Creating a Healthy Mouth for Your Family: Dr. Katie To, Biological Dentist

Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00

Your genes hold the answers to your family's overall health. I'm Dr. Paula Kruppstadt and on the Get to the Root with Hope for Healing podcast, I sit down with experts in genetics, functional medicine, and family care to explore what's really going on beneath the surface so you can stop guessing and start healing. From personalized insights to practical tools, we bring you whole family wellness that starts at the root. Welcome, everyone, to the Get to The Root podcast. This is Dr. Paula Kruppstadt, your host.

And how appropriate that I'm struggling with laryngitis when I get to speak to a dentist. So how funny is that? So welcome, Dr Katie Toj. She is a biological dentist, and I am so grateful she's here. Welcome Katie. Thank you so much, Paula. We've known each other for so long. Yes, and it was interesting. I got onto your website, so I'm just going to give a little bit of an introduction, but I think what will be really encouraging to everyone in our listening audience is your journey, your personal journey and how that translates to care for an entire family.

So Katie went to the University of Texas at Arlington and she earned a bachelor of science in biology. And then she went on the alma mater, the university of texas health science center at San Antonio. I went into the med school and you went through the dental school. And then Katie went on her own personal wellness journey. So I would just like to start there and have you tell us your journey in traditional dentistry and how you ended up as a biological dentist. Yes, by reading my bio, you can definitely say I'm a very good student, straight A, graduate with honors and distinction in research.

And now looking back, I actually laugh at my research because my resource was on fluoride, how amazing fluorite is, and now I don't practice with fluorine. So life is really testing you. When I was in school, school teaching me everything I need to know, so when I went out to practice, And it's really hard when you become the patient. I actually became a patient myself. in 2018 got really sick and the health care system said nothing wrong with you. Everything looked okay. But I noted that inside I was not okay, I know that that's not who I am.

My memory, my foggy brain get really bad. my fatigue, which is unbelievable. I'm dreading getting to work, get out of bed. And I noticed not how I for that. for my whole life I was always high energy always talk fast walk fast eat fast even though I know I'm not supposed to but you know a lot of patients also

Katie's Health Crisis and Heavy Metal Toxicity 3:01

agree on this they know when their body change and they notice is not how I am I feel different I fell weaker I fill not myself and when you look at the blood work really nothing show up number one because The blood work was not cover everything you need to see, but it's also done. What normal is not optimal. We learned that what normal was that optimal? So everyone say I'm normal, I know I am not my own self. And that's when I found functional medicines and would diagnose with heavy metal toxicity.

And I was given a choice of either quit dentistry completely because it's making me so sick, which is I never heard of. And to be honest, at that time, my family and I thinking we made a quack. We're like, we never hear of that. Like, who said having metal toxicity? And the symptoms are just so similar to other condition. And then we had a second opinion, third opinion. Obviously everyone said the same thing. That's when you become denial to accept the fact that that's what I had. So I have to quit dentistry because it makes me so sick, or I'll have practice differently.

A lot of us, when life gave us that ultimatum, like you either quit or do differently, Most people quit. I have friends that quit because they're so sick. Then there's people that say, no, I had to figure out a way. Right. And so that's what I chose to freak out away. That's how I found biological dentistry. The community embraced me and helped me. You're one of those members of the community who are taking care of my kid and also support what i'm practicing and take care a lot of our patients. So I'm deeply grateful for this journey because at first, at the beginning of journey, Why is this happening to me, right?

You was in a very confusing state where you're like, why me? Why does it not happen to others? And then I realized that a lot of dentists struggling with this, with toxicity, but autoimmune, what heavy metal, would infertility with thyroid problem. And, and they could not pin it to what causing it. Katie, let me stop you there and ask you a question. You said you found out about heavy metal toxicity and you're like, oh, this could be a quack. And then you went further. So what kind of testing did you have done?

Yep. It's very interesting because three different providers do three tests. The first provider, she did a Provoke test with the lab at Genova. I did the challenge test, collect the urine for six hours and then tell us like the lead and the mercury and a bunch of other heavy metal. The second doctor did the tri test from Quicksilver, hair, urine, and blood, but not a provoked test or not, a challenge test. And then the last doctor that the test with Dr. Data. Also with the challenge and that's how the test result was conclusive that yes, you had heavy metal toxicity and soon you have no metal, an entire body, not from any medical device or medical dental procedure.

