Health
#202 | Gum Disease, Root Canals, and the Mouth-Gut Connection: How Oral Health Impacts Autoimmunity
In this episode of the Healthy Beyond 40 Show, host Michelle Mama explores the intricate relationship between oral health and autoimmune diseases with Dr. Tony. They discuss the impact of gum disease,...
#202 | Gum Disease, Root Canals, and the Mouth-Gut Connection: How Oral Health Impacts Autoimmunity
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Interactive Transcript
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All right, so I'm excited.
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Today, this is a continuation of the conversation that was last week on the podcast with Dr. Tony.
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So today, we're going to be diving more into autoimmune disease and gum disease and just how
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our mouth health relates to our whole body health. So make sure you guys listen to the episode
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last week and let's get started.
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Hi friends and welcome to the Healthy Beyond 40 Show. I'm Michelle Mama 4 and military
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wife and I'm passionate about helping women get healthy from the inside out so they can feel
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better and live their best life. Do you feel like you're struggling to lose weight and get in shape?
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If you're ready to develop healthier habits, exercise consistently and lose weight sustainably
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then you're in the right place. I combine my expertise for my doctorate and physical therapy
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to my experience as a health coach, personal trainer and yoga teacher to bring you actionable
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steps for a healthy lifestyle. No magic pill here, so lace up those shoes and get moving.
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So let's talk about periodontal disease. So tell us what that is and then if it can be
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reversed through non-invasive ways. Yeah, it actually absolutely can be. So periodontal disease is
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just the the technical term for gum disease. It starts out as gingivitis which is just an
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inflammation in the gum tissue and when gingivitis hangs around for too long then it can in fact
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the deeper part of the gum tissue underneath the gum line around the teeth in what's called the
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periodontium and that's just all the soft tissue surrounding each tooth. And so when that becomes
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diseased when there's again inflammation and imbalance in the bacteria of the mouth then not only
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does it cause the gum tissue to be inflamed but it starts to impact the bone underneath it.
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And so periodontal disease is the biggest cause for tooth loss because as your gum start to
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receive from the disease so does the bone underneath it. And so at some point a lot of times you
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lose too much bone that's holding the tooth into place and the tooth isn't able to hang on anymore.
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So periodontal disease is a huge cause of tooth loss. It also because of where it is the
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all the soft tissue in your mouth is so absorbent and so close to your circulatory system
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that all of that bacteria and all of those inflammatory cells are now systemic. And so periodontal
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disease is directly correlated with a number of other health issues. So an increased risk of heart
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attack, increased risk of stroke, more flare ups of autoimmune conditions. So Crohn's disease,
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rheumatoid arthritis, an increased risk of breast cancer, an increased risk of erectile dysfunction.
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So tell your guys out there, hey we've got to clean up the gum tissue so that we can keep having
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fun in the bedroom. Diabetes, pregnancy issues, you know, miscarriages, all of these things can be
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directly impacted just by having the presence of gum disease in the mouth, which is insane.
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Yeah. So it's like this bacteria and inflammation that's happening in the mouth and then goes
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systemically, right? But probably like if you're at a doctor for heart disease, they're not always
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like checking your mouth or for these other things. Correct. They should be, but they're not as often.
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The really good ones will say go to the dentist. Yeah. And so how do we
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prevent or if we were starting to see this gum recession or things happening? What can people do?
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Well, I think that just really good solid preventive care with a dentist that you trust.
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I think that is first and foremost because we can catch these things early. A lot of times,
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we'll notice the bleeding and we'll notice the inflammation before you're able to. So if you're
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already to the point where your gum's bleed when you floss or your gum's bleed when you brush your
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teeth, then it's already probably fairly significant and we really need to take a look. So
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definitely always good to have us take a look frequently so that we can be monitoring these things
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and catch something early. As far as prevention goes, it again, diet is key. Having an anti-inflammatory
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diet, lots of antioxidants in the diet. So brightly colored fruits and vegetables.
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Um, omega-3 oils are really good. Vitamin C is a super important nutrient for the gum tissue.
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All of these things can help prevent. And then just from an oral hygiene standpoint,
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then making sure that you're brushing with a really high quality toothbrush and getting
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something in between your teeth on a daily basis is really key. That may not be floss for everybody.
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Not everybody hit, you know, my hands are teeny tiny. I have baby hands. And so I can get a little
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piece of string in there just fine, but, you know, a 65-year-old grandpa, like my dad,
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with these big, old, huge meat hook hands, a little bit harder for him to floss. So I'm thrilled if
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he uses a water bit because it can get in between the teeth. We just need something in between the
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teeth to disrupt the microbiome, disrupt the biofilm on a regular basis. Okay. Yeah, so the biofilm.
