79: The Shocking Truth About Your Dental Health: Dr. Michelle Jorgensen Reveals Hidden Dangers and Holistic Solutions

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Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Jen Simmons, a breast cancer surgeon turned integrative oncologist on a groundbreaking mission to transform the conversation around breast health. If you're seeking to redefine the way that you think about breast health, you're in the right place. Breast health isn't just an aspect of well being. It is health, integral and indispensable. Here on the Keeping Abreast podcast, we delve deep into the innovative ways to diagnose, treat, screen for, and prevent breast cancer. But it's more than that. It's about having the crucial conversations that empower, enlighten, and drive us all to a healthier place. As someone who has navigated the front lines of breast cancer treatment and now champions an integrative approach, I bring a unique perspective to these discussions, blending rigorous science with holistic health principles. Health is a journey, not a destination, and I am truly honored to accompany you on this path. Each episode aims to provide you with actionable insights and cutting edge strategies to take charge of your breast health and.

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If you are like what seems like the rest of the world and you're wondering what is happening in the world of dentistry and why suddenly we are talking about things like, is fluoride really safe and are root canals really safe?

And.

And how should we be thinking about our oral care? And what is the relationship of your oral health to your overall health, then you are in the right place today, because I have brought one of the world's experts in this area to talk all about it. So I want to welcome Dr. Michelle Jorgensen to the show. Dr. Jorgensen, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for having me. I am excited to talk with you.

Like many of us that have a pain to purpose story, you didn't start off in this holistic space. You started off as a conventional dentist.

Yes.

What happened?

Yes, My father's a dentist, my grandfather's an internist. You know, that's just the route that I was in and started practicing. Everything was going well, practice was growing, we were taking great care of patients. But I started getting really, really ill. And at first I didn't think anything of it. I thought, everybody just does this in their mid-30s. You know, I had four young kids at home. I was stressed out. And you just start finding other excuses for why you're feeling the way you are.

Yeah, you normalized it.

Yeah, you totally normalized. Like everyone does. Exactly. And that is supposed to feel sick.

Supposed to feel tired. I'm supposed to be gaining weight. Like, we normalize all the stuff that.

That's just every. Everybody does that, you know, and gut issues were my first thing. And I thought, again, everybody just has gut problems. This is just normal. And. But the big two that really made me realize that this wasn't normal is my memory was just shot. And I've always had a very good memory. So this was a very different change for me. You know, I couldn't remember a patient's name from room to room, and I. And that was so unlike me. And then the other big one was numbness. I had such bad numbness in my hands that I couldn't sleep at night. I couldn't blow dry my hair. I couldn't put on mascara. I mean, nothing that would require me to raise my hands up. And I stopped being able to hold dental instruments because I did not have the dexterity. My hands were so painfully numb, I literally couldn't hold the instruments to do my job anymore. So I didn't know what to do. And I'd been to doctor after doctor after doctor with no results. Everybody gave me a pill, you know, and that's about it. And so I actually put my practice for sale and literally didn't know what I was going to do. Mid 30s. How old were you? I was about 34. Young kids. And, you know, my husband worked for the practice as well. So this was literally our livelihood. This was our life. This is all we knew to do. And I didn't know what I was going to do at this point. So I started looking for jobs to consult or teach or, you know, anything else. And finally a practitioner I talked to said, have you looked into mercury poisoning? And I said, oh, no, no. You know, I knew that dental fillings, that silver fillings had mercury in them. You know, we'd been taught that in school, but I said, well, I don't have any, and, you know, I've been taught they're completely safe. And he said, you know, regardless about what you've been taught, maybe you just ought to be tested. And it was a test I had.

You really taught that they're completely safe?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Completely safe. And if we talk about it at all and say that it could cause Any health concerns, then we'll lose our license. That was the entire talk in dental school.

It's crazy. Didn't people, like, get suspicious? I mean, there are so many public health warnings around mercury, and then all of a sudden, it's safe to put in your mouth. Like, if you. If you break a mercury thermometer. I know they don't exist anymore, but when I grew up, we used mercury thermometers. Like, if you broke a mercury thermometer, you had to get a hazmat team out.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Still do it. And we talk about mercury in fish and. And vaccines. And, like, everybody's so up in arms about it, but nobody realizes that literally the number one source of mercury in the entire environment is dental fillings. Nobody talks about this, that there's like 3, 300 tons of mercury put into the environment every year through dental drains, through our vacuum systems. Nobody knows this. So, yeah, I was taught that it was completely safe, but I thought, well, I haven't had this test done, so I might as well test this. Got tested, and that's what it was. Mercury toxicity off the charts. So now all of a sudden, my symptoms make sense because mercury is a neurotoxin. So the numbness, the brain issues, the gut issues, those are all correlated with mercury. So again, I had to figure out what I was going to do because I couldn't keep putting it in if I was going to try to get it out and get better. So I had to find out, were there ways to do this in a different way? And I found an organization that had complete protocol for what we call safe mercury removal. Didn't even know it existed. And I started doing it just simply for my own health. But then patients started saying, what are you doing? This is very different. I don't even know who you are right now, you know? And so I would explain it, and they would say, well, thank you. I'm actually. Isn't this better for my health, too? Well, yeah, it is, actually. It's better for you to. Can I tell my doctor about it? They're interested in this kind of thing. Sure. And so doctors started coming and telling me the other things I needed to learn. They would say, hey, have you ever heard of ozone? Nope. What's ozone? No clue what this is. Well, you really ought to look into it. So then I would go and look into it and how. Have you heard that there's concern with fluoride or with root canals? Nope. Because inside of dentistry, we don't talk this way. We don't talk about any of this. This is just our sacred cows, the things that we just do, and they're fine. And so I started looking and I went, oh, my goodness, what else have I been taught that actually isn't true anymore? And maybe it was true one time. It was, you know, true, and I was taught, but it's not true anymore. We have science that's showing us different.

I think it was never true, probably so I think it was never true.

I was like, about giving the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, it just. Yeah, it's, it's. But it's what we knew. It's what we knew. And now science is proving what we once maybe thought perhaps could be bad. It's proving it. And that's what I think is so important to understand. In fact, I was just listening to something this morning, and it was talking about when we changed this, the model of our galaxy, and it used to have Pluto. We used to have nine planets, and now Pluto got kicked out. You know, it's in its own galaxy now, but the whole, like, world that, you know, astronomy that studied all of this didn't say, no, Pluto. You know, it's because we proved it was wrong and it was okay to say that, that we didn't. Now we know more. And that's really what I'm about as well, is to say, you know, we know more now. And I was just astounded at how much in the mouth and in dentistry could relate to overall health when I started doing the research. And I went, oh, my goodness, people need to know this. I didn't know this. Nobody knows this. We need to know this.