I don't even have any restorations in my mouth. So I was born and raised in Vietnam, so I have all my wisdom teeth. And so that the conclusion is coming from my work. which is dentistry and how we remove heavy metal from amalgam restorations. And that's where I got it from. So as far as your recovery to your bio talks about infertility, and I have the privilege of caring for your beautiful children that are miracles. Yeah. What kind of treatment did you go through to chelate, pull all those heavy metals out of your body?

Yes. So of course, the first thing is we talk about chelations. I was very hopeful because I'm like, oh, they can go in and pull all this heavy metal out of my system. And that's also a big mistake where we did try that without understanding our DNA analysis. And this is why one of my children had DNA analysis when it came to you, because we know without the map, we will try to figure things out and not knowing where we're going. And so immediately we pause and get the DNA testing done and redraw.

Now that we have the information from the. And knowing that I'm not methylate well, not detox well not having a good support pathway. So we're going to go ahead and do it slower. We've been doing through nutrition, sauna, and also low dose of EDTA versus a higher dose. of chelations in the vein. So it's been a long process, but what I noticed is my symptoms start getting lightened and I start seeing the difference. I think that's the most important is you feel the progress and you know, especially with the annually testing, we know the numbers are going down.

This is the reason why people are thinking, oh, I can just get this done. in a short period of time, but healing takes time. And a lot of times you have to listen to your body and know your genetic markup to know, can you go fast? Can you slow? And, a lotta time that's what really stopped people from healing, cause they don't understand that component, which is your gene is, your map. It's not your destiny, But definitely my map to tell you how you should go. I really appreciate you bringing that in because, you know, our sponsor is Vagran Genomics, which, and then our wellness blueprint.

And it's so true. It's like we, especially as medical professionals, want to cross the finish line, get it done, got it fast. But like you said, using a lower and slower approach with EDTA, a chelating agent, instead of doing it IV and very fast, but setting the stage for success. lowering the inflammation in your body, getting your cells working, and getting the proper B vitamins working and just giving yourself nutritionally what you need. So that's so encouraging.

Testing, Chelation, and Biological Dentistry 9:08

What happened as far as getting back into dentistry? How long did it take you once you discovered what the challenge was moving forward? I know where you are now. You have this beautiful thriving practice, and it's interesting, Katie's first name is K-A-T-I-E, Dr. Katie Toe, but she's in KT, Texas, K A T Y. So tell us a little bit about that journey once you discovered the diagnosis. Yes, when I was given the choice of a quick dentistry permanently or practice differently, I were asking the question, what differently mean in dentistry?

And that's when the community of biological dentists just open their arm and say, come here, let me show you how we've been practiced this way for 40 years. And I'm like, oh my gosh, i was completely blind because I thought dental school were teaching us everything we need to know about practicing safely. and helping patients and also protecting ourselves, but I was not really get the information from the dental school, from protecting ourself and our patient. I jump in, I would say 150% or 200% on transform my practice from a conventional practice to the biological practice.

At the same year as I got diagnosed with heavy metal toxicity, which is 2018, Because the reason is you cannot, once you see it, you can't unseen it. When you, see you're going to unsee it because now you'll see mercury is not just what in the metal, but it's in a vapor. You can see what your naked eye. So we have to use special respirator with mercury vapor filter. We had to transform our practice with the intra oral sections, actual section with Mercury filter and what happened in 2020, we all know COVID.

And we had all the equipment. If we are mercury vapor safe, we're COVID safe. So we have the respirator before the world know what respirators is and N95. We have all of the PPE to use during mercury removal. And that exactly the same PPE that the hospital using during COVID. I remember in COVID we donate a lot of PPE into the hospitals. The hospital personnel that came to our practice was like, Your practice have more PPE stuff than what we have right now for COVID. It's because we prepare and we know that this is the way to protect not just the patient, but ourselves who have actually repeated exposure every day with this heavy metals and chemical.

The dentistry is quite toxic. And we did not get that training and that protections in school. We thought everything is normal. For our listening audience, would you define PPE? Yes. As personal protective equipment. Yes, yes. That your gal, your mask, Your head cover, just shoes cover. We literally go into procedure when we take our mercury removal procedure is like a biohazard. Yeah. I remember growing up playing with mercury from a thermometer and people just did not know the toxicity of it. I remember when I first started into functional medicine, the first patient that I did a provoked test and we were searching and it was a cracked mercury amalgam in her mouth, but the amazing transformation where she felt so much better after pulling that out of her body and did it orally, we did do it IB.

