There's no such thing as just one thing affecting one cell. Every cell is connected. So if you have an infection here, it's 100% going to spread to every other cell in your body, even if it's just in your mouth, even if it's just in your mouth, if you have an infection in your kidney, it's actually going to show up in your mouth, vice versa.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Uplift For Her, I am your host. Dr. Mallorie Cracroft and I am very personally excited about this episode we have with us. Dr. Michelle Jorgensen, who is a holistic and biologic dentist. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Dr. Michelle.
Great, yeah. Thank you for the invitation.
Oh, for sure. This is a good, big interest of mine, so I think it'll be a really helpful conversation for our listeners. So let me tell them a little bit about you, and then we'll dive in. So Dr, Michelle Jorgensen is a passionate author, speaker and biologic and holistic dentist and owner of Total Care dental here in Utah, after a decade in traditional dentistry, Michelle faced her own health crisis, discovering she had mercury poisoning, this challenging journey led her to explore holistic approaches to wellness, finding transformative solutions in the kitchen, garden and home as a functional integrative dentist and board certified traditional naturopath, she combines her extensive training in health based dentistry and plant based medicine to empower others to live Well. Michelle also educates and coaches healthcare professionals across the country aiming to reshape their understanding of Integrative Health. And I love what you're doing. First of all, thank you, because it has been a huge undertaking. So thank you for being here, and thank you for what you're doing. Tell us, first we are going to focus a lot on oral health, and then we'll talk just about total body health a little bit too. But let's maybe start with some of the basics. I think we think of the mouth as separate because you go to the doctor for your body and you go to the dentist for your teeth, right? So, of course, they're not connected at all. Will you correct that for us? Will you help us understand? I know this is a long question in and of itself, but give us an overview of how the mouth really feeds into the rest of the body. Yeah, literally.
Honestly, it goes a lot. It really goes back a little bit historically and how the medical profession got to the place it's at today. And it used to be, you know, 150 years ago, that everybody just had their country doctor, their doctor that would come to your home sometimes, and would take care of everything head to toe. And the medicine he used were the medicines that his grandma had used and her grandma had used, and they were medicines that had been time tested. You know, they'd been used for decades and centuries before, and things that had worked were passed on to the next generation, and that's how you were cared for. And there wasn't ever a thought that your teeth weren't connected to your rescue. Or you know that you had to have a doctor for your feet and a doctor for your knees and a doctor you know that just wasn't even a thought. And then society started changing. As society started to move towards the cities, because of industrialization manufacturing, people moved out of the country and into the city, and when that happened there, it didn't work to just have a country doctor anymore taking care of you. And so medicine started progressing as well. And scientific research started supporting the things that grandmas used to know. So they started finding out that, oh, medicines that grandma used did do something, and this is the piece of it that did something. And so medicine started really focusing on exactly how these medicines work, and how they work in the body. And that led to this idea of specialization, where we can now have a doctor that is so specialized and focused on one piece, on one medicine, on one solution, on one treatment, which isn't bad, right? Because now the depth of knowledge there is great. However, what it did is it led everyone to start thinking that all of these parts and pieces of us are very disconnected, and that is simply wrong. We know this because, you know, we'll have a symptom somewhere and it relates to something else, and we think, well, that has nothing to do with it, only horse. It has something to do with it. You know, right now I have a swollen finger, and every time I eat oatmeal, it swells more. Well, what in the world without having it? You know, how in the world is that connected? Well, because it is because inflammation is very related to digestive function. And so really, my story is that I got sick from drilling out people's feelings, and I had no idea that that could even happen. And when I learned what my problem was and all of my symptoms, my brain was just completely fuzzy. I couldn't remember anything anymore. My hands were so numb. I couldn't hold instruments. My gut literally, I couldn't even drink water. Sometimes the pain was so bad, and all of those symptoms made no sense to any doctors. Finally, somebody said, Could this be mercury? And when we figured out it was now, they all made sense, because mercury affects every single cell in the body, right? And every other thing does too. There's no such thing as just one thing affecting one cell. Yeah, every cell is connected. So if you have an infection here, it's 100% going to spread to every other cell in your body, even if it's just in your mouth, even if it's just in your mouth, if you have an infection in your kidney, it's actually going to show up in your mouth, vice versa. So there's connection both directions. The mouth shows up in the body, the body shows up in the mouth. And what I like to tell people is the beautiful thing about the mouth is that we can see it, you know, you can kind of see most of the parts of where you work as well, a little harder to sort of, sort of, but the maths a little easier. You know, I can look in your mouth and go, Oh, okay, that is going on here. That actually means the heart's struggling right now. Yeah. Well, isn't that beautiful? Because every other part of us, we have to use an x ray or some other invasive procedure to actually see it. The mouth has so much information to actually learn about the rest of us. We really need to use it for what it can show us and teach us so so much connection. So I'm really excited to talk about what exactly are those connections, and how could we look for them in our own bodies. I love that, and I am going to go just right there. Will you give us some examples? It's probably too much for one question, but will you give us some examples of what you actually see or are looking for doing in the mouth that helps you understand the rest of the body?
So teeth will show us a lot of things. If you have tooth decay and it doesn't make sense. And I see people with this all the time. They'll come and they'll have four cavities, and I'll look in their mouth, and their mouths full of fillings, and I'll just look at them, I'll say, you've always had cavities, haven't you? And they just shake their head, yeah, I always have. But yet, I look in their mouth and I can tell they brush their teeth. And people always wonder, can we tell? We can tell death bed brushing like you know, if you haven't brushed, except for the day before you came to the dentist. We actually can tell so, but I can see that they that's not them. You know, their gums are healthy, their teeth are clean. So we know that something else is going on, and it's all based on digestion, digestion and the way the gut functions. So I can look at your teeth, and I can say you actually have poor absorption. You're absorbing nutrients properly. Let's get your gut on board, and gut functioning properly, and then you're never gonna have another cavity again. So teeth are hugely indicative of gut function and nutrient levels, just nutrient malnutrition, all of those kinds of things. 100% I can see in your teeth. In fact, even where the cavity is tells me what's going on in the body. So that alone, tongue is full of information. I can look at your tongue. If it's red on the tip, it means that there's something going on with the heart. If it's on the sides, it means your liver and your gallbladder. I mean, I can there's maps online. You can look at that. Can tell so much information about what's actually going on in the body, based on what we're seeing on the tongue.
Is that the same as, like, the traditional Chinese medicine time?
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yep. So much information there that can be gained, which is really interesting. Gums also tell us a lot of information you might have a lot of you know, your listeners may have heard of things like pregnancy gingivitis. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means that the gums swell during times of pregnancy or other hormone changes. Why? Well, we look at the gums, we can say, oh, something's off with your hormones. Here, let's go and look a little deeper into hormones. So literally, every single thing in the mouth, tonsils, if you're getting a lot of tonsil stones, I can tell you exactly what's going on with your metabolism. I mean, there's just so many little pieces like this that we're able to determine just by looking in your mouth.