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So tell me a little bit more on what does biofilm mean. The biofilm, biofilm is so fun.
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It's, there are biofilms everywhere. If you've ever, I'm sure this was none of your audience listening.
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But just in case you ever know somebody who's left a dish in the sink for too long. And after a couple
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of days, it gets like this film under the water or a dog bowl that's got that film at the bottom of
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the the water bowl. That's a biofilm. The rocks at the bottom of a pond biofilm. A swimming pool that
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hasn't been cleaned in a while will get kind of the slimy gooey at the bottom of it. That's a biofilm.
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So a biofilm is just this humongous community, this like living city of bacteria, which is so freaking
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cool. It's got like super highways and communication systems. It's these little colonies of bacteria
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that have all joined together and work as a unit. So in the body, we have biofilm in different
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places too. People will get biofilm around implants, around breast implants and tooth implants
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for that matter. And you get biofilm in the mouth around the teeth after a period of time. And your
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biofilm kit, if you've got an amazing microbiome, that biofilm could be totally fine and healthy.
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But if there are any imperfections in the microbiome, or if you're not disrupting it on a regular
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basis, then things get a little out of balance. And the biofilm is a made, it's just plaque. It's
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plaque in the mouth. Same thing. Plac is a biofilm. And so if we're not disrupting it on a regular
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basis, then what happens is the biofilm has all of these protective mechanisms. And so the more
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established it becomes, the more it protects itself from you getting in there to clean it well.
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And from your white blood cells, from getting in there to properly take care of all the waste
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products that it has. So it's super important to fascinating area of study. I don't know why
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something so gross fascinates me so much. But it's so important that we're just
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stirring it up on a regular basis that actually keeps everything, keeps the microbiome in the mouth happy.
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Yeah, that makes sense. I love that explanation and the comparison to other things.
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And so you mentioned implants and how you can get the biofilm around that. But I also know
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root canals are a big thing. I have never had one. But so tell us about the potential impacts of
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getting a root canal. And maybe if there's an alternative. Yeah, this has become a super
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controversial area of dentistry lately. And I love that we're able to have a conversation about it.
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There are still two different camps. There is the camp that says that's probably my more
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traditional colleagues, the endodontists, the the quote unquote normal dentist who say all root canals
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are fine. A root canal is just removing the nerve and the blood supply of the tooth so that you can
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maintain the structure of the tooth. You save a tooth basically. It gets to stay in your mouth
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when you've had a root canal procedure done on an infected tooth. On the opposite end of the
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spectrum are our naturopaths are functional medicine colleagues my all the holistic providers
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that refer patients to me who feel like no root canal is safe because it changes the microbiome
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in the area. And some people are noticing ill effects, noticing symptoms that pop up
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elsewhere in the body after they've had a root canal or they've noticed that after they've had
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an old root canal removed that some of their symptoms go away. So what's really interesting is
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and I'm glad there's discussion around it because I'm not dogmatic on either side. I don't think
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that all root canals are great for everybody. I think there are concerns with them because they do
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tax the immune system. Your body's having to work to maintain that area and it does change the
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microbiome around the the root of the tooth. But I also don't think it's correct for every patient
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in every situation to remove a tooth or avoid a root canal altogether. I think every patient gets
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to decide that and it's a very very personal discussion with what are the risks, what are the
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pros and cons. So I think the answer is different for every person and it's kind of along a continuum.
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But I do notice that there are some patients who notice that their chronic illnesses start
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after they've had a root canal. And I do notice that especially those who are working with
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a functional medicine provider that once they've had their root canals removed or if they've had an
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infected root canal removed, that it's easier for them to get some of those symptoms to go away.
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Yeah, and it probably goes back to everyone's a little different and some people are just more
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in that autoimmune spectrum and they're sort of the canaries and the coal mines and some people
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might be more affected. So I like how you have that open approach to it because so if someone
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is maybe a candidate for a root canal is the alternative if they don't get one just to get the
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tooth removed or is there something else they can do if they don't want a root canal?
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If a truth if a tooth is truly infected and the nerve is truly dying and not going to recover
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then yeah, then the only other decision is to have that tooth removed which really sucks.
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Like that's not a fun conversation to have with anybody. It's not a fun decision to have to make.