Yes. Yes. Okay, so I want to back up and first ask you the question because you told me that when you were training, if you spoke ill about the dangers of Mercury, you would lose your license. Is that still true?

No, thankfully, because research is strong enough now that there are things I can say. There was a doctor named Hal Huggins, he was in Colorado, and he was the first proponent, pioneer, really, saying Mercury fillings can lead to Ms. Mercury filling, you know, get them removed. And so he had a whole entire protocol doing this. And he lost his license and never regained it and in his entire career. And so was that, oh, probably in the 80s. So there were, there were things that I could not.

And no one's writing him apology letters.

Now since he since passed away. And nobody's exactly. Nobody's writing he or his wife or anyone, you know, apology letters. He was. He had family death threats against him. I'm sure he did.

I'm sure he did. I know all about this because I am also challenging a decade after decade after decade, 50 year old paradigm. So I. I know, Yep. I know.

And it's scary.

Like anyone hugs you and says thank you for changing the world, they're like out of our sandbox.

Exactly. We're very safe. We like it in here. It's quite warm and cozy and. Yeah, so. Yeah, yeah. So. Yes, I. But I can today say some things, anything that's, you know, I can say that mercury is the most neurotoxic substance on the planet. I can say that mercury is released from these fillings 24 7. I can say, you know, I can say these things now and then you can put the pieces together and say, okay, so if it's released from my feelings 247 and it's the most neurotoxic element on the planet, perhaps it's not a good thing to have.

So I can say it's actually worse with heat. Right. So for the.

So tooth brushing, toothbrushing, huh? Yeah. Heat. Yep. Hot, cold. So drinking coffee, drink, you know, it's.

Going in your morning coffee, you're just releasing more of that mercury. Correct?

Yep, yep. And now there's research showing that even pregnant mamas that have mercury fillings in their mouth, their babies have higher levels of mercury in their systems now too. And it's proven that the first baby out of a mom is actually detox. I mean, I'm sure you probably talk about this some too, but first baby gets a lot of mom's junk and get literally like 60% of the mercury that's in the mom's body is passed on to the baby. And interestingly enough, I'm a first baby, I'm a firstborn, so I think I probably already had a mercury burden because my mom's mouth was full of mercury. My dad was a dentist and that's just what, what you did, you know, you filled your teeth with mercury. So I think I already had a mercury burden originally from even birth. And then I also have a genetic variant mthfr. I'm sure you talk about this and know a lot about it.

Yep.

It doesn't allow me to detox things very well. So it's the perfect storm, honestly, the perfect storm put together because my dad, still practicing in his 70s, hasn't had a sick day of his life. So he doesn't have the issue. He doesn't have the issue, but I do.

Blame your mother.

Blame my mother, exactly.

I Blame my mother for everything.

Exactly. Her fault. Mom guilt. Let's just load it on.

Okay? So I'm sure people really want to know. To start, how did you detox from? How did you get rid of your mercury burden and heal to the extent that you were able to practice again?

Yeah. So I was originally told I needed to do a whole bunch of ID chelation with something called edta. And it's since actually been debunked that that's not the best way to do this, which I was. But I went to the doctor, and she said, you're gonna have to have 136 chelation visits, and they're about an hour and a half each. I said, that's impossible. There's no way I could do that. Literally, I cannot do that with my life right now. So it was a very, very slow detox for me. Doing things orally, you know, DMSA and different oral things, as well as just like chlorella every morning and a drink and just a real gentle detox. And, you know, one of the things that I believe very strongly is that our cells know how to heal. They know what to do. And it's interesting. I just finished a book. We'll talk about that, I'm sure, later, but it's going to be released in May. And the real premise of this book is that we're debating the wrong thing when we're debating Eastern and Western medicine, because all medicine of every variety is simply a band aid. It's a support for your cells to do their work. So the real question is, what do your cells need? What do your cells need to get well? And for me, my cells needed to not have more to deal with. And so a big crucial part of my detoxing was to not put it back in. You know, I had to just. And then my body could then do its job. And it took about eight years before I had my brain back. Yeah.

I want to be clear that the mercury isn't the only it. And if that's all your body had to deal with, if that's all you had to detox, you might not have been as severe as you were. But the truth is that we have mercury and we have mercury and all the plastics and the antibiotics and the xenoestrogens and the phthalates and the PCAs and PCBs, and we have all of it. Right. And so at some point, your body says, I can't. I can't do this. And your toxic overload gets to be such that you have end organ damage, you have brain damage, you have nerve damage, you have heart damage, you have endocrine damage. That's what's happening and it's happening in all of us. You know, you happened to. Your main thing happened to be mercury, but it probably wasn't mercury alone.

Yeah, for sure. And dentistry is actually a toxic cesspool. Like, there are so many plastics inside of dentistry. There, there's nitric oxide, nitrous oxide that we're breathing in all the day long. We have radiation bouncing around in the walls. I mean, you know, there's, there's literally a lot that the body has to deal with as a dentist. And this is something that I talk to dentists about, because dentists are clueless. They don't. And they, they're mad, they're mad. They get so mad at me when I talk about it and I say, listen, I'm just wanting you to not get sick sick like I did. Yeah, that's all I want.

I haven't checked this statistic in a long time, but it used to be that of all the professions, the greatest suicide rate was in dentists. Is that still true?

Yeah, it's very high. And I, you know, I've, I've used this so many different times when speaking with dentists and they'll say, well, it's just really a stressful career. And I look at them, I'm like, really? Really? I can think of a few others. Like, how about airline controllers, like air traffic controller. I think it's probably more stressful. How about the people who, like, detonate bombs?

Cancer surgeons.

Cancer surgeons. I think that there's more stressful jobs. No, your brains are poisoned with mercury and they don't work anymore. In fact, I just lost a friend to suicide about a year ago and I just want to just tear my hair out and say, when are we going to sit up and pay some attention? And there's huge forums of dentists and they just are furious at me. Why are you telling people this is safe? This is not safe? Because it's not. And it's not for you either. Please, it's okay.

It's not.

We did it.

No, it's not just like a public health warning. It's like the dentists themselves are in danger.

We are front lines. We are the worst. Because I wasn't just getting. I mean, I have no mercury fillings. It wasn't from my fillings, it was the fillings I was drilling out. Yeah, yeah. Because I was a work that you.

Were doing on Your.

Yeah, I was a cosmetic dentist. Everybody hates those ugly black fillings. So I was drilling them out day in and day out. And where is my head? When those mercury fillings are drilled out, mercury vapor is released and we're bringing it all in right above the patient. So I was getting everybody's mercury, not just my own. Yeah, so.