So tell me, because I think everyone listening is gonna be like, Oh, how do I find someone like that? Like, you can look in my mouth, like, Tell me everything you know about me. Yeah, where is this being taught? Because it's not even being taught completely. I mean, it's not really being taught in functional medicine training, where? Where is this being shared? That's a great question. Where should it be shared on Instagram right now? Is where it's being shared, you know? And that's really one of my missions, is to teach all of you what you need to be asking your practitioners for. Because, honestly, this is not something that you just go to school for and learn. This is something where you have to pull pieces here and there and put it all into this, what I call health based dentistry, where we say, Wow, your health is very much connected. And so we are creating a network of people. In fact, I have an online directory of doctors that are trained in this way, because there are so many people that ask that exact question every single day, where do I find a dentist? Just like you go to my directory and find it, and that will help you at least weed through the masses of dentists to find somebody that's somewhat similar minded.
And is this an exam that someone in my position as a more general functional medicine doctor could could learn how to do because full disclosure like this is not something that I've learned, but I like all the tools possible. So is this something that we should really be doing, or is it more involved dental exam, you could look easily and probably see 80% of what I just said, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Super interesting. Now tell us what happens next. So you do an exam and you see some of these things, how much of what you're doing then is dental care versus Whole body care.
So there's such a connection. And really, there's three areas that are connected with the mouth and the body that are huge. And I call them the three hidden areas in dentistry that people don't understand. The first one is metals. And that one is, that's the reason I got sick, you know. So mercury. Actually what people often don't know is that we call them silver fillings, but these fillings are actually 50% Mercury so and they have been since the day they were invented, and they still are today. And I so many people will say, what today like? Still today there's mercury in them. Yeah, well, and I think the party line that I've heard from my own dentist is there's such a tiny amount of mercury in there. There's no way, what is your response to that? There's no way it could leach out and cause a problem. Look at your filling 50% of it is mercury. That's my answer. Is that, is that a decent amount? You know, if you break up thermometer, you literally have to call a hazmat team to deal with that thermometer. With that mercury. People are concerned all the time about mercury and fish. They say, Oh, don't eat tuna. Don't eat you know, because there's going to be too much mercury in your system. They're concerned with mercury and vaccines. Does anyone talk about mercury and fillings? It is the number one source of environmental mercury in our world today. Is mercury from these fillings. So I'm asking the questions because I know they're the same questions other people are going to have. Are conventional dentists? Are they misled? Do they not know? Are they answering just party line like, where does that disconnect come from? Because I don't think I'm unique. I think that is you're not unique. What most dentists say correct. So in school, we're told that there was this dentist named Hal Huggins, and he practiced in Colorado, and he was telling his patients that he could cure their MS, by taking out their mercury fillings. And if you do that, you will lose your license. That's the entire dental school. Talk about Mercury. That's it. So we're basically told, if we tell anybody that mercury can affect their health, that we will lose our license. I like to clarify this for people. The American Dental Association is paid for by dentists. It's an organization run by dentists for dentists. Their job is to help dentists. So if anyone were to say that these fillings were contributing to health problems, although I'm going to back this up in a moment, like there's a lot of research that does show this, but if, just generally, it were said, these feelings can cause this, this, this, this, this, every single dentist that has ever placed or removed a Mercury filling would be under a class action lawsuit in the United States. Yeah, so guess what? The American Dental Association will never do. Yeah, they'll never put their constituents under that kind of risk. It's not that they're covering things up. They just simply can't right their job is to keep the profession protected. So they simply cannot. So thankfully, I can now, because there are scores of research showing that those fillings release mercury, 24/7, so every single moment that they are in your head, they're releasing mercury. What does that mercury do? Well, Mercury likes to go and live in neighborhoods. So it likes to go and live in your brain. Neighborhood, it likes to go in your nerve neighborhood, it likes to go live in your gut neighborhood. So now, why was I having brain fog, numbness issues and gut problems? Because those are the neighborhoods that mercury likes to go live in. So it goes and hides out. And it's not something that's easily detectable on a blood test. So you can't just do a blood test and say, Okay, what level of mercury do I have? Well, it's hiding. It's hiding, and then back sheds over there. So you have to pull it out to be able to really find it. So dentists don't really understand this themselves. And you know, one of the really scary things is, is that dentists are known to have a high rate of suicide. Yeah. I wonder why? Mercury toxicity? Yeah, you got it. Our brains are full of mercury. And so I try to tell dentists this all the time. Listen, you know, we complain. Dentists complain about a lot of issues with head, neck and shoulder. We sit in weird positions. It's true, but I believe a lot of the physical concern and dentistry of the actual our bodies is mercury related, too, because a patient that's getting a Mercury filling removed, in my practice, they have one or two, or however many are in their mouth. But I get mercury from every single person that comes from every person that I remove them in, and that's how I got sick. So for me, this is huge for dentists. Dental assistants who are sitting right next to the dentist, breathing it in. Dental receptionists who it's circulating through the air, you know, HVAC system dust. Every single person that walks into that practice is getting some mercury. If there's a Mercury feeling removed during that during the time they're there. So Mercury is incredibly toxic to the entire neurologic system. Dentists, in general, have not been taught this. They've been taught the opposite, that it's just fine, and if you would talk about it, we'll lose our license, so we have to learn the truth. And are these fillings still being placed? Yes, still being placed. I didn't realize in the United States, in Europe and a lot of European countries, they've been banned. In the United States, they're recommended not to be placed in children under the age of six are pregnant women. So was it mercury? Yes, so then I often say, so why for children under six and pregnant women? Why is it not a problem for the rest of us? I think it's probably a problem for everybody, and it's a cost thing, mostly, right? It's less esthetically pleasing, but cheaper. Yep. Okay, so just curious of your network of dentists now that you have, have you found other dentists who have mercury toxicity. Because I'm sure if I were training with you, I'd be like, Well, what's my level having found others? Yes, we have and a lot of dentists, and unfortunately, it's more younger, younger dentists, younger practitioners are saying, wait a minute, because they hear the instincts on social media and places you know, they've heard it, so they're interested to find that out. Yeah, yeah. So the big. Is, is, if you do have these fillings and you're interested in getting them removed, because you don't want Mercury dosage every single day, you have to do it safely. And that's the key. And that's not what I was doing for a decade. I was removing them just normally, just normally, spray everywhere, going everywhere, mercury vapors everywhere. So there's a set of protocol called the Smart protocol, and that is the protocol that needs to be followed if you're going to have them removed. Because I tell people leave them in your mouth. If you're not going to remove them safely, it's actually more dangerous to get them removed and have all unsafe Yeah, yep, yep. And so is there any idea of what percentage of people with the mercury fillings have mercury toxicity? Is there any sort of data on that at all that would be a great any safe, safe amount or anything. I mean, one filling or 10 fillings, or, you know, part of it's due to the is the way the body can process things. So I have an MTHFR genetic variant, and that genetic variant makes me unable to process things as well. I can't tag them and say this is a bad guy. Get rid of it. Yeah. Well, we're, we're kind of learning that about two thirds or not two thirds. 1/3 of the population has the same variant, so probable. 1/3 of the population that has a Mercury filling in their head can't actually process the mercury, so they're going to have a worse result. They're going to have a worse result. Yep.