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Now it's because I think we take them more seriously in our office than in other offices
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we are able to avoid some just like you were talking about with fillings. You'll have some
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dentists that are more aggressive than others and in an attempt to be kind and not make a patient
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need to come back they'll suggest a root canal for a tooth that that maybe has the ability to still
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recover and still be okay. And so we are really really making sure that we are confident before we
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say hey you've got to make a decision A or B your root canal or pull the tooth because sometimes
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if a tooth is just really sensitive if it's got what we call reversible pulpitus sometimes we can
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do some ozone injections and can support the body and sometimes given the right circumstances it
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can heal and do what it needs to do on its own. Yeah I like that you brought up the ozone at the
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one dentist I was having some sensitivity and he did like little ozone injections on it. So
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what are some like different treatments that someone might see at a biological dentist like the
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ozone or just things they probably haven't heard of. Yeah ozone's a big one because we use it
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so much and in so many different things we ozonate the water at our office so even the water coming
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out of our drills and hand pieces is all treated with ozone. We inject it for like we were talking
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about for sensitive teeth we will place it around gum tissue to help treat gum disease and ginger
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vitus will blow it at the bottom of a filling on a sensitive tooth before we actually place the
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filling material. So we use it a ton of different ways. Other procedures that we do we do a lot
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of a lot of laser work I have an all tissue laser so if we can catch airway issues then there are
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some laser procedures that we can do there's a procedure called nightlays where we can help shrink
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the soft tissue in the back of the throat so it can help relieve symptoms of snoring and sleep
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at mea which is really cool. I did not know that was a thing but I did know like some people who snore
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like so I'd heard this I don't know if you've heard this or if it's true but like sometimes when
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people gain weight it's sort of in their tongue or their throat and that is why you'll see the
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snoring and some people. Yeah absolutely and sometimes it's not even excess weight because a lot of
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a lot of women have sleep at mea and it's just much much easier to miss because we don't
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necessarily it's not necessarily because of excess weight around the throat. Sometimes it really is
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we just have too narrow of an airway and there are all kinds of reasons for that we'll have to do
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another episode on it because it really it can start in utero with a tongue tie you know not
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nursing for long enough all of these things that can modern orthodontics you know not not now but
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orthodontics especially in the 80s and 90s where the solution was usually if teeth were crowded that
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orthodontist would remove teeth kind of take take out the teeth that are crowding and shove
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everything back well where you shove and things back into the airway. So all of these things contributed
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to men and women having much smaller than ideal airways which is part of why we see such an
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epidemic in sleeping issues and snoring and sleep at mea now. Yeah that's interesting I've
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not heard that before and I just want to ask so you mentioned your journey into the start with
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autoimmune diseases but what else can you say about autoimmune diseases and dental materials or
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procedures that can trigger a worsening or a flank someone maybe has autoimmune disease and they
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haven't heard of any of this before. Well it's all it's just so important to remember that it's
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all connected. It is all connected and it's circular you know what's going on in your mouth
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inflammation in the mouth or a little bit of neglect of the mouth can lead to inflammation
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elsewhere in the body which can trigger autoimmune illnesses for some people and so we'll see
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a poor a poor oral health implicated in an increased risk of autoimmune issues. Well the same
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is true in reverse if you're getting a flare of an autoimmune condition a lot of times we're
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the first ones to see it in your mouth. So sometimes it you've got inflammation you've got autoimmune
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stuff going on and it will cause inflammation in the mouth there are a few like little rashes and
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lesions that can happen in the mouth that are a tail tail sign of autoimmune conditions.