Oh, God. Before we leave this topic, I do want to ask, because it popped in my head. Now, obviously most people, although I heard that some people are still using metal fillings. Is that true?

It is true. In the United States, it has not been banned. It is in multiple European countries.

How is that even possible?

It still is. And they're 50% mercury. Just so people are clear. Any silver slot, you know, quote unquote, silver filling, metal filling, that's not gold. There still is gold. That's just gold. But any silver filling is 50% mercury. 50%, yeah, it still is. And the reason I believe this is, this is my own personal opinion, is because in the United States, we're such a litigious society and if it were to, you know, if the powers that be were to say this is unsafe and it's making everybody sick, we can't do it anymore. Every dentist who's ever placed or removed a mercury filling would be under class action lawsuit. Yeah, the organization can't let it happen. American Dental association is there to protect dentists. That's who pays the American Dental association dues. You don't pay them. I do. So they're there to protect the dentist. They cannot let it happen. So that's why I can tell you, and you need to pay attention.

So out of curiosity, what are they saying in the dental schools? Like, what are they telling the. The future dentists of tomorrow?

Yeah. So I've spoken to recent graduates. You know, as I'm hiring new dentists, our practice has grown exponentially over the last few years. And, and they're completely unaware that this is an issue at all. They're told the same thing I was told that these materials are stable. Once they're hitting me completely. In fact, I've had dentists now I know if they're, if they're applying for a job with me, I say go to my website, go check it out. If this is something that you can get on board with, then we'll continue talking. And I've had numerous come back and say, no, I'm sorry, that's not something that I can, that I can be a part of. So I don't.

The same thing I have the same thing that, like, people. People reach out to me. I want to come work for you. And I was like, really? Do you. Do you know who I am and what I stand for?

Exactly.

And half of them are like, yes, and I love it. You're the future. And the other half are like, oh, you're dangerous.

Exactly.

Okay, and then before we leave this topic, because I feel like it needs to be said, what is a safe filling? Is there such thing as a safe filling? And can you avoid that altogether? Like, if you have decay, can you reverse it and not have to use any of these toxic substances? Because a little bit I'm worried that we're treating something that's really bad for something that's, like, kind of bad.

Yeah. Yep. So, yes, there are safe fillings today. The kind that you're going to want to look for is something called resin, which is a glass resin. Composite. It's called composite in the industry. It's a glass resin mixture. And there is concern about BPAs in that resin. So we do have BPA free filling materials that we can use. That's what you're going to use. But also, the other thing I really want people to understand is if you do have mercury fillings in your mouth currently, you have to have those removed safely because the biggest level of burden that you will get is during that removal appointment. So if you're just going to your normal dentist and they're just saying, open up, and they're drilling and you're swallowing chunks of this and it's going up in the air and in your nose and in your skin and everywhere else, I would rather you leave them in your mouth than have them removed that way, because that's 100% safe. So you have to do it safely.

Okay, so two questions about that. Can you talk a little bit about what that safe removal looks like? Like, what are you doing that's different? And also, is there a time to have them removed? And is there. Are there any contraindications? For instance, I have people that have just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I've been struggling with, like, they're at their maximum toxicity. Do I have them get their mercury fillings out now? Do I work with them for a couple of months and improve their diet and their detox and all of that? So talk to me about what the procedure looks like and the timing of the procedure.

Yep, great questions. So procedure is going to look like a lot of protection when it literally in your mouth itself. You're going to have a rubber dam what's called a rubber dam, which is going to collect all the chunks. We're going to have a couple of vacuums, one inside of that dam, one underneath the dam to collect anything that might get through. You're going to have a giant vacuum at your chin that's going to suck all the vapors away. We cover your face because skin is actually the biggest absorption organ that there is. So everything that you know, you're going to get a lot of mercury into the skin. So we actually cover your face. We have little eye holes, don't worry about. But, you know, it's not claustrophobic. Well, it's slightly claustrophobic. Sometimes people say we cover your face. We cover your entire body so it can't get in through your skin. Your nose has an oxygen hood, so you're not going to breathe in any of that. In. And then all the practitioners in the room are doing the same thing. They all have mercury vapor filtration masks on. They're all covered head to toe as well. So that's what it should look like. And where do you find somebody that can do it?

Looks like a hazmat area.

Does it?

I hope it should.

It is. It is a hazmat area. Yep.

Right.

Correct. So where do you find a dentist that can do that? There's an organization online, this is the one that I found, called I A O M T. Yep. So I A O M T.org and on that website, they have a directory of smart certified dentists. So people who do this smart removal. It's called smart Removal Safe mercury amalgam removal technique is what that stands for. So the smart removal technique they have on their lists of dentists throughout the world that have been certified and learned how to do this technique. I also have a directory on my website. So living well with Dr. Michelle.com on my website. And my directory is for people who do more than just that. So that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg for us is this mercury removal piece. Then we talk a lot about root canals and jawbone infections and these correlate hugely with breast cancer. But my directory will have dentists that are even doing more than the smart removal. But if you're just looking for mercury removal, that's where you're going to go. So when do you do it? Never do it when you're pregnant. Never do it when you're nursing. Why? We just talked about this. It's going to go directly to the baby. So we don't do it pregnant or nursing.

At all.

When you are highly burdened with toxins, like you're talking about with patients, do you do it at that point? Well, I believe that there's absolutely a tipping point. And I think cancer and things is. The tipping point is evolution, you know, as evidence of a tipping point. So when you're in that place, the last thing you want to do is burden your body more. Right. So I believe absolutely you need to get rid of some before you could put more in. Just like the bucket idea. If the bucket's already full, there's no room for any more, and then you are really drastically going to tip over. So absolutely get some out before you put some in. You're going to get some mercury released when you do a removal, even safely. We do all sorts of detox procedures before. After we do, you know, supplements, we do charcoal, we do all sorts of things as well, but you're going to get some. So you just have to have your body be prepared for a little bit of an added burden at that point. Yeah.

So my instinct of working with people for six months for first was right.

Yep, yep. And make sure your detox pathways are working, make sure you're pooping, make sure you're, you know, making sure everything's. Absolutely, Absolutely. Get rid of it.

Yeah. And while we're there, I just want to give a plug to energy bits because this is a way to detox every single day and. And contribute to gut health. And these are spirulina and chlorella tablets that you can take every single day. They are safe, they are food, and they can help absorb some of the toxins that you encounter every day, but also help to release some of the toxins that you have encountered in yesterday. So we'll put the link to that at the. In the show notes. So we started to talk about the other things, and I heard a statistic yesterday that I'm not. I don't know this to be true, although I suspect it's.