Okay. Anything else you want to say about those the mercury in the fillings? I guess one of the questions is, how would someone know to be prompted to get tested. Do you recommend anyone with mercury fillings get tested? And if so, then what's that process look like? So the mercury testing protocol, if you have symptoms, you know, that's the thing. And a lot of people will say things like, oh, I don't know how many tooth problems. I'm not talking about tooth symptoms. I'm talking about brain symptoms, about neurologic symptoms, about gut problems, which is tricky, because that's like everyone like, oh, everyone has a little brain fog. And that's where I started.
I'm like, well, everybody has gut issues. Why am I having beauty? Well, everybody has brain issues. Why? No, actually, yes, I did have and I now that I'm on the other side of it, I go, Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, oh, wow. I was definitely affected by this. You have to do what's called a Mercury provocation test, where you actually have to pull it from the tissues first to then be able to record how much you have in the urine. So in the urine. So this is something that a functional medicine practitioner like yourself, you know, would administer, because there are specific things you have to take before the test, and then specific things your debt you're testing for. Do you use hair testing at all? This comes up all the time. It's question I get all the time and I don't, but so mercury from dental fillings will not show up in the hair. It's more fish related mercury. Yep, yep, there's methyl mercury and there's elemental mercury, and the kind of mercury and fillings will only show up in the urine. So that's just one of the Oh yeah. Let's talk about the other two. So the second one is hidden dental infections. And this one's a big one that people don't talk about, but it is very much real, and that is failed root canals. So infection underneath old root canals, infection and gums, and infection where teeth were removed that didn't heal right? It can only be found on what's called a cold Beam CT scan. So these are special CT, gum infection, too. Gum infection, thank you. Can be found just by looking, just doing recordings of everything and making sure everything's doing good, but yes, the jaw bone infection. So underneath an old root canal, or where tooth was removed, we have to use a special scan to find that. What I'm finding now is a large majority, I can safely say, probably 70% of root canals have new infection at the end. We don't even know by some some date, by the time they're in my practice, and I look at their skin, they have infection at the end of them. So it's huge, and that infection does not stay local. So just like we talked about, you know, is everything connected Absolutely because we have wiring systems and multiple wiring systems, multiple connection systems. We have blood vessels that go head to toe. Well, guess what passes through the jaw, bone, blood vessels and every single time you chew your in essence, pushing those bacteria into that bloodstream, which then goes everywhere. We have other wiring system that connects every single tooth to every single organ in this organ in the body as well, and it doesn't stay put. So that is something that is really important if you have a root canal in your head. You know, if you've had a tooth that's had a root canal, or if you had a tooth removed, which a lot of people say, Well, I never have, this includes wisdom teeth, and most of the time, that's where we find the infection. It's actually wisdom tooth areas and no sensitivity. There no sensitivity, no local symptoms. Sometimes people will say, just feels a little off. That's all they really can put their hand, you know, their finger on. But we see symptoms related to literally every organ. One of my most interesting examples is a gentleman I saw a few years ago, and I walked in the room to visit with him the first time, and he he was orange, like, literally, his skin was orange. And I started talking with him. And usually you don't ask that, you know, the first thing you say. But you know, few minutes into the conversation, I said, I just have to ask, you know, are you just look orange to me? And he said, Everybody asks if I do fake Tanner, like self tanner, he said, and I don't. Well, we continued to do the exam, and he had actually been hit in the mouth early on, you know, 11 years old, and had four root canals across the front. His teeth? Well, the front teeth are connected to the liver in the body. Guess what he had? He had literally jaundice, and had been jaundice for probably over a decade because these teeth were reinfected and were affecting his liver. So took the teeth out, self tanner looked went away. All of a sudden, he looked
really crazy. Yep. So I think one of the next questions is, then, how do I know? Right? How do I know? Because the root canals, you don't typically get any oral symptoms with right? Because the root is gone, the nerve is gone, so you don't have any pain there. And same with the wisdom teeth, there's no nerves there to get painful or tender or swollen. So who should be looking for infection? I know from my perspective, if we have elevated inflammatory markers, like a CRP, a C reactive protein, or sometimes there are in advanced cholesterol panels, we'll have markers of vascular inflammation or other inflammatory markers, even like LDL, actually, that can be like, Where, where, where is this coming from? You don't eat fat, you don't eat these other things. Where could this inflammation be coming from? And that's one of my cues to say, We got to get a cone beam, CT, where? Why else would someone look into that? It's
oftentimes exactly what you're talking about. I've exhausted every other avenue. Yeah, I've tried everything. I'm doing everything right. I'm eating everything I should, and I just can't move the needle. And that's, that's, honestly my whole practice. I mean, it's some people that just say, I just want to make sure, you know, I have a root canal. I want to make sure I don't get sick. I'd rather catch this before I get unwell. But a lot of times, it's people who have literally been to seven other doctors, and they say, Well, I guess we better check the mouth. And I look in the mouth, and they're like, I can't believe it was here the whole time, no symptoms, no symptoms. I'll find holes and jaw bones that are the size of a quarter and no symptoms whatsoever. And that infection is spreading, eating away the jaw and spreading throughout the entire body.
It's hard to treat.
You just take the tooth out. You take the tooth out, and we clean it up with ozone, and put stem cells in there, and yeah, and it replace it. Yep. Wow,
yep. It is tricky, because if you have a root canal, it's not like you get one cone beam and you're fine, right? Like it can get infected over time. So it's not like you get a screening Cone Beam and then you're done. Do you recommend any sort of preventative or sort of screening care other than a regular because you're not going to get that at a regular dental checkup.
No, we typically see every three years for cone of CT, just anyone. Yeah, yep. If you come into my practice as a new patient as an adult, you're going to get a COVID CT scan just to make sure there's nothing weird. Yeah, because we see so many things, how many I see things in the sinuses, I see things, you know, everywhere I can, I can see all the way back to where you breathe. And I can say, Ah, you snore at night, don't you? Yeah, you know you snore at night. You're not sleeping well, you probably wake up between two and four and can't go back to sleep. And people look at me and say, How in the world do you know that? Yeah, because I can see that the tube you breathe through is about the size of a cocktail straw. Yeah. Let's talk about why, yeah. What are we doing? What are we going to do about it? So that COVID CT scan shows so many things that we can diagnose that help overall how you're gonna feel. Yeah.
Okay, so those are two right mercury and then the infection, and the third
is that airway piece that I just touched on, yeah, yep, able to see what's going on from a breathing and sleep standpoint. And literally, sleep issues are an epidemic. It's estimated 60 to 80% of adults are not sleeping well, and sleep time is when your cells regenerate. It's when they heal. And I always tell people, it's not us who do the healing. It's not the medicine we prescribe. It's not the anything. That's the procedures we do. It's your body that
does the healing. It's magical. I mean, it really is incredible when you get out of its way,
exactly when you get it out of its way and give it what it needs, and it needs to sleep, and it needs oxygen. Those are the two absolutely essential components to healing. Is you have to be able to get into that restorative phase, which is during deep sleep, and you have to have oxygen, because oxygen powers up every single cell and every single process in the cell. So you have to have those two things. And if you don't, you simply cannot be. Well, you just can't be. So we can identify what's actually happening, physically, structurally, with you not getting enough air, and what do we do about
it? You're just looking at that point. There is that any sort of other exam, or that's just a visual exam,
visual. But on the COVID CT scan is where we're really seeing. You can see the, I can see all of that on a CT scan. Interesting. Yep, I can see all of that. And then we do, we follow it up with a sleep study and say, Let's quantify this. Yeah, I can see this. You're telling me these symptoms now, let's quantify this. And from there we determine what are we going to do? And a lot of it has to do with those first two things. Some of it is inflammation. There's inflammation in the head and neck area because of infection, and it's causing all the tissues to swell and block off where air should flow, yeah, so we start there. We also talk a lot about making space in the mouth. You know, the tongue has to live somewhere, and the tongue is kind of like a car, and if the garage is too small for the car, then it has to go back into where we breathe. So we have to make the garage. Big enough for the car to fit. And this has a lot to do with orthodontics, and actually orthodontics done improperly. So we talk a lot about that and making enough space for the car in the garage. And it's, it's amazing when you see a life absolutely transform because the body's able to do its job again.