So, Katie, the acronym for Smart Certified Dentist, you just explained it, but can you tell us what that acronym is? Yes, SMART stands for Safe Mercury amalgam removal technique, S-M-A-R-T, and that protocol was established by the organizations called IAOMT. They very vocal about getting rid of amargam, which is 50% of the amygam is mercury. and get rid of that completely in this country. And we finally get a date. The government set a day in 2030 to get of the amalgam mercury fillings in dentistry.

2025, the entire EU banned it. 2009, entire country of Sweden banned. So we really be high on a lot of these, I would say public protections in terms of toxicity, and mercury in the water, mercury the mouth, and also mercury and a lot of medical procedure that we know, especially the vaccination. So yes, yes. And vaccinations are near and dear to my heart as a board certified, excuse me, pediatrician that were adopting more of the European schedule to where we stop putting these toxic, are called adjuvants, the additives in the vaccines into children's bodies and adults too.

We have so many vaccine injured people. Now, what would your message be to, let's just start young. I know that you're not a pediatric dentist, but being a biological dentist all the principles translate from womb to tomb as we call it. And I have family practice providers in my practice too. and I see adults as a consultant, But the principle of functional medicine just like biological dentistry translate across the ages. So if you were speaking to the parents of a child that was around a year of age and this little one had a few teeth, or let's just say closer to four to five months of aged, we've got little baby teeth erupting, how would you talk to them about how to take care of their little ones mouth?

First principle, I've always said normal is not optimal. If you go into a conventional or mainstream, say, pediatrician, then they said your child looks normal and they don't look at, you know, a comprehensive, the way the child breathing is the mouth. Breathing is a problem. They only look the body weight. And the percentile, the high and the head size, and that's it. And then pushing you on shot. That means you're missing out a big part of the grown development as a biological wellness census.

When we look at a baby around four or five months old, we know that baby, when that child was born, We know immediately if that I have tongue tie, cheek tie. You know, with a buckle tie and especially tongue tied, lip tied. All that tightness. there's a bigger indication. Paula, you know, when you test every single child's DNA when they come to your office, because my daughter, two days old, got her cheek swapped, and we know so much about her and how to support her. The tie also indicating there could be a methylation issues, we call it MTHFR.

And that means that that child would have a different way for you to prepare especially with all the toxicity and all of the food and thinking it was good, right? We think it's normal, but it is not optimal for that baby. I have two babies and the first one and second one say mom and dad and they have a very different way of their body express their gene. So we got to learn about that bigger pictures and not just look at the child in front of us and say, oh, he's breathing.

SMART Mercury Removal and Dental Safety 16:48

You know, she's growing, She's gained weight. I think that's everything's good and normal. And so at five months, we already know at birth, if that child have any cheek tight, tongue tight lip tight. If that trial using the neck to swallow. or swallow with the tongue and not a lot of cheek and the lips compensation. Is that child breathing entirely to the nose or is also have the dry lips and bad breath because children's not and no one's supposed to have bad breathe if your lip close at night. So those are the things that we're looking for.

Also, when I had my daughter come in for her checkup, you spend an entire hour looking from head to toe. And I love that you're not just looking at the problem. You're also looking to optimize the growth and development. I think that's the difference between normal and optimal. We don't want to wait until the child has a problem because that would cause sick care. We're looking for the child opportunity to optimize that growth, that super gene, and that nutrient that they could have more and make the brain and the body grow stronger and smarter.

And that's the approach we should for every single child is that optimize their health. That phrase opportunities for optimization, I think I'm going to adopt that. I love that, so if the parent doesn't go see someone who's cognizant and aware of airway issues. What are some of the things that they might notice with their infant when they come out of their womb, as far as head shape, to posturing, and then how they nurse? So let's kind of hit all of those. You alluded to it with the neck, so let us hit posture, neck and then the way that they may nurse or their inability to nurse.