It's.

It's close.

One of the, like, oh, geez in the cancer world said that he has never seen a cancer patient in his 50 years of practice that hasn't had an oral health issue.

Correct.

So is this true? True and unrelated. Is there a causation relationship here? I would just love to hear about that. And in that we have to get into the root canal.

Yep, yep.

Discussion.

So I remember hearing this.

Get into it.

Yep. The first time I heard this was an OG in dentistry as well. Blanche Grube is her name and she was Speaking at an event. And she said when she was originally learning about mercury problems, that was her original. She didn't. She couldn't learn to read growing up, and her mouth was full of mercury. And she started working for a dentist who was so ahead of his time. And he said, maybe we should clean up your mouth and let's see if you can start learning. And it worked. And she ended up going to dental school. And this was her life trajectory. And she's been doing this for probably 50 years. And she said that at that time, that dentist told her that he had never found someone who had cancer who did not have an infection somewhere in the mouth. And he said, if you find somebody, I'll give you 100 bucks. So she had been looking for this person for forever, searching far and wide for a hundred bucks, you know, so she remembers the patient coming in and she'd had cancer. And so she said, okay, where's your root canal? She said, I haven't had a root canal. And she said, okay, then when did you get your wisdom teeth out? Because that's the second place that hidden infections lie. And she said, I've. I've never had to choose that in my life. And she's like, I'm going to find it. I'm going to find my first $100 person. Here we go. So she starts going through the exam and all of a sudden came across this tooth right here, and it was brown, a little discolor. And she said, well, what's going on with that brown tooth right there? And she said, oh, that was, like, stuck up in the roof of my mouth with braces. And they pulled it down with braces, and it's been brown ever since the tooth was dead. She had a dead tooth, didn't know it. So she's like, there goes my 100 bucks. But she told everybody in the audience, she said, I'll give you $1,000 if you can find one. Now I'm up in the odds, and I have yet to find one. A patient. I do not have a patient that's coming to my practice that has had or has cancer that does not have an infection in their mouth some more.

Yeah, it's really astounding. And yet this conversation does not exist in the conventional cancer space. I never heard of it until I had my own diagnosis, Went through this whole education process. And even after that, it wasn't until I started hanging out with the OGs in the integrative cancer space that they were like, jen, why aren't you talking about Dentistry. I'm like, wait, what about. It wasn't in any of the textbooks. That wasn't in any of my talks. No one talked to me about that. What's going on there? So what is going on there? Well, how does the, how does an infection in the mouth, first of all, how is a root canal related to infection? Because these things are happening day in and day out, and people think they're.

Doing the right thing. Correct? Correct, Yep. So let's start. First of all, how does it, how does it even relate? What does that even do it? And then we're going to jump into root canals. So there's something called meridians in the body. And this is something interesting. When I first started learning about this, I thought, oh, now we're getting into the real crazy talk here. Now we're getting into the talk. All right, here we go. But here's where I challenge, and I really have had to learn and figure out how to talk about it. So when you go to the hospital, if you're having heart, chest pains, you go to the hospital, you get hooked up to an EKG and there's a beep, beep, beep, beep on the screen. What are they measuring? They're measuring.

Measuring the electrical energy of your heart.

Of your heart, correct. Yeah. When you get an eeg, when they're, you know, you've had a concussion or something, and they're measuring, you know, do you have brain wave? You know, what are they measuring? Procedure. They're measuring the electrical input or output of your brain. So guess what? Our bodies are electrical. And when we die, what that means is the electricity stop right. When you flatline, no more electricity in your heart. When the brain stops, what does that mean? No more electricity in the brain. So our, our body is wired top to bottom electrically. Like, we all know about blood vessels, we all know about nerves, we all know about lymphatic system. Like those are all, you know, wiring, plumbing systems. We have wiring just like your house does. And that's how the body works. Well, how do your organ systems get charged up? How do they actually get fed with energy? How do they get it? We know, through food. You know, that's one way movement, muscle movement, muscle. That muscle movement also charges recharges organ systems. But this is the fascinating thing. This has actually been mapped centuries ago, but even more recently scientifically mapped, that there are acupressure points. This is all the same thing. Acupressure, acupuncture points. These are all mapping, basically, these energy lines in the body and here's the crazy thing. Every single energy system or organ system is represented on the hands. You can find them all in the hands, on the feet, on the ears, and in the teeth. Isn't that interesting? When I say about it, I thought, okay, so hands, obviously we get a lot of activity with our hands. So we're powering up every system as we're moving our. As we're moving our hands. Same thing with our feet. As we're walking, we're literally powering up every system. Ears, I haven't figured out yet. I don't know about that one. But the teeth.

But that is a huge input from the world around us.

It's true. It's true.

Is through our ears, everything else. And. And think about how much sound activates us.

Like true.

If we hear someone walking behind us, if we know something's coming at us, I mean, we. That. That is a huge area of. Of impulse. Right?

Huge. Love it. So then the fourth one, the teeth. How many times you put your teeth together a day? Every single time you swallow and every single time you chew. So you're literally powering up every organ system every single time the teeth come together. Yep. And the interesting thing is, is that every organ system is represented in the teeth. So it's not just one organ system related to a tooth. So every organ system is related to the teeth or is connected right here in the middle. It's called the bicuspids are the breast system right here. So anytime I find somebody that has breast cancer, I'll say, do you have a root canal in your mouth? Yeah. Where is it? Right here. All right, really interesting. Which side is your breast cancer on? That side.

That side.

So what it does, is it causative or is it correlative? Like what is. You know, this is always the question. I believe it could be both, but I lean into the correlative a little bit and just say when you have a short and align. So let's go back to your house. And you know, my lights right now are connected to a light switch. And there's also a outlet that's connected to the same. Out the same light switch. So when I turn the light switch off, everything on that same line turns off. When there's a short in that line, it kind of is, you know, buggy. Like sometimes it's on, sometimes it's not. Well, a dead tooth, a root canal, or an area that it didn't heal after a tooth was removed. Often a wisdom tooth creates a short in the line. So now you have spotty energy. You don't get full energy, full charge in that area. And that tooth is literally drawing energy from those, from everything else on that line. Because it's not. It's dead now. So there's no natural energy coming to that tooth itself. There's no. There's no wiring there. So it's always having to draw energy from everything else on the line. So it's literally draining the other systems that the other organs. So this tooth, if you have a dead tooth here, is draining the breast from energy. Well, what does energy do? Energy is literally what our mitochondria create and utilize to heal, to regrow cells, to do all the things that are. To detox, to do anything. Our bodies, energy to repair. And so if it's being drained, then the body can't repair itself. And I know, I mean, this is your world, cancer. But I explain it. Basically, cancer is just a cell gone wrong. And our body creates them all day long every day. But we usually can deal with it. Our bodies figure it out. They're like, oh, kill that guy. It's a bad one. But if your body is draining the energy from that system, it doesn't have the power. It's like its police force is really impaired now. You know, it's like drunk on the side. It's so, you know, it's tired out and it can't. It's exhausted. It can't. Exhausted, Yep. So that's how I believe there's a correlation. Is it causative? Well, yeah, but I can't ever tell you that because they won't. Nobody lets me say that, but I.