All centered in the mouth is the is the amazing part. Do you guys do any dental support or orthodontic support for sleep there at your clinic? Yeah,
we do. And there are a lot of people who treat sleep apnea with appliances, and typically what they're doing is they're just bringing the bottom Jack. That was my question. Yeah, that bringing the bottom jaff forward physically does open up more space to breathe in the back. However, what research shows is that at about four years in, bringing the jaw forward every night creates ligament problems in this jaw joint. It's just like if you hyper extended your knee every night for four years, well, that knee's not really gonna go back to where it came from. So we don't do that. We make the garage bigger. That's the key, yeah, make the garage maker. Or we train the tongue where to go. Sometimes we have to do a tongue tie release so the tongue can come up and forward and out of the way of breathing. So there's a couple of things we do, but it's all root cause focused, not just a band aid, because if I just hold your jaw forward, that's simply a band aid. It's not fixing anything when you're awake and don't have the appliance in your head, it's not fixing anything in the long run? Yeah, it's just holding the jaw forward temporarily. So we will, we look at what's really causing the problem, and how can we fix that?
Yeah, I love that. You bring up sleep because as a female provider, I mean, as a provider for women, there a lot of people have disguised sleep apnea, or hidden sleep apnea. It's not what we think of as the classic person that sits there and snoring and then stops breathing and then snorts to kind of wake up, especially in women, that's that's very frequently not the case. And so a lot of the conventional medical screening triggers for sleep apnea are not there. It's really just like, Well, are you tired? Okay, let's think about a sleep study. And so I like the exam component as well. But just knowing that in women, it's, it's, it's really important to look at that sleep function, because it's not
the same as, yeah, and it's been historically thought of that people who have sleep apnea are overweight males Exactly, yeah, exactly. And it's not actually true. I mean, sure they may as well. But a lot of times it's, you know, normal weight women that are that are just, it's hormone related, it's structure related. There's so many inflammation that go into that sleep piece that show up as I'm just tired, and
it's, it is important so you're not tired, but also it's related to, I mean, crappy sleep is related to hypertension, high blood pressure, stroke, dementia is quite high in sleep dysfunction, so you gotta get that, got that adjusted. Okay, great. Hey, there, listeners, just a quick break to tell you about something that could make a big difference in your life or the life of a woman you care about. Here at uplift for her, we specialize in integrative women's health, offering comprehensive support for every stage of life, whether you're navigating menopause and need expert HRT advice looking to shed those stubborn pounds or seeking for help with your mental well being, we've got you covered. We combine the best of traditional and functional medicine with personalized health coaching and dietitian support. Here at our salt lake city based clinic, we ensure that your unique needs are met with the care and expertise you deserve. At uplift for her, we're here to help you feel your best inside and out ready to take the next step in your health journey. Visit us at uplift for her.com, or give us a call today. We have services available for those of you living in the state of Utah, and some services available for those of you outside of Utah. Now, let's get back to the episode. So we've talked about the big three components, and those are the ones that you feel like are missing from the well that that you can have the opportunity to examine and address in a traditional dental visit. Will you talk a little bit more? And maybe we've covered this enough, but anything else you want to say about just inflammation related to the mouth? Because it's, I mean, I know that's a big question, but why? Why does it matter so much? We talked about infection, we talked about Mercury. The mercury is pretty just directly mercury toxicity, but this idea of like, why does it matter if my gums are a little bit inflamed,
so if your gums are inflamed again, it's a part of you that we can see. So I'll tell people this all the time. If you have a hole in your tooth, you're gonna probably have a hole in your bone. If you have inflamed gums, you also are gonna have inflamed guts, you know. So everything this is just a visual version of everything else. So if your gums are inflamed, it tells us something is inflamed in you? Yes, something is upsetting you. So the first thing we determine is this a local factor, meaning, do you just have junk all over your teeth that your gums hate? Yeah, that's the first question. We look and we see, okay, Is there stuff we can clean? If there's stuff we can clean, I'm always actually quite excited, because I'm like easy, easy one, easy one. Yes, I love this one. But if you don't have stuff to clean. Same. Then we go, okay, this is something deeper than Yeah, and that's where we start turning to people like you. And we say, Okay, we need to do an HBA with C let's see if this is pre diabetes. We need to do, you know, other inflammatory markers to see. Is there something else that's inflamed in the body and it's showing up in the gums. So gums are an early indicator of other systemic problems. So we may we do always treat what's going on here. But even more than that, we now tell you, you need to go look deeper. You need to go look further for what's happening. I really
appreciate that, because I think there is, and we'll talk about cavities in a second. There is a lot of pressure on mouth health as like, well, it's either because you you followed the rules or you didn't follow the rules. And there is so much more to it, but I think so many people often go to the dentist and they have inflamed gums, or they have a cavity, and they're like, well, you should brush and floss. And they'll be like, I am brushing and flossing. Well, you're obviously not. You know what it can and especially, yeah, especially as a mom, if you're if you have children with cavities that that, I think that can be really triggering for some moms, like, I promise I brush their teeth, but the dentist don't say anything other than, well, you you should, you should do more, yep,
yep, yeah. And it's, honestly, it's all, it's all we were trained, of course, that's all we knew. Yeah. And as I've started looking at it, I mean, I'll have a family come in. So talking about cavities, you know, I'll have a family come in and we see mom, dad, kids. Dad, no cavities. He confesses he's never flossed a day in his life. You know, mom comes in eight cavities, and her teeth are squeaky clean. She flosses three times a day, and then the kids are like a mixed bag. You know, some have cavities, some don't. And we look at this and we say, okay, but the only factor here is whether you brush your teeth or not. There's no way. Yeah, there's no way. It doesn't make sense. And really, that's honestly part of what's driven my practice and where I'm at today, is just saying this doesn't make sense, instead of just accepting it as the status quo, and it's what we've always been told. And so I really always encourage listeners to think that too. If it doesn't make sense, then keep asking questions, because there has to be something going on here. So interestingly enough, if we back up on cavities clear to the 1930s Dr Weston Price, which a lot of people in nutrition have heard of. Dr Weston Price, not a lot know that he was a dentist. So Dr Weston Price was actually the head of the American Dental Association research department. He was very well regarded. He was so frustrated with kids getting cavities that he said, I'm going to leave my profession. I'm going to leave my practice. And he went traveled the world for 10 years and investigated all these indigenous societies and said, What are they eating, and what is their health like? And the cool part about what he did is two things. Number one, there still were indigenous societies, like places that hadn't been touched by the modern diet. We couldn't find him today. There's no such thing today. But the second thing is, he had a camera, so he could actually photographically prove what he was finding, which was so cool. So he brought this research back to the American Dental Association, and they were all deciding what causes cavities. He brought this research about nutrition, and he found nutrition as an absolutely enormous role to do with cavities. There was another man who brought information showing hormones, hormones were related to cavities. And then there was a third that brought research showing that sugar was related to cavities, and they all voted, guess who won? Sugar, sugar, yeah, and we simply forgot that nutrition and hormones had anything to do with cavities, but they absolutely do, whether they were voted on or not. They absolutely do, and you
didn't mention brushing in there as one of those three determinants. No, no, because