Yes. I remember as a mom myself, I always take the ownership and the responsibility when my child not nurse well or I don't have enough milk. And no one ever told me, especially with my first, which is in 2016, that, oh, it's because he have a tongue-tied issue. That's why he doesn't nurse. Well, and that's what it hurt. He's not full and he's tired because you've been working so hard just to get the milk And then, therefore, they told me just to switch him to model instead versus look at the root cause, which is his tongue, his lips, he cheek type, and his posture telling us to work with lactation consultant that actually outside the hospital, who actually will be able to tell you a lot more than someone work inside the hospitals, also work in pediatric chiropractor.

who understand the postures and how to get that alignment early on because most of our children have the compartment syndrome, right? They would sit in the car seat and we swaddle them and everything's in, the womb is so tight and you're never releasing that and be able to adjust it. So for me, a lot of parents just don't know that they have options. They don' know they could get the DNA testing on day two when that baby was born. they didn't that know could go to someone outside the hospital for a lactation consultant to evaluate, or even a pediatric dentist who specialize in ties and revision.

One of my partner, her baby was born and have immediately evaluated for tie and had all this adjustment done within two weeks of life. And it's make a huge difference. The child not snoring, the child doesn't, you know, having colic problem, they just sleep through the night. Every time that he fed, he's get full. he doesn't get fussy and a lot of times moms finding solution but it's a short-term solution or it is like patching like the nipple cover like things that we like oh my gosh is our problem but is in fact is the child could be optimized could get help early on so I think parents need to ask questions versus thinking like, I need to go out to the store and buy the bottle and by the good bottle.

No, let's make sure that the child doesn't have issues with feeding versus make it easier for them and ignore the tie issues, which is related to their jaw growing. Because all my patients who have orthodontic treatment, are not getting the Thai problem addressed when they were born or when the were young and it lead to narrow jaw, lead no room for wisdom teeth. Therefore, wisdom had to be extracted or even worse, premolar had be to extracted. And then that lead them prepare them for sleep apnea in the 30, 40 and we seen patients with sleep apnea problem or airway problem, really young and never really have any one diagnosed symptom properly.

We have a cheerleader in high school with chronic clinical depressions and put on medication and no one ever thought, oh, it's because she didn't have enough oxygen. And so there's a lot of, of course, ADHD, you know, all of that. hyperactivity is all causing by the child didn't get sleep because they grow in this sleep. And so a lot of parents thinking, uh, I think my doctors say my kids are fine. So when someone say, Hey, you need to look into this, they either dismiss that information or they missed the opportunity.

Early Childhood Airway and Tongue-Tie Screening 22:08

to do that when the child was young. Yes. I think what you said about a mother blaming herself, mother guilt is so much part of that. And how are you to know that your baby's airway is restricted? So here I am at age 62 in Invisalign having gone through profound expansion and excellent dental hygiene. But I fractured numerous teeth, just had a tongue tie released, but you can see all the accessory muscle use that has gone on through the years. And yes, sleep apnea and using a CPAP to keep my airway open and having struggled with clinical depression.

So the root cause analysis is so important and There's so many hormones with pregnancy that you do. You blame yourself, you get depressed. It's sad. And so if, every child who comes into our practice, and you alluded to this too, we think airway when they present with ADD, ADHD, they all need a good air way evaluation. and sometimes too. Can you speak to us about people who have what's called the submucous tongue tie where there's actually when you look you can't see tethered tissues but explain what might be evident because I see that a lot too.

I know what that is but if there is no tissue that's visible causing an actual little piece of tattered tissue for people to see, I'd like you to explain that Dr. Katie. I'd like to thank Fagran Genomics for sponsoring our podcast. Without knowing what your precision genetics are, you don't have a roadmap. So please log on to our website, schedule a welcome call, and see what the Wellness Blueprint can do for you. That's the premier and proprietary genetic panel that Fogran has allowed us to create.

Yes, because there's anterior tongue tie and posterior tongue ties. So a lot of people thinking they're all looking for the front and forget about how the child be able to lift the back of the tongue up because that's part of tongue when you lay on your back is what obstructing your airway and causing either you have to flip on their sides. I've seen some people slip on the belly and they think it's normal. just because they can wake up the next day and they think sleeping on the belly is normal and so a lot of parents when they look into the the child mouth or a provider that don't have training and classify so we we talk about provider have different level they have identifier classifier, stabilizer, and healer.

And so not everyone can heal everything, but at least you have to identify and then learn how to classify this. Because if you identify that this child don't have anterior tongue type, you don�t know that there's a possibility that the child has posterior tongue-type, then you're not going to send that child to the right provider to get a full evaluation. So for parents, I would say if you are suspecting of your child, you have a history of... I always look at the parents first. If you had orthodontic treatment when you were young and you marry and your spouse also have done ortho-dontics treatment and they were younger, then that means your time more likely will need orthotonic invention if we don't intervene early.