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So it goes both ways and it's it's so interesting when I was in dental school and I'm not that old
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I'm you know mid 40s when I was in dental school autoimmune illnesses were taught to us as
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something that's pretty rare and you know we'd see it every once in a while like maybe once or twice
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a year well man it is everywhere now and I see autoimmune patients at least once or twice a day now
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so I it we're clearly we're clearly more inflamed or more autoimmune or just not doing as well as
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we used to be and I think having a healthy mouth is part of the solution and can give us hints
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into what's going on in the rest of the body. Yeah autoimmune diseases are so rampant and
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I don't know if it was five or seven years ago I sort of started with some swelling in my fingers
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and joints and these little nodules and you know go to a rheumatologist they run a bunch of things
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only my A and A was passive so that's just a general autoimmune marker nothing else was
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and they're basically like well just keep coming back and you know if it gets worse we'll give you
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drugs I'm like I do not want to do that like you're saying you can literally offer me nothing else
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to prevent this from getting worse so I went and saw some holistic doctors and chiropractors on my own
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and have been much better but my mom and her sisters are all sort of on that autoimmune spectrum like
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they sort of grew up around the steel mill like just those environmental triggers and then you
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things we do or don't do can sort of tick things on and off but it is so rampant and there's
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just an conventional medicine there's not a good solution besides drugging to decrease a symptom
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there is no solution to fix it and so you sort of have to dig and try to do some of that work
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on your own and everyone's so different you know like what they need to fix it maybe someone's more
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sensitive to gluten or eggs or maybe it's you know that root canal they got it can be all these
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different things so I think that's why it's a little tricky too because conventional medicine
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wants us to be like okay this is it this is what's wrong this is the fix it and it's really diving
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into that person and their history and their symptoms and doing a little problem solving and
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trying different things out it's real medicine is what it takes it takes real medicine and
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critical thinking which many of us have been trained out of unfortunately yeah absolutely
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and so one last little topic so tell me a little bit we were talking about the mouth microbiome
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in the gut microbiome a little bit so dive into that a little bit more and maybe like what people
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can do to improve both are they both like connected if we work in our guts is that fix our mouth
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and maybe like if people have digestion symptoms like what those can be signs of
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yeah well there's there are unique microbiomes because the environment is very different
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so the environment in the mouth is going to have more oxygen it's going to have a different
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pH than say the microbiome in your stomach or the microbiome in your colon they're all going to be
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different but they're going to have some overlap so yes we will see certain strains of bacteria
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that can give us a clue that maybe there's some gut imbalance is going on because they only show
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up in the mouth if there's something out of balance in the gut so it does give us clues now we want to
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do thankfully do what's good for our for our overall health is going to be good for the microbiome all over
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you know good healthy diet probiotics good bacteria containing foods are really great for our
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microbiome all the way up and down our gut I would say the one thing that you could do
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um strategy wise that we do with our patients a lot is probiotics actually do differ and there are
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you know the probiotics that were used to taking that come in a capsule that are best for gut health
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because we want them and want those bacteria to survive to get into our gut and there are separate
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probiotics that are designed specifically for the mouth so they come in tablet form so they dissolve
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right away in the mouth because we're not relying on swallowing them we want them to be active
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in the saliva and some of them even contain they produce these bacteria cytins that will help
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eliminate some of the pathogenic bacteria so we can be really strategic and if we see some of those
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pathogens in a patient saliva we can actually match it up with a probiotic that naturally produces
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chemicals to kill off that bad bacteria so it's we can really be strategic and um and very specific
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with our our targeted targeted warfare against the the damaging microbiome in the mouth
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yeah and that sort of brings back like that saliva test we said that you do so you're using that
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to then target and then alter or change and so it's more beneficial for the client um yeah so tell me
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um tell me it like so people are from all over so what are what would people look for an
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dentist near them and then also tell us about your practice and i'm curious if you have people from
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sort of out of town and out of the area coming to you because it is hard to find a biological
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or holistic or a good dentist right sometimes just a good conservative dentist is hard to find too
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so we do have out of town patients all the time we have a lot of patients that will
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drive them from several hours away we have a few that'll fly in if they're wanting something specific
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done like let's say they're getting their amalgam fillings removed then they'll fly in for that
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and come just stay and Dallas for a couple of days and then go back to their normal dentist at home
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the best way to find the biological dentist that's closest to you
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is a website called the i-a-o-m-t and it that their website is just i-a-o-m-t.org
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and they've got a really good directory i think that's the the largest group of biological
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dentists there are a couple of others but that one is the the biggest and their directory is great
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because it even separates dentists based on you know how many meetings have we been to have we
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gotten our extra accreditation and certifications and all these things so you can try to discern
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not only who feels like the best fit is closest to you but also who isn't just doing the biological
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thing just because just so they can check the box that they're actually invested in the continuing
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education yeah yeah it is it is hard to find the provider but i would definitely travel if i
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needed to for it because i think it is worth it yeah all right anything else you would like to tell
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the dentist about biological dentistry or yourself or anything you offer i would say really the
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most important thing that i hope your audience takes away is that our bodies are designed to heal
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so i hope everyone is encouraged you know if i can if i can heal from Crohn's disease then you
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can heal from just about anything it's what we're it's what we're designed to do it's what we're
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made to do and we're capable of it yeah and it's giving the body the right environment to do that
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absolutely yeah all right well thank you so much dr. Tony and everyone i will have her links
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and the link she mentions a fine biological dentist down below so all right i hope everyone has
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a great week awesome thank you michelle