brushing is the sugar piece. Basically, they say, if you get sugar on your teeth, the sugary, the bugs eat the sugar, the bugs excrete acid, and then they eat holes in your teeth. And so you have to brush off the bugs. Okay, great, good. Please do Yeah, but yeah, if you're already brushing off the bugs and you're still getting cavities, what else is missing? And this is the, this is the mom guilt piece, you know. And this is the mom guilt piece that I'm always trying to get rid of, is to say, Listen, no, if you are doing if your child's teeth are clean, then there's something else going on here. And really a huge portion of this relates to mineral absorption. And first question we say is, are you getting minerals in you know, and that I know that you you talk with a lot of people about nutrition and diet and everything else, and that's what Dr Weston Price found, is that those that had better health and and you and I, before we even started talking, mentioned, you know, was there a correlation between conception and women's health? And that was actually one of the things that he found, is that there were special diets for, interestingly enough, both men and women preconception
that the tribes had kind of come up with this, like you should be eating this. Yes, and
they would give them the best parts of the meat, the best parts of this, the best parts of this, they would give those that were preconception stage, so they knew that there was absolutely a correlation between diet and whether you can conceive or not, but also the health of the child, the health of the pregnancy, the health of the mom. After pregnancy, novel ideas? Yes, such novel ideas, aren't they? And so what did he find? That? He found that there were two things that were really a dominant factor across all of these societies. One was mineral levels, and the second was the vitamins necessary to absorb the minerals. So a lot of people don't know this, you have to have something called fat soluble vitamins in order to actually absorb minerals properly. And you have to have stomach acid in order to absorb mineral minerals properly. Those are the two pieces you have to have. What are fat soluble vitamins? Vitamins A, D, E and K. You have to have them. And it's k2 Dr Weston Price didn't actually know what to call it. He called it factor x. So factor x is vitamin k2 not K ones, different one. Unfortunately, these are only found, largely, only found in animal products. So this is when we struggle with, when we cut certain things out of diets, we miss certain nutrients that are absolutely essential for health. You cannot absorb minerals properly without fat soluble vitamins, you just can't do it. So those are the two big components that he found that were missing in diets where people had a lot of tooth decay, is they simply weren't getting enough minerals and they weren't getting enough fat soluble vitamins. So we then say, Okay, are you eating enough? Let's just start there, you know. And in today's world, honestly, our food doesn't have a lot of nutrients in it, so we have to supplement some. So are you eating or supplementing enough. Step one. Step number two, does your gut actually absorb it? That's the huge one that I see. Does your gut actually absorb it? If not, then it's going out the other side and you're not getting the benefit of it. So if you're getting cavities, you're brushing your teeth, your child's getting cavities, the bread, you're brushing their teeth. You know that everything that way is fine. This is a nutrition problem. You're just simply not absorbing nutrients properly.
You tend to see that in constellation with other symptoms, like skin changes. Or are you seeing any commonalities? Or is it just all over the map, like when you see people with a mouthful of cavities? Are you also seeing, you know, more acne or more eczema or more? Is there any sort of correlation there? You
see nutrient deficiencies everywhere. So you see thinning hair or hair loss, you see brittle fingernails. You know all of these things. The places that we can see, I always will tell them to your bones are also not in great shape either. We just can't see them exactly, but we can see all these other pieces and say absolutely, those are signs that you're missing nutrients. And the first place you're going to see cavities with that are nutrient cavities or along the gum line. So if you're getting cavities along the gum line of the teeth, because that's the thinnest, that's the thinnest portion of the enamel, if you're getting cavities there, this means you are not getting out of nutrients, period.
It's super valuable. Okay, that's really great. Will you comment on the role of sleep and and mouth breathing, or sleep apnea, on oral health, I think there is a connection to cavities, but correct me on that
there is. It's to do with mouth breathing. So if you are not adequately getting enough air through the mouth, or, excuse me, through the nose, the nose is where we want to breathe. The nasal breathing creates so much benefit. There's something called nitric oxide that's produced when you're breathing through the nose. It humidifies the air, it warms the air, it filters the air, it does so many things. So if you have a kiddo or yourself and you have really inflamed tonsils, the first thing I'm going to ask is, are you breathing through your nose? Because if not, you're just directly bombarding those tonsils with dry, dirty, hot air. You know that is not going to work well, but you need to be breathing through your through your nose. If you can't, because there's too much blocking this airway. The airway is not the problem. The airways are flexible too. It's are there things pushing their way into the airway? Are there inflamed tissues? Is the mouth too small? Is the garage too small, like we talked about? So everything has to fall back. You're going to drop your mouth open, because that's how you're going to have to get air because you can't breathe through the nose well enough so dropping the mouth open that hot, dry air creates dry mouth. Dry mouth leads to tooth decay a couple of different reasons, but the main reason is because saliva is the natural cleanser. So if you don't have saliva, the bacteria stick on the teeth, and you will get increased tooth decay no matter what. So absolutely, mouth breathing is a huge component of tooth decay. So people will say, Okay, well, I'm just going to mouth tape. Great, however, and you may still not be getting enough air through the nose. It may be that we still need to make more space back here so things can get through the mouth taping actually is kind of a new craze that that works. My husband mouth tapes every single night. But we also can look and say, Is there things we can do to make more space behind
well and for kids too, right? I doubt there's many kids who do well with mouth taping. Probably not, probably not. I feel like a lot of people want this question answered, especially me, is the question of fluoride. So fluoride, I think when we've talked to our dentists, so our pediatrician offers fluoride to be brushed on every year, and then our dentist offers the same thing every year. And for me, I was like, that seems like a lot of fluoride, like, they wouldn't have known that the other one was doing it if I hadn't said, like, we already got that. So I think we get it from both of those. And then also a daily fluoride toothpaste. Will you explain fluoride? Right, pros and cons. Amount will you touch on that? Because it's, it's such a big
that was the perfect intro to this as well. So fluoride started because years ago, they found that people who had high levels of fluoride in their water because they were having well water, you know, so naturally occurring fluoride. Fluoride is a mineral. It's found in the earth. So some water has more fluoride in it. People who had high levels of fluoride in their water had harder teeth. They also had it's called mottled teeth. It's like this brown and white kind of splotchy look. It's really not good looking at all. But they didn't get cavities. So they looked at this and they said, Well, maybe this can help just eradicate tooth decay completely. Let's just get rid of cavities completely. So let's put fluoride in tooth care products and toothpaste, those kinds of things. Let's put it in the water. Let's recommend it. You know, I mean, I grew up having a ton of fluoride. Grew up having swish at school. It was like the pink or green, just nasty taste and stuff that swish around. You know, my dad was a dentist, so every single time we walked in the place, he'd throw these foam, foam things in our head. You know, I'm I mean, I had so much fluoride growing up, it does strengthen teeth. Absolutely. It makes stronger teeth. But remember how we talked about the everything that you put in your body, on your body, anywhere it goes everywhere. It doesn't just stay put. That's the problem with fluoride, is it doesn't just stay put. So fluoride does a couple of other things, because it it does make enamel stronger. It also makes it more brittle. Well, it also affects bones in the exact same way. It affects the mineral composition of bones the same way. So a stronger, more brittle bone is not necessarily a good thing, right? So finding higher levels of hip fracture and bone fracture in areas that have higher fluoride levels. So this is a problem. Second thing it does is it affects thyroid function. In fact, I just learned this recently. They used to use fluoride as a treatment for hyperthyroidism. So it's been known poison that thyroid. It's really known for so many years that fluoride actually decreases thyroid function. They did it intentionally. So how many people do you know that have low thyroid levels? Yeah, many, so many. So it affects the thyroid. It also just brand new research, literally, two months ago shows definitively that it affects IQ levels in children. So this was just out a couple months ago. They can show the whole community,