See, but there are studies that identify the same organisms that are seen in chronic infections. In the mouth. They're also seen in the breast of people that have breast cancer.

Yep. They're seen in the rest. They're seen in. That cause strokes and heart attacks. They're seen every.

So there, there has to be some direct correlation there. Otherwise, I mean, are we just explaining it away as, you know, global colonization? Because there has to be some direct relationship there.

There absolutely is. And so I tell people every single day, first of all, if you have a root canal, you are at risk of. Of these other issues of did you know of chronic disease? And. Yeah, how. How does this relate? So let's get a little bit into tooth anatomy. The way a tooth works is the tooth itself is an organ. It has a blood system, a vascular system, blood vessels. It has a nervous system, it has a lymphatic system. It has everything inside of that tooth. And if you have a large cavity that gets all the way to the nerve or the center of the tooth, basically it's kind of the, the command center of the tooth where the blood vessels, the nerve, everything are. If the cavity gets to that point or you have a cracked tooth or something that's now opened into that command center of the tooth, it will die. This is where you get a toothache, where it's like, oh, hurts so bad because it's inflaming that nerve and it's hurting. So what is a root canal? And you know, honestly, a root canal. The whole procedure was a great invention, you know, a great finding. Because what they do is they clean out that central portion of the nerve, the canal inside of the root, take out the nerve, take out the blood vessels, disinfect it, and then fill it up with a plastic like material called gutta percha. And then you just go on your way and you get to keep chewing with your tooth and smiling with your tooth. I mean, how great is this? The problem is that there are, there's the main canal inside of each root that. But there's little side channels that go off their little feeder channels. Because just like in our, on our hands, you know, we have the main vessels that come here, then we got all little capillaries feeding blood to every single cell connected. Same thing happens in the teeth. There's the main vessels that are in the roots and there's little tiny feeder channels. And every dentist knows this. I'm not telling you crazy talk. Every dentist knows this. They're called dentinal tubules and they go out through the entire tooth. You cannot clean all of those tubes. There's literally a mile of them in every single tooth. And you can't clean them. They're too small to clean and they're too small to fill. So what ends up happening is dead tissue stays lodged in the tooth. And now you don't have an immune system, you don't have a lymphatic system. Nothing's there because it's been removed and it's been plugged up with plastic and just left in the mouth. So dead tissue anywhere in the body is going to attract bugs no matter what. That's just what happens. You got something dead. This is why when you have a gangrene toe, they chop it off. Like you can't have something dead. So bugs are attracted to that dead tissue. Your immune system, now this is also, I think, a correlation. Your immune system has to deal with that low grade infection 24,7 non stop. Now. People say, well, it doesn't hurt. Of course, you've had the nerve removed. It doesn't feel anything.

You've lost your signaling pathway, lost your warning system. Doesn't hurt.

Nope, no hurting. Sometimes people say this doesn't feel right or it feels off or it feels odd. You know, they'll use those kind of phrase, those phrases. But that bacteria starts to build up and it's now in a protected zone. There's no lymphatic flow there. It's like it's happy days. And so it will start to destroy all of the bone in the area. Now every time you bite on that tooth, you're literally forcing that infection through the entire bloodstream because it's at the end of the root. Usually at the end of the root. So these. I have almost never found a root canal that doesn't have some infection around the root somewhere. That's the problem with the root canal. So now you have this thing that's draining your immune strength that is draining your energy to whatever organ is connected. And one of my favorite stories, it's just the craziest one, I had a patient come in and he was orange and I started talking with him and I'm pretty frank and I just said, has anyone ever told you you're orange? Orange? And he said, oh, people ask me all the time if I do self tanner cream. He's like, I don't know what it is. Well, we did a CT scan and that's where. That's what we have to have to diagnosis, a cone beam CT scan. We did a cone beam CT scan and found he had four root canals right across here. He'd gotten hit in the mouth with a baseball when he was younger. And they killed the teeth, they did root canals. These teeth are connected to your liver. He had jaundice and had been jaundiced since he had those root canals done.

Wow.

Because it was draining his liver energy to have four dead teeth. Four dead infected teeth right across the front here. So there's something you can look at online. Go online, look up tooth meridian chart. And you're going to see which organs are connected to which teeth. And then you start putting the pieces together. You go, what? I've got prostate issues. And that's this tooth right here. What you know, so you start to put the pieces together and it's hugely correlated. When you start looking at the teeth and looking at the organ systems and looking at your symptoms, you'll start to put some pieces together for Yourself.

Now, there is some data out there. I mean, I, When I went to medical school, they were already talking about the connection between periodontal disease and heart disease. So there are rumblings there. But where is this conversation in dental school?

That's a great question. That's not there. There are 35 to 40 million root canals performed in the United States per year. So every. Wait, what?

No, give me that statistic again. 35 to 45 to 40 million root.

Canals done in the United States per year. So there is at least a third of the population walking around with an infected root canal in your head.

Oh, my God.

Yep, yep. And this is, this is huge. It's huge.

Do dentists just. Do they not know this? Do they not believe it? Is it too much a threat to livelihood? Like, I, I get the mercury. Will, Will, if we, if we say that mercury is unsafe, that all of the people that ever dealt with it are, are vulnerable. Although, quite frankly, I mean, we rolled out a certain something and gave it to the entire world and said from the get go that, like, we're not going to hold the people that manufactured this responsible for anything. So I can only assume that the same government that had the power to do that would have the power to, you know, exonerate people. We have a president now who's very into exonerating people. Yes, but why can't they. Do they, do they not know or why can't they just acknowledge that this is not safe?