Every time I meet an adult patient I said I wish I met you when you were five or younger because we don't have to do this jaw expansions and surgical approach. and orthodontics and reverse a lot of the teeth damage by restore them with dental material. It's way more expensive and the damage already done by the time I met them in their 20, 30, 40. And so I always joke that I wish I'd met him early in life and this is the chance for them to look at their kid and regardless where the kid are, you can pass on that knowledge and start investigating, start gathering a team.

There's never one provider. It's always a team of provider that have the same philosophy, even better if they talking to each other. Yes. Patients feel like they have to do all of that communications where provider don't communicate. And I think in the functional biological world, we all know each. We all each are the patients. we are each of the friends and knowing that our journey, you know, We can't practice alone. and so I love that the patient loved that, that we communicating. And the fact that you cannot treat the patients alone, you need a village.

Yes. And so, yes. I have a lot of patients ask me, who do you take your kid to? And I said, I take my kid Dr. Krevstad. So I think that's another way for them to know that. You not just talk, but you walk the talk. They also want to who you work with because they're looking for that team. And so I love that. I feel so blessed to be in Houston area when we have a lot of brilliant provider who also patient themselves, who always wanted to journey themselves. And the fact that you went to all this, it's not a short treatment, is years of treatment.

And you're still in the middle of it. Yes. Exactly. I so agree with that because you need to find lactation consultants that have had oral myofascial training. That's right. We may for older children need an oral, my of fascials trained speech pathologist to understand this and partners and then find airway specialists, and then we have body work specialists as you alluded to, the chiropractor. And then my husband sees you. I have another biological dentist that I started with on the north side of Houston already.

It's so true. Then too, if we need to pull in an orthodontist, then if an oral surgeon is what I was starting to say there, an oralsurgeon, but all the while optimizing individual's health. Something you said earlier that no one should have bad breath if they're closing their mouth at night. So can you talk to me a little bit about bad breathe? Yes. Bad breath could be number one cause of bad breath, definitely mal-breathing. And in fact, we just reposition number 1 cause, of cavities, also mal breathing.

because it way more common than people that not brushing. In fact, people know about brushing and flossing and they do it, but they still come in and said, my child, myself have bad breath and I'm so conscious about it and try everything and it doesn't work. So the first thing first, if you're breathing through your mouth, you will alter the oral microbiome. Especially, you are facilitate the bad bugs to grow and multiply so much faster than the good healthy microbiome. So that happening every single day.

Your body cannot compensate fast enough for that. Another trick I do is in the morning, I smell my child, my children bad. And I can tell you that if they have their lip closed, they don't have any, we call bat breath or periole or gum disease smell. But if day don' have the lips closed together, you were the one brushing for them the night before. You're flossing for the them night, before you clean that tongue the nigh before and you're like, oh my God, the wake up and it's terrible. That's because they open their mouth to breathe or to compensating for breathing.

because they could not breathe through their nose, or they didn't have the lip posture to close to a completely 100% breathe-through-their-nose. So that's one indication. Of course, another indication for bad breath is gut problem. And you know, most American have gut problem one way or the other. And so the mouth is beginning of the gut. So if you have bad breath and you're doing mouth taping and nasal rinsing, and flossing, brushing, tongue cleaning and oil pulling, you still have that breath.

Stop blaming yourself and start working with a functional doctor to figure out the root cause, which is a gut problems. It could be a food sensitivity. It, could it be an overgrown bacteria, it could require some tests. And instead of just taking more supplement and do things on your own, you need to have someone to guide you in this process. I'm a big fan of testing and evaluate and retest because otherwise you're just guessing and you are wasting so much time and get frustrated and give up. And so, yes, and so that's usually the way we're ruling things out first and breath, breath equal mal-breathing.

If we fix that and the bad breath is still there, that means it's a gut problem. So we eliminate and really cheap and effective way versus go all buying tons of supplements and then do all the tests and realize that, oops, I've been mal breathing my whole life. Yes. I love that. And we talk about the gut too, and identifying those things, identifying things like H. pylori, identify imbalances of very aggressive organisms. Something that we see is in some children that have an immune abnormality called pediatric acute onset neuropsychiatric syndrome PAMS or PANDAS which is a group A beta hemolytic streptococcal infection that these are children who get strep and it may not be in the nose or the throat.

