Re: Root Canals: Please Read Before Having an Extraction!

Dear Aharleygyrl,

Do you not think it would be better to read my post and the articles I have to linked to before you comment?   It is obvious that as far as you are concerned root canals are bad, end of subject, but nothing is black and white, and it is often in the shades of grey where solutions can be found.

It does concern me that you say you know from personal experience and the experiences of your patients that there is no way to disinfect a root canal.  That would be a bit like me saying that I know that from personal experience that there is no life on other planets.  The fact that I have had no personal experience of Extra-Terrestrial life only proves that I have had no personal experience of Extra-Terrestrial life, and the same example applies to your experiences with root canals.  If you could show me personal experiences of patients having had root canalled teeth pre-medicated with calcium hydroxide for two months before the barium free gutta percha filling was placed, your arguments would at least have more validity to them, but I suspect that you can't.  Apart from anything else, the only time you are ever likely to hear from patients with problematic teeth is when they are causing a problem, yet many people have had problem free root canals.  I suspect that you, like all opponents of root canals are basing your experiences on patients that had the standard method of root canal treatment, which I myself am strongly against, but the simple fact of the matter is that there are some flaws in the root canal argument as a whole that need addressing.

Firstly, the whole root canal controversy started with research done by Dr Weston Price with regards to focal infections.  He took infected teeth from people and implanted them in animals who subsequently acquired the same health problems as the people from who the infected teeth came from.  As fascinating as this research is, the simple fact of the matter is that no one has since been able to successfully duplicate these experiments.

Secondly, there is more than one way of doing a root canal, but all of the horror stories about root canals seem to centre around people who had had them done by the standard method, and for that reason, the whole argument lacks any form of balance.  This is like saying that all anaesthetics are bad just because a particular method of anaesthesia (that also happened to be the most popular) caused health problems or even death in a number of patients.  

Thirdly, many opponents of any form of root canal treatment seem to conduct their research with a closed mind and an already confirmed point of view, so when information that conflicts with this presents itself, it is edited out by their belief systems, and in view of the fact that there are so many conflicting studies about the ability to sterilise a root treated tooth, it is not difficult to find the necessary data to back up your beliefs regardless of what the truth actually is.  Subsequently, those that refuse to consider alternative points of view, launch into self-righteous statements about how right they are on the subject, and do not seem to consider the fact that they are playing god with people’s lives.  I have seen this time and time again with people who specialise in various different fields of alternative medicine.  Does it not concern you that you have dismissed my arguments without even reading the information I have presented, especially as you posted a quote from Hal Huggins that made no reference to the root canal method I was suggesting? You cannot tell me as an absolute fact that my root canalled teeth are not sterile anymore than I can tell you that there is no life on other planets.  So far I have had two root canalled teeth treated by a more holistic method and I am in perfect health.  Of course that does not guarantee that the teeth will not cause problems at a later date, but if that happens, I can opt to have them extracted, whereas I cannot opt for having my extracted teeth put back if I am unhappy with having a tooth missing, and this brings me onto my next point.

The following is a quote from Dr Goldman's article which raises some valid points about having extractions:

If you just take out a tooth or teeth how are you going to replace it? Well, you may just say "I won’t replace it." That’s ok, how about if it’s a front tooth? You could choose to not replace it, but realistically most people would want to replace it.

Back teeth that "don’t show"?   If you leave missing teeth missing, you may develop problems with your gums, problems with your bite (TMJ), and / or sacro-cranial problems, not to mention lowered chewing ability. I should add that in some situations, teeth can be left not replaced and everything may be fine. But that’s the exception to the rule. The fact is that most of us will want the teeth replaced for a variety of reasons.

Teeth can be replaced with removable, "clip-in" partial dentures - bridges you take in and out. Most people find them unesthetic and unhygienic. Workable, but not very satisfactory..... Dentally, they work... but not well. Usually patients want teeth replaced in a way that is close to "natural".

That means the teeth must be replaced with an implant or a fixed bridge with caps. Implants are metallic posts implanted into the jawbone to mimic lost tooth roots. They are complicated and expensive and require a surgical procedure. Mostly (but certainly not always) they work pretty well. But what of having a metal plug directly in the bone ? Is it a problem? We really don’t know.

From a regular western dental point of view they seem ok, but from a more subtle holistic point of view, who knows! Maybe after years of observation we’ll have some idea, but I don’t think anybody really knows for sure at this time. I wonder if the metal of the implant interferes with accupuncture meridiens which flow through the bone where the implant has been placed. We know each tooth is normally related to meridiens.

If implants are out, then the other possiblility may be to cap the teeth on either side of the space and have a "dummy cap" attached to those caps so the "real" caps hold the "dummy cap" in the space. That’s good old dentistry as it’s been done for years. While we have some options now about what the caps can be made of so that it is possible to make caps without metal in them, that is not always an option. It depends on the specifics of you and your mouth. But, what if you don't have teeth on  either side of the space to hold a "fixed bridge", or if the teeth are not suitable  for use?

And what if capping these other teeth causes so much trauma to those teeth that the nerve breaks down in them ...and then they need root canals? That probably won’t happen, but be aware that it can and does happen! And not necessarily through any fault of the dentist, either. Finding a really good dentist will minimize that possibility, but it will not eliminate it....

The following is another quote from the same article:

.........Never having experienced several missing teeth before, she had no idea how devastating it might be or feel. I felt very, very sad for her.
She was now in touch with her anger about having been told to take out those teeth. She said she would never have done it if she really understood the implications...

I am curious as to what research you have done into treating root canalled teeth using the calcium hydroxide method.  You said in an earlier post that calcium hydroxide is toxic and that is not true.  Calcium hydroxide is a natural ingredient in lime water and is perfectly edible.  In high doses it is toxic, but so is water.  You also say that all Gutta Percha fillings have barium in them, this again is not true.  The only part of your concerns about Gutta Percha that have any validity is that it can shrink slightly.  However, what you failed to mention is that its shrinkage is miniscule and can be easily compensated by packing the filling into the tooth tightly. My dentist literally put his whole body weight onto my tooth when he was placing the filling.

Your mission seems to be to convince everybody that the root canal issue is all black and white, and that really is not the case.  Hal Huggins is only one of many health professionals who have an opinion on the subject of root canals, and just because he has set himself up as a self proclaimed messiah of alternative dentistry, that does not mean he is right.  There are alternative health professions with credentials that are as good, if not better than Dr Huggins who have differing points of view.

I hope I have presented some information that will provoke a bit more of an open minded debate on this forum, but in future, I would appreciate it if you would read my posts before you comment on them.

Kris