Yeah, it's. I think that there is a lack of knowledge completely. And it's interesting, even in school we learned about all of the ways that root canals can fail. And root canal, the procedure itself is actually extremely difficult. Like literally working in this teeny tiny space with teeny tiny instruments. You can't see anything. You're working blind. It's really difficult. And it's inside somebody's mouth and they're groaning and complaining and salivating and like, it's. It's actually really hard to do well. And so we learned about all the ways that it can go wrong because we don't do it right. But they don't ever then connect the pieces to. But this could create massive health problems. And so it is a lack of education, just a lack of knowledge. But I think it's also a lack of, of being willing to accept that we're wrong. And I just think that that's a human foible. And I think that's just. As a human, you know, as human race, we just don't like to Say we're wrong, we were wrong. We didn't know. We just don't like to say it. And so this is one of the ones that I get a lot of arrows in my back about. But I just say, listen, all I can tell you, in fact, people love my Instagram content because that's a lot of what I do is I'll go on and show patients X rays, their CT scans. I'm like, okay, this person literally was stuck, terrified to go to sleep at night because she would wake up with a horrible burning in her sinuses. We took a con beam CT scan. I found two massive abscesses filling her entire sinus with these two teeth. Took the teeth out and all of a sudden she can go to sleep at night. I mean, this is what I talk about all day long. So for me it's, I'm just going to show you. I'm going to show you what's out.

And your Instagram is amazing. Love it. Give, give everyone your handle so that they can follow you.

Yeah, it's living well with Dr. Michelle. Go on there. I got all sorts of pictures, all sorts of crazy things that I see every single day because this is just real. It's just real.

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So what should people do instead? They have a toothache or they have a very deep cavity and, you know, conventionally they would be told to go have a root canal. What should be done instead?

Yep. Okay, so there's two, there's two layers. And you asked earlier and I didn't answer. What do you do if you have a cavity? Do you have to have a filling? So first of all, we have to talk just briefly about fluoride because this is going to play into this. Years ago they found. Here we go, here we go.

I'm opening the can of worms.

Exactly. Years ago, they found that people who had high fluoride levels in their water naturally, which was through well water, they had more resistant teeth to tooth decay. They also had blotchy, brown, splotchy teeth. They looked really ugly, but they never got cavities. So they went, all right, this fluoride stuff, it actually can prevent tooth decay. So let's put it in water, let's put it in toothpaste, let's put it everywhere, and let's see if we can just stop tooth decay. Well, my first question is, did it work? Has anyone ever had a cavity in the last 30, 40 years? Of course. Of course it did. Not work. It did not work. Okay.

I mean, I think it's probably worse, but I don't. I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg in that. I. I can't blame the fluoride, necessarily, because the diet is so bad.

Absolutely. Absolutely. There's a lot of issues, but basically they put fluoride. Fluoride in all of these things to prevent tooth decay. Yeah, it didn't work.

Yeah, that didn't work.

It didn't work. We still have tooth decay. But the other issue that's even bigger is that fluoride doesn't stay put when you drink it. It doesn't just go to your teeth when you put it on your teeth. It doesn't just stay there, unfortunately. It also goes to your bones and creates brittle bones. It also goes to your thyroid, which affects thyroid function. In fact, I was just researching just lately and found out that years ago, they would give people who had hyperthyroid problems. They would give them fluoride. Fluoride to decrease it because they knew it decreases thyroid function. So now we've got fluoride and all these things. And how many people have hypothyroid issues and how.

At least 25% of women, of adult women.

This is related to fluoride, and we're.

Seeing it much, much younger. And what we have to be even more aware of is people can have hypothyroidism with normal thyroid hormone levels, because what's happening is the fluoride is replacing the iodine in the molecule. So you have thyroid hormone that you can measure on a test, but it doesn't work. It's just a fluoride molecule in it.

Yep. I've heard it called type 2 hypothyroidism. It's not detectable on blood tests.

It's not detectable on blood tests. And you. And this is where being an astute clinician comes in, because you look at their numbers and they look okay. But what their story they're telling you, you know, they have thyroid dysfunction. They're tired, they're cold, they've gained weight. They. You know, things have changed for them. They. They feel, you know, slow and all of that. That's hypothyroidism.

Yep.

Even if the. Even if their labs are normal, which.

You know, what does that mean?

Talk about that for an hour. Because the kiss of death in this. In this society is normal labs, because no one knows how to interpret them.

Yep.

But that this is very real and happening.

Yep. And then the smoking gun One that I love that was just, it was the late, late last year showed that fluoride, high fluoride levels actually lead to a decrease in IQ in children. Yeah, I thought, what, at what point do we say this is actually not it? First of all, it didn't do the job we hoped it did. And number two, it's causing so many other problems. So I don't do anything fluoride at all, period. Ever, ever, ever. No fluoride in the mouth, no fluoride. So then people say, well, I'm just gonna have massive tooth decay. No, you're not. Because first of all, fluoride didn't really help. But the second thing that you need to know is there's an alternative called hydroxyapatite. And what hydroxyapatite is, is it's just literally the mineral your teeth are made of. This is a revolutionary concept here. So if you have tooth decay, what it means is minerals have been pulled from the tooth. Numerous reasons. Either diet acid sits too long on the tooth. It could also be because you're nutrient deficient. Then your body needs those nutrients elsewhere and pulls them from your teeth. These are, this, this is a nice ready made sikum. Minerals that can go and use if you don't have enough to take care of other things. So your teeth are mineral deficient when they have tooth decay. So what did we do? We put fluoride in. Well, cavities aren't a deficiency of fluoride. You know, there's no correlation there.

That's right.

Cavities are a deficiency of minerals. So what should we repair them with minerals? Just hydroxy appetite.

So I couldn't be so logical.

I know, isn't that wrong? It's so bad. So I couldn't find anything I loved, so I actually created a tooth powder line. And people are like, toothpowder. What the weird, what weird stuff is that?

Tell us about it.

It's just super simple. It's hydroxyapatite, bentonite, clay to detox the nasty, which will actually grab some of that mercury and help you get rid of it. And just some nice peppermint oil to flavor it. So it's very, very simple. I cannot believe we've sold probably hundreds of thousands of these by now. And people are like, literally, I had the start of a cavity. When I went to the dentist, I started using this, or my child did. We started using this and we went this time and there's no cavity at all. So you can rebuild teeth, you can repair teeth if here's the caveat, if the cavity is still in the outside layer, which is the enamel layer, the cavity is still in the outside layer. It's absolutely remineralizable. So that's phase number one, is if cavity small, hydroxy appetite, you can heal this. I sometimes have to do minerals on the inside, too. I say that. I say minerals on the outside, minerals on the inside. So minerals on the outside is the hydroxy appetite toothpowder and a mouthwash that I have hydroxy appetite in as well. And minerals on the inside is minerals and vitamin D3K2, which is allowing the body to uptake those minerals and put them where they belong. So that's how you heal small cavities. Now, what if you're into something bigger? So now you're beyond just the enamel layer. You're into what's called the dentin, where all those tubules live and the cavities start to spread like wildfire at that point. So what do you do when they're that stage? What we do. In fact, we get so many people that come and say, I've been told that I need a root canal. And first of all, that's like a swear word to me, because nobody needs a root canal. Like, you will not die without a root canal. So that phraseology needs to be changed. You know, they've been recommended a root canal. And so we have so many people.

