So what prompted this post?  Well… just before Christmas, dear hubby tree climber chipped a tooth (not doing tree work… but eating a quesadilla!).  Both of us have a few fillings, but neither one of us have had many extensive problems with our teeth, praise God.  So we really had no idea what a chipped tooth meant and what our options were.

Brian first saw his regular dentist who said that maybe they could do a root canal although the tooth appeared dead. (First off I was confused… why does a dentist recommend keeping something in our body/mouth that is dead? Don’t you usually remove something that is dead?)  Since we have no dental coverage we shopped around to see what the best deal was going to be.

We ended up scheduling an appointment with my dentist (we never consolidated offices after getting married! Each of us grew up going to these men and neither wanted to give in!  So we patronize two different offices!) for a root canal.

Two days before it was scheduled we were spending time with friends and I mentioned the fact that Brian had a root canal scheduled, but I was feeling a little uneasy about it.  It seemed that I had heard something bad about it, but didn’t know where or what it was I’d heard…But…I knew my friend had had some dental work done and took a more holistic route and I ran the idea by her.

She said RUN!  NEVER get a root canal!  She advised that I do some more research since she didn’t know a whole lot, but knew they weren’t good.  She was SO right and I’m so glad she advised me to look into it instead of just doing as we were advised….

So after just a little research we were shocked with what we found.  Weston A Price did a lot of research on root canals, but his results never made it into mainstream dentistry although he had some amazing and consistent results.

The most common story that is told from his research is of a woman who was wheelchair bound due to arthritis.  She had tried all sorts of treatments with no relief.  She then had a root canaled tooth pulled and the arthritis immediately and completely went away.  Then they took the tooth and sewed it under the skin of a rabbit and the rabbit developed debilitating arthritis…. amazing!

I read a couple great articles by Dr. Mercola on his site about root canals and he has a TON of information about the details of why it isn’t a good idea and the science behind it. The following video is also from his site which is very informative as well.  He also recommends a few books on the topic as well.

So after all the reading and watching the video we decided to cancel the appointment and see a biological dentist.  The new appointment was for a few days later.  Once he looked at the tooth he said that it definitely needed to be pulled and that there was an infection in the jaw and it should come out as soon as possible.  Brian hadn’t been having any pain and for this we have been very thankful.

So a few days later and $1500 spent he had the tooth out.  The increased cost was because they had to drill out some of the bone around the tooth because of the infection and also filled it with a synthetic material (that apparently traditional dentists use cadaver bone and don’t tell you).

The next advice was that he have a bridge built (about $5000) or an implant (about $6000) placed.  They said the tooth needed to come out ASAP but we could easily take a year to decide what we wanted to do next.  The tooth is the first molar, so it’s visible when he smiles, but really only if you’re looking for it.  The tooth is out, but we are still contemplating what we are going to do next!

Since hubby is just now starting his own business and calls have been slow in coming around the holidays and in winter, income has been pretty low… so we will most certainly be taking the whole year to figure out what we are doing!

So back to some of the issues with root canals.  According to Dr. Mercola the health conditions that are linked to root canals are heart and circulatory illnesses most commonly, then diseases of the joints, brain and nervous system and also chronic illnesses.

We aren’t sure if it is related and it will be a topic for another post, but Brian has recently had two episodes of gout in his right great toe.  It’s so sad to see how uncomfortable he is… and we are wondering if having the tooth out will help! So we will keep you post on that as well!

With all that said… what are your experiences with root canals?  Do you have one?  Had one removed?  If you chose not to have one done I’d love to hear what you did do!

Photo Credit