in the conventional community, this wasn't like a quiet thing in the function, I
don't know this was like, this was every spread far and wide. Yeah, this
was spread far and wide that it does affect IQ levels in children. So that's all I need to know to say, Okay, I'm really concerned about fluoride. The next question I have to ask is, is it doing its job? Has it eradicated tooth decay? Have you ever known anybody to get a cavity since it was since it was put in tooth products, right? Have Has anyone ever gotten a cavity again? Yeah, yes, yeah. So it hasn't done the job. It hasn't eradicated tooth decay, and it causes all of these other systemic problems. What the world are we doing? A better answer, what in the world are we doing? And your your example was perfect. How do we know how much you're getting? Yeah, you're getting it from your tooth care product, from your pediatrician, from your dentist. You're getting it potentially at school, you're getting it in water. They fluoridate water. Babies that are formula fed are really actually at risk, because a lot of times the water being used in the formula has high fluoride levels. So it's so much, this is way too much for the body to handle. So the great news is, is we don't have to use it because there's an alternative. It's called Hydroxyapatite. And what is Hydroxyapatite? It's the thing your teeth are made of and that your bones are made of. It's literally the mineral complex your teeth and bone are made of. So you now have the option of tooth care products that have Hydroxyapatite in them. We don't need to use fluoride ever again, and there's studies that show that hydroxyapatite is as or more effective than fluoride. So why in the world would you risk your health? Those are good studies. They're excellent studies that go on PubMed right now, and type in hydroxyapatite, you're going to find 500 studies about it. Because
I think, as a mom and as a doctor, those are the questions that are it's hard to change that routine, because you've had the dogma fluoride, and then you learn that inflammation in the mouth is bad, cavities are bad like affects the brain, affects the inflammation of the body. So the last thing I want to do is get my kid, especially, and myself, a mouthful of cavities. So if I stop using fluoride, yeah, exactly. So it's it's nice to have that data to say it's at least equivalent, it's equivalent,
or maybe even better, right? And when this big study came out, I had a whole bunch of dentists on forums all over the place saying, Oh, no, everybody, send us Your fluoride research. Send us your fluoride research. We got to be able to defend this. And I went on and I said, What in the world are you thinking? Like, why do we have to defend it? Yeah, why? Just because it's a dogma that we've been taught and stood behind for for so long, it's okay to say we were wrong. What
do we do as dentists, if now we say, don't use flu Exactly.
It's okay to say we didn't know. It's okay to say we know better now, and so I am just like pushing this guys, no, you don't have to use it.
So do you think the American Dental Association or dentists will change now that that data has come out? I mean, there's been other data. It's not new. It's just not new. It's just kind of the biggest, flashiest data, I think so far, they.
Will always point back and say they were using fluoride levels that are higher than they put in water. And I say, but that's not the only place we're getting fluoride. So what if it's twice the level that they typically put in commercial water systems, or, you know, the water system in your city, but you're also getting it from all the other places you
just need the kids eat the toothpaste, and I mean, you know, like they're getting, they're getting large amounts. Okay, so you give us permission to use hydroxyapatite in place? Yeah, it's good to know. It's really good to know, because I think it is, as a mom, you just want to do the right thing. And when experts are telling you things, you're like, Okay, I'll keep using fluoride. But the more you know, as having young kids, and they would just offer it every time, and they paint it on, and then toothpaste. And it's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah, so I want to ask you one more question about oral health, and that is especially with oral health surrounding preconception, pregnancy and then postpartum, because I think there are some connections people need to know about, but I don't think most people know about that inner relationship.
So it's interesting. I, one of my hygienists says that a baby is the perfect parasite. Yeah, you know, it's it's an interesting concept, but it's true. They will take what they need. And so one thing that's interesting is we, I'll see moms all the time, and they'll say, this crown was from this baby. This root canal was from this baby. These three cavities up here were from this baby. And they can literally point to which baby created, which one and why? Well, because the baby has needs, and if mom doesn't have enough of those things, then it will actually get pulled from mom's body. So if the baby, the baby is literally growing bones. I tell people this all the time, you're growing a human. And humans have bones, and bones require a lot of minerals. Yeah, you also are growing teeth. They're not in when the baby's born, but they're in their head. They're all there. So if mom you don't have enough minerals, guess what's going to happen? Minerals are going to be pulled from you. They're going to be pulled from your teeth and your bones to be able to take care of baby, because baby always comes first. Same thing happens through nursing time. So moms need to super supplement. Need to super supplement and have more before they start, before they even start thinking about this, because they need to be up here so that they have enough. The very first bone that's affected by malnutrition is the upper jaw. So we adopted, I have adopted a son, and we adopted him when he was two and a half, and his mouth is at his top jaw. Was so small that all of his top teeth fit inside of his bottom teeth. That's the opposite of what should happen. Yeah. And his mom actually knew I was a dentist. His birth mom did, and she said, this is one of the reasons that we want him to go to your family, because you can fix what's happening. She could tell, even at that age, that something was really wrong. Well, he'd been incredibly malnourished, so the first bone that was affected was that top jaw, yeah. So as a fetus, as a fetus, as a fetus, and as a very small infant, that was the first thing affected. So why do you think we have so many kids needing braces nowadays? Why do we not fit our wisdom teeth in our heads anymore because our jaws are too small because of nourishment? So moms, you need to super supplement. You need to super feed your system so that you are able to give what your baby needs to them and still have something left over for you. Yeah,
I think this is super important. I just want to make a plug, because we offer preconception consultations, just wellness visits for preconception. And it's sort of baffling, because as an OBGYN, I had specific training, I remember a specific boards question of we had oral boards, so the doctors just sat and questioned us, and one of the questions that they asked was everything you need to do in a preconception visit. And I was going through all of these things, and they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And the one thing that I didn't say, which I now know, is Cystic Fibrosis screening. So they said, You must do cystic fibrosis screening, but nothing else. I mean, the main thing they wanted me to focus on is a prenatal vitamin and cystic fibrosis screening, but no evaluation of how's your gut health, how's your energy level, how are you eating? How's your diet? What are your nutrient levels? Do you have any worrisome symptoms that show us that your body's not thriving before we put the biggest tax on your body that we will ever put on it? And one of the things that I'm going off on a tangent, but it's important, so I'm gonna just finish it. One of the things that I see a lot is women who come after their third or fourth baby and they say, like, I don't know what happened with this last baby, but everything changed. It's like you hit a critical point. Like you hit your tip door. Yeah, you have nothing left to give. You have no sleep. You have no nutrients. Like, what did you do to rehab between pregnancies? So anyway, so we love doing that for women, because it is like glitters prevent. Let's make sure that you're, you're sturdy enough to carry this baby. So anyway, so, so a big thing, a big portion of oral health during pregnancy, is nutrient status. Is there anything else we need to know about oral health around pregnancy?