I have the same thing in my world with my doctor said I need a mammogram. I'm like, you need to be radiated?

Yeah.

How is that possible?

Change this phraseology.

Yes.

Anyway, so if you've had a root canal recommended, we have a lot of people that come for a second opinion and just say, do I, you know, what else do I do? So here's the key. So we already talked about small cavities. Now the key is, is the tooth still alive? If the tooth is still alive, you're going to have symptoms. So is it cold sensitive? Is it hot sensitive? You know, when you drink something cold, you go, that means your tooth's still alive. That's a good sign. I'm very happy with that. So if you still have sensitivity in that tooth, your tooth is still, still alive, we can save it. And the way we do this is we remove the decay down to the deepest layer without uncovering that nerve, that command center. Remember, we want to leave it untouched. We remove the deepest decay without uncovering that. And then that's where ozone comes in. Ozone kills bacteria on contact. So we use ozone gas right up on that deepest layer, it kills all the bacteria there. We fill over top of it, leaving. This sounds a little heretical. We. We leave a little bit of that deepest layer of decay, but it's dead. It's not going to progress because there's no more bacteria in there. We leave it there, we fill over it, and the tooth actually repairs itself from the inside out. And it never progresses and never dies and the tooth stays alive. So that is the key is ozone. And that's where my directory really comes in. You can find dentists who have ozone who are doing this. So that's the key question. Is the tooth still alive? Now, if you already had. If you have an abscess, if you have swelling, if it hurts to bite on, like kilohertz, to bite on anything like that, if the tooth is already dead at that point, unfortunately, we don't have a solution other than to remove the tooth and replace it. And I tell people all the time, you know, we're trained in dental school to save teeth. Like that is our mission in life. Save teeth. And so I used to say, I will save your tooth at any cost. And now I say, I will save your health at any cost, even if it means removing and replacing a tooth. Because I can replace your teeth all day long, but I can't replace your health once it's lost. So we remove and replace teeth with ceramic dental implants. If the tooth is already dead, we don't even go through the root canal route. Because if you do a root canal, what are you going to end up with? Infection. That's going to affect the rest of you. You're going to have the tooth out eventually anyway. Let's just skip all that and go straight to removing and replacing the tooth. Yeah.

Amazing. You started to talk about wisdom teeth and wisdom tooth extraction before. Can we get into that a little bit?

Yep.

Because you like the rite of passage, right? I'm ready to have my wisdom teeth out.

Yep. And why, why, you know, why are mals. Why does everybody have braces now? Why are all of our teeth crooked? And why do we not have room for wisdom teeth? Because if you look at schools 300 years ago, everybody had all 32 teeth in their mouth. Why? Yeah, it's all diet related.

And they were beautiful. They were white, they were straight, they were beautiful.

Yep. Yep, it's all diet related.

Actually talks about that in his.

Yep, it's a very good book. The interesting thing is, is that the first bone affected by malnutrition is the top jaw. And I Learned this when I adopted a little boy who had an incredibly small top jaw. And I found out it was because his. He was malnourished for the first two neph years before he joined our family.

Why is that true? Out of curiosity.

Don't know. And actually, I do have a. Like, because this was. Whoever created us, created the system. You know, I have a reason that I suspect, because everything that's related to nourishment goes in the mouth. And so this is kind of the first place it hits. The first place it's going to affect is that top job. Gotcha. So first. First place that's affected by malnourishment is top jaw, which leads to small mouths, crooked teeth, no room for a wisdom tooth in your head. Now we'll say, well, gosh, my kids are fine. Like, they had plenty of nourishment. Well, we've been called the most overfed, undernourished, you know, society ever, because our food literally doesn't have nutrients in it anymore. And we could talk about this for hours, too.

Isn't there something to do with, like, our food now is processed and soft and we don't have to work as hard from an oral standpoint. Like, we used to chew on roots and. And vegetables and things that took a lot of work to get through.

Yeah. Bone follows muscle.

Yeah. We're not. We're not working for our food anymore.

No. So bone follows muscle. If you have to use those, and if you get muscle development, then you get bone development as well. So small mouths, no room for wisdom teeth, and we take them out. Well, why is this an issue? There's something called a ligament, periodontal ligament that surrounds every single tooth. And it doesn't come just out with the tooth. It's kind of like the placenta and the baby, you know, it comes independently. But when we're removing wisdom teeth, we're often way down here by nerves. There's a nerve that goes right through your jawbone down here and way up here by sinuses. Well, nobody's really wanting to poke around and create nerve damage or sinus perforation when we're taking out wisdom teeth. So that ligament just left there. And research shows that when the ligament's left there, the body doesn't know that the tooth is gone for about 10 days, because that ligament's kind of the thing that supplies, like the placenta, you know, it's the thing that. That supplies the nutrients. So body doesn't know the tooth is gone for about 10 days. In that 10 days time, the gum grows in. Because you think about it, how long does it take for your finger to heal? About 10 days, you know, so the gum grows over and this ligament creates this dead zone inside of the jawbone. Now, the dead zone has no blood flow, no anything inside of here. So no way to take care of that dead zone. The other thing, this is completely opinion. There's no research to support this, but this is my opinion. Think about when we take these teeth out, like teenage years. Well, our teenage years, first of all, the person's still growing, so there's a huge demand for minerals. They are eating poorly, they're sleeping poorly, they're stressed. It's the worst time to put four holes in someone's head.

Yeah.

Because they don't have the ability to heal very well during that time. So these dead zones form, and it's just the same story as with the root canals. Dead stuff attracts bugs. So bugs find these and they create all these are called cytokines. Basically, they're like these terrible inflammatory things that cause inflammation everywhere. So no blood flow in the dead spot, but they can dump their garbage out and then that gets in the bloodstream and goes everywhere. And here's the interesting thing. Remember those meridians? Guess what? The meridian is for those wisdom teeth areas, the endocrine system. So all sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, as well as thyroid adrenal strength. Do you know anybody who struggles with any sort of hormone issues?

No, I don't think that that's an issue for our population at all. No.

Yep. And then you say, well, how many people have had your wisdom teeth out? 95%. So could this be.

Is it really that high? Is it really that high? Oh, yeah.

At least.

Oh, my God.

