CAP (Chronic Apical Periodontitis). In this case, ozone will not revitalize the tooth – it will only temporarily kill the fulminant infection. The infection will continue to come back, as long as the source of the infection (the dead tooth) remains.
In both of these cases, the only option was a holistic extraction. You can read more about how a holistic extraction differs from a traditional extraction, or just watch this video:
For the holistically-minded, when a tooth extraction is necessary, it’s best to also remove the periodontal ligament, to reduce the possibility of leaving behind infection and future problems in the jaw once your skin is healed.
In these intraoral pictures, you can see that there is a large cyst / abscess attached to the end of the root. That’s essentially a painless bag of pus / infection, and the clinical version of what is seen on the xray.
Tap/Click to enlarge:
The most toxic to the least toxic scenarios
According to Dr. Thomas Levy, MD, JD of the Holistic Dental Association
I wanted to attach the following guidelines from a well respected naturopath, Dr. Thomas Levy, MD, JD, whom is an expert for the HDA (Holistic Dental Association).
The following list of different infected teeth, are listed from roughly the most toxic scenario to the least toxic scenario:
- The very painful acutely abscessed tooth with a large CAP (chronic apical abscess) lesion, left untreated. (only treatment options are root canal or extraction)
- The asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic tooth with a large CAP (chronic apical abscess) lesion, left untreated (only treatment options are root canal or extraction).
- The asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic tooth with a large CAP (chronic apical abscess), root canal treated the asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic tooth with a small CAP (chronic apical abscess), left untreated.
- The asymptomatic tooth, root canalled, with continued significant CAP following the completion and healing from the procedure (Note: The toxicity depends on the size of the lesion).
- The asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic tooth with a small CAP (chronic apical abscess), root canal treated; relatively low when the lesion has decreased following the root canal treatment, exhibiting signs of healing. Relatively higher toxicity when the lesion has increased in size after the root canal treatment.
- The asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic tooth with evidence of only apical inflammation, with minimal widening of the space between the tooth root and the periodontal ligament on x-ray (a precursor to the later development of CAP).
- The asymptomatic root canal treated tooth without any CAP, or with resolution of pre-existing CAP and no evidence or recurrence for 6 months or more.
- The properly extracted (PDL removed, see video on tooth removal) untreated tooth or root canalled tooth with CAP.
- The dental implant after complete healing has taken place.
Other factors that affect the degree of toxic impact that an infected tooth has on general health include hormonal balance, thyroid balance, and the quality of pre-existing health and immunocompetence.
Note: Stay tuned for new advanced holistic techniques for managing these situations with improved treatment outcomes.