It's the gut or it could potentially be skin but it's an autoimmune attack on the brain But what we have found, if these children whose immune system doesn't

Bad Breath, Gut Health, and Oral Biofilm 32:18

function properly, and I think we alluded to this a little bit, the thought of removing tonsillar or adenoidal tissue, why would we do that if it's a first line of defense? But we found that if the immune system, if you identify that it doesn't work like about 25% of the population has a broken immune, the tonsils many times will be very, very small, but they will have a horrible biofilm within it. like yourself as a biological dentist, you're checking that biofilm in the mouth, we see that coming out of the tonsil tissue and identifying in little children something called pisobacterium nucleotum, which is causative in Alzheimer's and dementia and all these other things when it's there in large quantities.

We know that in small quantities, I'm going to let you opine on that just a little bit, Katie, about pisbacteria nucleatum. But I was shocked Well, not shocked, but it just really drove home. We did the right thing by taking out these tonsils and adenoid because those bad bugs punching holes in the blood-brain barrier making these kids violent and anxious and just so sick. So I'm going to let you as a biological dentist tell us a little bit more about some of these nasty bugaboos that you find in these people that it's a gut and it is an airway issue.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because first and foremost, a child benefit from tonsillectomy. I got my tonsil removed at seven after years of my parents trying to figure out why I am not doing well in school, why could not pay attention, what's going on, and especially wetting my bed every night. It was such a big deal. It wasn't embarrassment. Right. And our parents, especially my parents in the 80 did not know anything about airway. Did not make the connections between ADHD and vet wedding and attentions and learning disability.

with the swollen tonsil and airway limitations and issues. And so I got lucky in a way that they could not treat my tonsillitis with antibiotic, even though after they bombarded me with so much antibiotic and they decided that, you know what, let's just take her tonsils out. That was seven years old. I remember that's the only surgery I had is tonsillarctomy and my life changed. I sleep through the night, I stop bedwetting, and my parents just like could not make the connection either. They're like, oh, great, awesome.

I think she's grown. And so I'm so grateful for whoever make that decision, my parent's to follow through with it. So when the child's suffering so much and there's no way you change diet, you did the laser, did you get the ozone and you could string that tonsil, it's time to let it go. But when I was seven, there was no one doing any saliva testing. or culture testing. Today, we as a biological dentist, every single patient, doesn't matter their age or their sex. We test their saliva under number one, the microscope, a fake contrast microscope.

And number two, saliva testing that we sent out to pathology lab, where they will tell us the FN. Five years ago, We think Fn was just innocent. Oh yeah, everyone have Fm. Now we're like, no, you need to treat this. because it's also associated with colon cancer. It's associated also with a lot of brain activity issues. So I love that we are testing it. And as long as the kid can spit, into that collected tube, we test it. And as long as we can collect the biofim and put it in the microscope, We show it, and because just like when I brought my child in, doesn't matter if she's four or one or two, you look at the blood work and you say, okay, this is what we need to supplement and optimize.

You go to the dentist and don't get saliva test done, And you don' get to see your saliva in a microscope. That means they're also guessing and not testing. So these days, dough test is so non-invasive, it's so quick and easy that you can actually collect saliva and testing for the FN and knowing the quantity also. And so the follow-up become easier when we do the homework, when having the goggles with salt water and rinse and floss and tongue cleaning and they come back and their numbers improving.

And so, but I do agree with you, if the child do everything, the parents do, everything and getting the tonsil removed is not the end of the world. For me, it's life changing. And, so when parents telling me like, oh, I tried to avoid it, actually told them, look at me. I had my tonsils removed at seven and I wish they removed my sooner. Now that I know what my parents did not have no clue about all my symptoms. And so you have time to really change that child life by removing that tonsil and still be able to give them a good life, a healthy life.

Yes. Oh, I so appreciate that. There's something interesting, even if a child cannot expectorate or spit into a vial. And some insurances will cover this and some will not. It's not hellaciously expensive, but it's a swab and it is a DNA analysis and its next generation sequencing, very similar. to what you have and it gives us an idea and so it just guides our care a little bit. So that's really encouraging to hear. The fact that both of us love to get to the root of things. It's so encouraging to hear, Katie, what you do at your practice.