That's the main thing is just really keep that nutrient level high and watch your mouth, because it's going to give you indicators. Pay attention. If you have swollen gums, your hormones are out of whack. If you are getting tooth decay, your minerals are low. Like pay attention to what it's telling you, because these. Items are so important, yeah,
yeah. Okay, wonderful. Well, let's shift gears here. I want to you have a new book coming out, which I'm super excited about. It's called Living well with Dr Michelle, a comprehensive handbook for optimal health and unlimited energy. Yes, would you mind telling us a little bit about it? And then I want to learn a little bit more about your approach to overall health, because this book is not just about oral health, no.
And I talk about dentistry in it because I can't help myself, right? You know, exactly right. But really it's all about that symptom piece. You know, in today's medical world, we we just suppress symptoms, yeah, if we have a headache, what do we do? Yeah, we take ibuprofen instead of saying, wait a minute, that headache, that's my warning symptom, oh, I need to pay attention to that. So we suppress symptoms, we turn them off. And we think that that's all medicine is for, is simply to just turn off disease. But that's not the way the body works. Those symptoms are the cells. Are your cells screaming at you, saying, set up and pay attention something is going on. So what this book does is it actually, it's like the Rosetta Stone for your cells. It teaches you how to translate the cellular language, these cellular symptoms in a very simple framework, and say, Ah, I have that. Oh, that means this. And so it just walks you through I'm not well, which means my cells aren't well. What does every cell need? And really, the premise is, if you can make one cell, well, you can make every cell, well, that's right. So what do your cells need? And then how do you actually utilize the things that are found in the earth to make them well, because I was just actually teaching a class last night on herbal medicine, and and I talked about how nearly every single medicine that we have today was derived from something in the earth. So something else, right? No, there was nothing else. Yeah, the aspirin that you take for the headache came from white willow bark. And every other medicine that you know, I can tell you the plant that it actually was derived from. So here's the cool thing about it. When we isolate aspirin out of white willow bark, we get the intended benefit. It will take down that headache or that fever, whatever we're using it for. But white willow bark actually has a lot of other benefits to it beyond just taking down the fever. So instead of just taking one little piece out of it, we can use the whole thing. And the earth actually helps us be well, not just cover up symptoms. And so this is a framework to actually teach you how to use that, how to utilize the earth, how to find exactly where you start, and then how to prevent, which is my favorite part of it, but also return to wellness whenever you're not well. So it's walking you through exactly how to do that, and using a lot of the information that you share. It's just a framework for making sense of it, because I know that you are in the same world I am. Information is not lacking, right? That's not the problem today. We are not short on information. We're short on clarity. Yeah, exactly. So that's what this provides us, that clarity is to get through that overwhelm and that frustration of what in the world. Who do I believe? Who do I listen to? Let's just listen to yourselves
100% and this is something that I've said before. Is our job as practitioners is to be detectives, and we can only be as good of a detective as the clues that you give us. And if you want to give us good clues, it helps if you have that that empowerment and that information to start to put together your own pieces. Now, you shouldn't have to do the whole thing by yourself, like you, you. We're here to guide you, happy to guide you. But when someone comes and they say, I think that this, this, this, this, this, it makes my job so much easier, but also so much more accurate, because otherwise, I'm guessing, to see if people don't understand their own health and they're not paying attention to their symptoms, then I have to guess more. And testing is great, but testing is flawed. Like, we don't have really, really fantastic testing available to us.
So paying attention and learning, like I said that translation, learning how to translate the symptoms. Yeah,
will you tell us a little bit about how this book came about? Like, how this passion project. What was your story that led to this point? Because you're a dentist, exactly, which is wonderful.
Yeah, yes. So it really was my own story from getting to get well. So I I was so frustrated with all the different pieces, all the different practitioners who told me they had no answers for me, no ways to do it. And I'm a gardener, I'm also a cook, and so I've always loved the earth. I joked that I was like Mother Earth's assistant in a previous life. So I love the Earth, and I love everything that the earth provides. I have an enormous garden, and I thought there have been centuries of medicine prior to where I am right now. Ayurveda from India, traditional Chinese medicine from China. You know, all of these, Song medicine from Korea, all of these. And so I started researching all of them. Like, this is just the way I do it all. I just researched all of them. I got books on all of them, and I just surrounded myself with it all. And I thought, This is so good, but there's no way somebody can take this and actually make sense of it. It's too much. And I can't tell you, like, oh my dosha and Ayurveda. Is pitta, like, what the heck does that mean? And so I said this, there's got to be some similarity in all of these that makes sense to everybody. And there was. And the similarity in every single one is that they all reference the elements of the earth. Every single one of them references fire, water, air, earth and plants, every single one of them. So I said, Guess what? We all get that and the seasons of the earth help guide through those elements. Everybody, no matter where you live, can understand the seasons. If I can say, Okay, guess what? You're in a spring season with your body, you're gonna understand what I'm saying. So that's what the reference point of this book is, and it was simply for me, being so lost and realizing there has to be a commonality, there has to be a common place, somewhere that we can all go back to and make sense of. And there was. And so when I found it, I said, I've got to share this. I've got to share this.
I love that so much. And I think, as a conventionally trained doctor in the conventional medical system for many, many years, it's you. You're not used to that. I'm not used to this. I mean, I am now, but like this can sound a little hippie, it can sound a little earthy, it can sound a little zen. But I think the thing that's interesting is, like, we created an artificial system, like we did that there is nothing natural about the idea of treating a human by separating out their organs. Like, that's really weird. Like an OB GYN is in charge of the reproductive organs and sort of the breasts, like, but not really, because breasts are like, no man's land. There's like, no one who actually knows that much about them. Those poor organs, they're so neglected. But, you know, like, that's that, I think, because of our culture and our upbringing that feels more normal to us, like we put it in nice, neat, tidy boxes, but it's really to our detriment, because it has nothing to do with what the body actually is. I mean, to separate the immunologic system from the reproductive system makes zero sense, like they are intricately connected, and so I love that you're bringing this back to nature's connections, and to this idea of, like, there are really beautiful examples in nature. And you don't have to go super, super hippie. I do, and the older I get, the more hippie I become, sure, but you don't have to go super hippie to be like, we have seasons, we have growth cycles. We have plants that show us that when to when they grow together, that they do better things for the body, and that actually correct me if I'm wrong, but I think some plants that grow next to things that also work synergistically with that herbal supplement. So there's such beautiful patterns in nature, and really, the more I learn about the body from a functional and integrative perspective, the more I'm shocked at actually, how beautiful the body's interactions are and how much it functions so well. If, like you said earlier, if we get out of its way, we feel it appropriately. It it does really lovely things. So I just love your paradigm. I love that you're bringing it back to these natural patterns that may feel uncomfortable when we're used to these artificial patterns, but these were the original patterns? Yeah, absolutely. Well, wonderful. I have a couple just sort of rapid fire questions for you that we got on Instagram. One of them is, what are your thoughts about microbiome testing, oral microbiome testing?
