Sick and Don’t Know Why? It Might Be Your Mouth

How Oral Health Affects Overall Wellness 0:00

Do you ever wonder why you keep getting sick and you take antibiotics, you do everything that you know to do, and it comes back again? Did you know the answer may actually be hiding right under your nose in your mouth? How does dentistry impact your overall health? Well, stick with me today and we're going to dig into that. What in your mouth could be impacting you and your ability to stay well? A lot of my patients have things like sinus infections and things that aren't that far from the mouth, so it might not be that big of a stretch of the

Hidden Dental Infections and Recurrent Illness 0:31

imagination to think that the sinus infection could be related to a tooth. but there's other infections elsewhere that I have seen over and over and over again that actually are impacted by the mouth as well. I remember one woman in general, she was older, she was in her early 80s, and she was in and out of the hospital nonstop with lung infections, pneumonia. And if you know much about people in their 80s and pneumonia, Typically, it's a life sentence. So she and her family were very concerned about this.

They said, we don't know when the next lung problem or pneumonia issue is going to be her last. And they really wanted to find out what is the reason she keeps getting these infections. And they had tried everything they could think of. And finally, somebody said, you know, maybe you should go look in your mouth. So she came to my dental office. We did a cone beam CT scan. And what I found actually shocked all of us in the room. we found that she had three infected root canal teeth. And these weren't just small, little, I have to look real hard to see them kind of infections.

These were massive infections that were draining up next to the tooth. And she said things like, well, yeah, I taste kind of that salty taste in my mouth sometimes, or sometimes this tooth gets a little pimple by the side of it, but I just pop it and it goes away. Well, here's the problem. We don't think about the fact that that infection doesn't just stay there and it doesn't just go away when you pop it. You know, I liken this oftentimes to a sliver in your finger. If you have a sliver in your finger and it's gotten swollen and infected and you put some salve over it, Well, it might take that inflammation down in the short term, but that's going to come back because the sliver is still there.

Root Canal Infections and Lung Problems 2:06

The same thing happens with dental infections. People ask me all the time, well, can't I just take an antibiotic for this infection? The answer is it's no better than the salve because the sliver in mouths is often the infected tooth itself. So she could pop this little pocket of infection that she had next to the tooth, she could drain it, she could take an antibiotic, but all that's going to do is tamp it down for a little while and it usually comes back with a vengeance after the bacteria take hold again and they really start to spread and go crazy.

So what was the recommendation for her? Well, first of all, this infection was spreading to her lungs. She was swallowing it. Every single time she chewed, it forced it into the bloodstream. Every single time she swallowed, she was swallowing these bacteria. That was all going and spreading through everywhere, but in her had really found a place to take hold in her lungs. So the teeth had to come out. This was really the only option. She said, she said, am I just too old for that? And I said, well, you tell me.

Are you too old to be well? And she said, absolutely not. I want to get well. So there's no way that that's going to happen with those infected teeth in your mouth. So she came in and we removed all three of those infected teeth. Of course, her family was concerned about her chewing efficiency and all of those kinds of things. I saw her about three months later and she said, It's been a bit of a pain to be missing those teeth from a chewing standpoint. She said, but I haven't had a lung infection since.

So it's worth all of it. And we can absolutely replace teeth with ceramic dental implants, even an 80 year old. No problem. But I can't replace your health. And that is something I tell people over and over and over again. I could replace your teeth. I can't replace your health. Let's fix the root cause of the problem, which for her was absolutely these infected teeth in her mouth.

Why Antibiotics Only Provide Temporary Relief 3:56

This unfortunately is a real common cycle that I see over and over and over with patients. They have something that goes wrong. They get some sort of an infection, whether it be sinus infection or something else in their body. They take an antibiotic. It goes away for a little while and then it comes back with a vengeance. So what do you do? You take another antibiotic. But nothing ever gets you out of this cycle. You have to take a step out and say, OK, what is really going on here? So we've talked about how root canals can be a cause for this hidden dental infections.

The other place you can find infection is in jawbone areas where teeth were removed. And a third is with gum disease. All three of those are infections that are often silent. They don't hurt. You don't even know they're there, other than maybe a little bit of salty taste or something like that. But even that's a little rare. Usually you don't even know it's happening. So that's number one. The second one that we find in dentistry is metals. A lot of toxins with mercury, like what made me sick, and those silver fillings that are containing 50% mercury.

Other Sources of Dental Infection and Toxins 5:00

Those can also impact your overall health and, even more important, can impact your immune strength. That's the key here. Your body has every ability in the world to be well, but you have to give it what it needs to do its job, and that is alleviate it from all of these infections, from all these toxins and metals that are really interfering with the body's ability to do its own job. So how do we find these things? Of course, we do a dental exam and a thorough one. We're looking at metals. We're looking at infections.

We do a cone beam CT scan to identify, are there any hidden infections that we can't see with a traditional dental x-ray? And oftentimes, the answer is yes. So these things are so essential to be able to really dig down deep enough to get to root cause. Along with cleaning out the infection or the toxins or the fillings or whatever it might be, you can also support your body naturally. This is with real nutrients. This is with dental care products that help instead of harm. Anything with fluoride, anything with alcohol is actually gonna make the problem worse.

This is also supporting your body with everything that your cells need.

Finding Root Causes with Dental Scans and Exams 6:07

You can find that in my new book, Living Well with Dr. Michelle, where I teach you about the cell well formula and how you can support every single cell in your body to be well. This is where the real disconnect has come with medicine and dentistry that your body has the ability to be well and our job is to simply give it the thing it needs to do that job. The question is, where do you start? Well, that's where I recommend the cell well assessment, the symptoms assessment, where you plug in your symptoms, and it tells you which cell needs help first.

To take the symptoms assessment, click on the link below. It'll take you right to the assessment and tell you where to start for your cell and overall wellness and health. This is what we can do for our own health and it doesn't require a doctor or a dentist.

Supporting Healing and Taking the Next Step 6:54

It just simply requires the right information and a starting point. If you would like to know more about all of this, check out Living Well with Dr. Michelle, my new book where I teach you how to keep yourself well, to have optimal health and unlimited energy because it's possible today and every day.