And if you, as a biological dentist, if your looking at a whole family, you alluded to this not just at an early age, but what are some of the things as a biological dentist that you would encourage families to not miss some opportunities to optimize their dental health, which as we know, the mouth is the beginning of gut microbiome. So I'd like to hear you just kind of tell us how you talk to the family about that, if they were brand new at your practice. Yes. It's a big question because every season of live, we see different needs.

So I'm going to cover this from, you know, the children to the parents. But number one thing is we always want to remind people normal is not optimal. When people come in and say, I have no pain. I don't have any issues. Have you dig deep enough? Oh, i eat everything. i have a standard American diet. So every time they say something in that line, we said, great, here's the thing we would like to share with you. For your children, and we'd like for you to watch them when they sleep to make sure that they close their lips, to makes sure you are helping them with the flossing and the brushing because the child hand skills and not as good enough.

So you can let them play with it in the morning and help them having that habit. But at night you have to follow up with go in there and do it for them. Because I think as a mom myself, I have a 10 year old and a four year. I'm still in. The bathroom with a ten year watching him to make sure because teeth are bone and now he start having permanent teeth. You don't have another set of teeth after that.

Tonsils, Biofilm, and Whole-Family Prevention 39:58

So as a parent, we have to take that ownership, also helping them, not do it for them all the time, but supervising and checking and watching them when they sleep. Also, how they eat at home is what we buy on our grocery trip. Be mindful what you're buying and looking at their genetic to see what they can eat, what have sensitivity with. and lower that inflammation from early on and also create that habit at home. Because when they go outside, they're also making good choices without you there, especially when I go to college.

And so I think with the child is a lifelong habit. of choices that you make at home and then when you go out to the world, you're making that choices for yourself and later on when have family that carry on. And then for parents, most of parents unfortunately put the kid first. They would do everything for their kid, but then, for themselves, they would wait until it's become an emergency. They said, I can eat. I don't have pain. So I must be okay. And that actually what got us in trouble to begin with, because we're missing opportunity to prevent chronic diseases, like things that, you know, tied it to, the heart issues, cardiovascular, autoimmune, cognitive decline is because, we missing opportunities to catching it early.

And so for parents, if you haven't got your DNA analysis done, get it done. Because it's also telling you, If you have high risk for something that you can actually changing the lifestyle, aka epigenetic. So everyone, I tell every patient, you need to have your genetic look at. Don't wait until when you're 70 or 60 and then like, oh, i'm get hit with dementia or Alzheimer. And now I'm going to try to reverse it. it's a lot harder when the symptoms are showing up. So with parents don't wait until you're hurting, don' wait till you have issues.

Look at your family history, look at you DNA, and then actively showing your children you making effort. For us, a lotta time when parents say, oh, I want my kid to be active, but they're not active themselves. I want my kids to eat healthy, but they're not eating healthy themselves. They drink soda or they drink, you know, alcohol. And I think that's the best parenting is just modeling. they looking at you, how you eat, having your activity, and then the kid modeling that. So if you can take care of yourself, Your family will get healthier because your children will model that behavior.

So that's the message I have for the whole family. Preventions, don't wait until it hurt. And if you don' know what you do know, then sick provider that actually know prevention is more than just looking at the 2D x-ray. CBCT will tell you more about the wisdom teeth area, about root canal teeth that doesn't hurt, but infected. Can you tell our listeners what CBCT is? Yes, C-B-C-T cone beam technology and that is a 3D dimension X-ray. So the regular X ray you have at the dentist on a routine checkup is 2D like a photo.

We cannot see a different dimension of that image. But if you have a cone beam 3D, then that will help for us to slide that that images into so many different view. And most of the time we will find detect infections or abnormality before it becomes symptomatic. Because I have so may patients when they have huge abscess in their jaw and they're like, how come I don't have no pain? And I said, yes, the body is really smart, but this is the area that it's been, you know, basically hidden. And so those hidden infections, they want to cost you the most, which actually will causing heart attack and stroke and patients that don't know that they have a hidden infection.

So for me, prevention is a key. Knowing your body, personalized approach and not doing things that just because everyone else is doing and I'm going to do the same thing, right? Even to the workout type, to food type. You have to know what works for you and for your kid, not just everyone on Instagram doing the thing. And so I think that's the key thing that worked for the whole family is knowing your unique gene and knowing how to apply epigenetic in your life and then prevention, prevention. I so appreciate parents modeling it.