So actually, I don't do it. The reason I don't do it is simply because I don't change my treatment for you based on what I find. So it's kind of fancy and flashy and exciting, you know, but you're gonna pay $150 or more for it, and I'm not gonna do anything different for you.
You mentioned you don't use a lot of antimicrobial toothpastes. Will you? Will? You explain that and how you get around if there are bad guys, right? If there is an overgrowth of negative bacteria in the mouth, how are you getting around that?
There's two really great ways to do it, because anytime you're using an antimicrobial mouth product, you're going to kill everything. And it's the same reason that we don't love antibiotics on the gut, because it's going to kill everything in sight. And then you're going to have a flourish. You're going to have yeast flourish, which that's going to look like a white tongue. That's going to look like sinus infection. We don't want any of that. So we don't want to just indiscriminately kill everything in sight. So we want to balance, is what we want to do. So I use two things for this, colloidal silver, and true colloid, not ionic silver, but Colloidal Silver actually will help to balance the mouth. So will oil pulling, which is an old Ayurvedic
testing we have, yep. So the colloidal silver, are you swishing it? Are you doing like the, I know, just ingredients, has a silver spray. Is that the same thing you're talking about? I
have, actually a mouth rinse that, that I have with just ingredients that is, that's the base of it, is Colloidal Silver for that reason, yep, yep, because it just balances things, and
the Xylitol helps in that way, or xylitol helps in a different way.
Xylitol actually starves out bacteria. Starves out bacteria because bacteria can't eat it, so they will die in the presence of xylitol. So yep, it's
actually really the good bacteria, though, as well. It
just doesn't feed bacteria in general, so it's not going to help anything flourish. So we want to balance kill the bad guys. They're not going to they're not going to survive on it and then bring back everything with just your good food.
Yeah. So no worry about using a Xylitol long term. No. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I'm glad you brought that up, because one of the questions was, I had some questions come up about your products with the tooth powder and with the mouthwash, are those like, everyone should use those all the time, or are there specific people who really should use them? I think
everybody should use them all the time because they're hydroxyapatite based, so it's going to help just literally, rebuild your teeth, rebuild your teeth and keep them strong,
and the tooth powder twice a day, and the mouth wash twice a day. Kids too. No problems with kids. Problems
with kids. We have a kids flavor, which is a citrus flavor, and kids love it.
They do love it. My kids use it, and we had to, I had to hide the mouthwash because my daughter was drinking
it. It is quite delicious. I'm
sure her teeth and her microbiome are very healthy. They were very happy. Yes, yeah, they were good. But they love the tooth powder, and they all know how to use it. We spilled some. We went through some, a little bit, but they've got it down now, and they love it. So we really like that. The next question that I had was Oil Pulling actually? How do you do it?
Yep. So you put a tablespoon of oil in your mouth, any kind of oil, swish it around. Typically it's coconut oil or sesame oil. I prefer coconut because it has less flavor. So you're just going to swish it for 10 to 15 minutes. That sounds like an eternity. So do it while you're doing something else. Do it while you're doing dishes, doing what you don't do. You're doing whatever. How much is it like a tables, tablespoon, yep, tablespoon. Or sometimes mouths are a little smaller, so a little bit less than a tablespoon as much, just enough to swish. Yep, you're going to swish. And what it's doing is it's literally pulling bacteria from every nook and cranny, and it will get in that blob of oil. So you're going to spit it into a Kleenex and throw it away, because that is full of bugs. Yeah? That's full of and it will clog
your sink. It will clog your sin, yeah? So do not spit it in your sink. Your husband will not be happy, correct? Not speaking from experience, but I am speaking from my sister's experience, and then tongue scraping too. Do you recommend that? Not absolutely
tongue scraping. Yep. I have a fabulous tongue scraper on my site that's copper, because it's antimicrobial, that the double the double armed one, yep, yep. And the copper is antimicrobial so it doesn't grow bugs, and it actually kind of suppresses growth, because what I find on the tongue is actually yeast growth. So a lot of times that people are really struggling with Candida and yeast problems in the body absolutely have to scrape the tongue. So I scrape the tongue, and then you do the mouthwash, which allows that colloidal silver to get into those nooks and crannies and balance everything even
better. Well, you just go back and give us that perfect, perfect oral health routine which order to do it in, yep.
So brush, tongue, scrape, rinse, brush, floss. Those things are kind of the same time, tongue scrape and then rinse, and then mouthwash. The rinses the mouth. What we say again, I got Yep, so sorry, I will say mouthwash and not Yep. So brush, floss, tongue scrape, mouthwash, mouthwash, okay, yep, yep. Because I don't want you rinse it with water, because all of these products have Hydroxyapatite in them, we want them to stay on the teeth.
So you rinse with the mouthwash and then leave it and where does the oil pulling go in there?
So oil pull you don't need to do every day. It's if you have long time, exactly. It's if you have gum issues, if you have swollen gums, if you have gum problems, if you feel like, Oh man, I'm getting a Candida. You know, if something's going on, I can just feel it. Then you're gonna do oil pulling for about three days, and then every third day or so, until you're back on top of it. It's not an everyday thing.
And for someone who has, because we deal with a lot of patients with chronic sinusitis from mycotoxin illness and all the stuff like that, does the oil pulling assist with if there is any fungal overgrowth in the sinuses? Yes,
because, again, we're all connected, yeah, it's just feeding back. Yeah. So if you have fungus in your mouth, you got fungus in your sinuses, you know, and it can't ever get better de
burden. It just decrease the burden, right? Okay, well, I think that has covered so much, and I'm so glad you're here. That was such a helpful episode. I hope people find it as helpful as I did. If not, I really appreciate it, like I've gained a wealth of information. Will you tell us how people can find you.
Yep, two places. So my dental practice is called Total Care Dental. You can find that total care dental.com and honestly, just go on there for information. There's tons of free information on there that you could walk through and learn about everything I've taught about here. And then the product side is living well with Dr Michelle, but that's also where I do a ton of education as well. So go inside of there, on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, wherever, and just, just learn. Just learn. I love to share. Get started. Just get started.
Yeah, awesome. Thank you again for your time and for for coming to help us and inform everyone about these really important matters. We really appreciate you
being here. Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode, a huge thank you to our guests for sharing their insights and time with us. We are grateful for the incredible support from our sponsors and to all of you listening. We couldn't do this without you. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on your favorite platform. You can find us on our website, uplift for her.com, YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And if you found value here today, please share this episode with someone who would benefit from it. Leave us a comment or give us a review. It really helps us reach more listeners like you. Thank you for being part of our community. Stay tuned for our next episode. This information is for educational purposes only and not intended to be medical advice. You.