You know, it's interesting when you have kids, like for me, I did not learn about functional medicine until I was around 50. And shortly after that, course, and I told my husband, I said, this is what I want to do. And I had never branched off to something like that. Our family has changed. I was a completely different mother to my first two children than it was to the last two. Just the struggles that we go through. You know, your body, the fatigue and your battle with infertility and then finding out about heavy metal toxicity and it totally changed the trajectory of your clinical practice and now you're blessing the lives of so many people.

So, and for parents not to neglect themselves, it's true. They lay down their lives for their kids. And that's when we have the conversation. You know, you have to put your oxygen mask on, but you see you're in crisis mode now. So let's back up a little bit and let us try to keep this simple and create a sanctuary at your home. It has to be both mom and dad, both parents or, to get that dialogue going. When they treat root cause. This is the Get To The Root podcast and your approach is getting to the root of dental challenges and things like that because it involves the entire body.

What I love to Katie about you is that you always have such a spirit of gratitude and you light up the room and I loved how you frame it and Your children are a beautiful reflection of you and your husband. They are the sweetest, the most respectful, compassionate kids. And I know that you are, you know, working on that dialogue on a daily basis. It's, what are we grateful for? And, hey, let's greet so and so. Hello. You know they're just engaged and it just goes to show, more is caught than taught.

We have to be intentional about what we do. And thanks again. I'd like to thank our sponsor for Ron, because you've alluded to this numerous times. It's true. Our wellness blueprint. There's another one called the newborn panel. We have separate smaller panels, but the blueprint really does give people a roadmap of where they're going and where their vulnerabilities are. And it's how to support their bodies and how do you create a beautiful environment. Now, it's interesting what you said when your kids go away to college.

Out of all my children, three out of the four have drunk the Kool-Aid. My youngest is just about to be 20 and certain things, but I thought it was a win when I found that she had taken her cell phone and put it under the bed. Because I'm like, just get it away from you. And so that was step number one. So we'll see if she'll get at six to eight feet away. But it's so interesting. We just have to model it. Thank you for that. So as we wrap it up, we want to remember that normal, as you said, is not optimal.

And we need to look for opportunities. Thanks again so much for being our guest and giving our families, our listeners, some concrete tips and tricks. to partner with their children and then also how to identify potential airway restriction in their newborns. So, yeah, thanks again.

Closing Reflections and Gratitude 47:48

Yes, thank you, Paula. And I have to say, I don't know, it's been so long ago, but I know Paula, you remember, so I think our listeners and audience can see it, that my first encounter with you was really life-changing and life saving because I was sick I think in June of 2018 and then my son got sick in April of 2019. And I called my friend who also a functional medicine doctor and I said, who should I take him to? Because I know this is possible something that's similar. He said Paula, the only one in entire Houston area I would take.

But I call your office and you super book. And I was a desperate mom at that point. I did not sleep for like seven days, I think, because he was in fever. So I drove him down to your office and I wait and wait. And you finally saw him out of mercy and compassion. That I would so grateful. Am still kind of emotional talking about it, but that this is why when you, if you get an opportunity to watch this and see this, you know no one come to our life as an accident. So I'm forever grateful for that.

And so that's the reason why we become lifelong friend and you're going to take care of them. Even after they graduate from high school and go to college, because I am so grateful. For your care and for your love and what you do for patients. We have so many patients coming in and if they tell me they see Dr. Paula, that I know they're in good hands. So thank you again for taking care Bailey and save his life. Oh, thank. You so much for. That, you know, it's so funny what. encounters with other providers the difference that it makes and life-changing and I give all the glory to God for that because you know the way I look at it apart from him I can't really do anything it's like you can have all this knowledge but if it doesn't translate to what you do so Katie, thank you for those words of kindness and love.

And I feel the same way about when parents or patients tell us, oh, we see Dr. Toe. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you're in such great good hands. She'll take great care of you. So thanks again for being on today. If you have a chance, I know that you had people fly in from out of town to see you, We both love ozone. what ozone does, not you use dental ozone, we do it IV, but this is just a beautiful encounter with you and who you are and what you do. What you see is what to get with Dr. Katie. She's amazing.

Thanks again. joining us today. Thank you for having me. All right. You take care. Thanks for joining and Get to the Root with Hope for Healing. If this episode helped you, follow and share it with someone who needs it and leave a review. It helps others find us too. For a free consultation, visit our website at GetToTheRoot.com with a number two and schedule a welcome call. We'll see you soon.