So then you have correlation between hormone disruption and obviously, like you've said, this is a perfect storm. There's all kinds of your estrogenic things that you're dealing with over here. Then you have this weakness in the endocrine system wiring. It shorts everything and it just causes the snowball effect. So what do we do about it? We go in and we clean them out. Because I. Excuse me. There's practitioners who just do ozone. They just squirt ozone into the jawbone or they do a laser. But for me, it makes no sense. Again, my logical brain tells me if it's a dead ligament and a dead hole in here, I've got to go clean the ligament out and clean the dead stuff out in order for this to regenerate. So we go back in and we clean that out and we fill it up. And I've had stories where, like, I had this one girl, she had been literally bedbound at 32, and the day after we cleaned out wisdom teeth, her mom woke up and heard something in the kitchen, walked out, and she was up doing the dishes. She was like, what are you doing? She said, I feel better than I felt in 10 years. So just getting that burden off of the body and allowing the body to feel finally, finally be able to have good endocrine function without a short in the system. We see incredible results cleaning these out.

Okay, so do people even need their wisdom teeth out? And if you do, who. Who are the people that need their wisdom teeth out and what should be done at that time?

So I love to get kids because in kids, there's. There's all sorts. And we've talked to diet, we've talked, you know, hard foods, all those things. But there's also a lot of issues with less breastfeeding. And, like, I adopted two kiddos, so I'm the last mom on the planet that's ever going to guilt anybody about not breastfeeding, because I. I couldn't, you know, but there's a lot of sippy cup usage and pacifier usage and things, and it's just changing the shape of our mouths. It just is. It just is what it is. And so now what we do is we do something called interceptive orthodontics, where we're intercepting these growth issues while they're still growing, and we're shaping mouths to allow enough room for the teeth to come in. Because that's really the key is when there's not enough room for the teeth to come into the mouth, what they do is they sit back here. And oftentimes there's little. There's what we call communication, where basically saliva and bugs from your mouth can get around the wisdom teeth, but there's no way on earth you can clean it. So it creates tooth decay in the wisdom tooth itself. Sometimes it'll create a hole in the tooth in front of it, and you end up losing both of them. So the issue is that they're just back here. Not enough room for them to come in, and they're not cleanable back there. So if we can make mouths big enough to allow the teeth to fit, that's the solution. So we heavily lean into kiddos and say, okay, let's grow the mouths. Let's make enough room. Not only are we making enough room for wisdom teeth, we're making enough Room to breathe. And we see resolution of ADHD symptoms, bedwetting, snoring, this whole epidemic of people not sleeping nowadays. Do you know how many people actually had teeth taken out for braces? They had four teeth taken out right here. Breast, breast, breast, all the time. Because it's the easy way out. You have crooked teeth. Well, the easy way to fix it is let's just take some of those teeth out. Perfect. The problem is, is now we've created too small of a mouth for everything to fit and now tongue tissue falls in the back and no one's sleeping. So now you have the Ambien generation where they had teeth taken off our braces and they can't sleep. So we are widening mouths and adults as well. We widen everything out so there's enough room to breathe, but as a side effect, there's enough room for wisdom teeth to come in. So the question is, who needs them out? The people that can't fit them in. So the key is get ahead of the game and make room for them to fit.

Can you at the point point where they are teenagers and they're told that they need them out, can you at that time widen their mouths? Can you expand them so that there's room for them or is it too late at that point?

You know, it depends if we're talking a 14 year old versus an 18 year old, you know, they're both teenagers, but 18 year old, we're probably at the end game. 14 year old, absolutely. So it's really at that teenage, early teenage time where we're saying, do we need to expand the mouth? Do we need to make more room for growth here, for breathing, for everything. Okay.

I want to make sure that we talked about all of the things that you knew to be true when you went to dental school that you know to not be true today. So I know we talked about fluoride, we talked about mercury and the fact that mercury is not safe.

Right.

Like if you need a Hazmat suit for any other situation where you're encountering mercury, it's for sure not safe to be in your mouth. Right. We talked about root canals, we talked about wisdom teeth. Are there any other non truisms that you have encountered through your career?

The only one that I talk about all the time is that cavities are completely. Because you don't brush your teeth. And that's just simply not true. And I see it day in, day out because I'll see someone and I can tell if you've brushed your teeth. Okay, Just So you know, we can tell. We can tell if you only brushed your teeth yesterday and you haven't ever brushed them before yet, we can tell.

I tell my son that all the time. I'm like, you know, the dentist knows. But you only brush your teeth in anticipation of going to the dentist.

Right? Bed brushing, you know, you're basically, you're brushing on your deathbed, man, right before you come to see us. Yeah, So I can tell. So I'll look at a mouth and I can tell also if somebody's always had cavities because I look at their X rays and this is a, you know, 47 year old woman and she's got 15, 15 fillings and four root canals and seven crowns. And I'm like, you've been the kid who's always had cavities, haven't you? And usually they start to cry like, yeah, my brother never brushed teeth and he never had a cavity. And every second, every single time I went, I had seven. And so we start talking and say, it's not about brushing your teeth because when I look at your teeth now, your teeth are clean, you're doing a good job. And they'll cry even more and say, I know I am. Why do I still get cavities? And yeah, about nutrition, the body is connected. Amazing, isn't it? The body is connected head to toe. And if your body needs nutrients somewhere else that it cannot get because our food is deficient, because our guts aren't absorbing, that's a big one. I talk to people all the time about, you might be eating the most beautiful food in the world, the most amazing supplements you've ever, you know, ever imagined. But if your gut actually can't absorb them because of low stomach acid, which again, that's a whole hour long talk. Mercury, that too. But if you can't absorb nutrients, your body will find them wherever it can. So it goes into survival mode. This is why you gain weight, this is why you get tooth decay, because your body needs minerals that it's not getting through the food.

And, and this is one of the causes of osteoporosis, incidentally. So people need to know that while they're, you know, talking about going on bisphosphonates. If you have osteoporosis, it's your body trying to get that, those nutrients. So you have to figure out why you're not getting the nutrients that you need and stop your body from stealing from your stores.

And I tell people, if you have cavities, you have cavities in Your bones as well. Yeah. So your teeth are an early warning system. They're a part. We can see. I can see your teeth. I can't see your bones. But if your teeth have holes, so do your bones. So pay attention.

Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true.

So.

People get cavities because of nutrient deficiencies, right?

Yep. But is there, is there also.

An element of it that. I know you said it's not about toothbrushing, but I do think that we are creating an environment and I would love for you to talk about the oral microbiome a little bit, but we are creating a different microbiome than what we had seen previously. Because in almost everything there is sugar and some form of sugar. And our, you know, I, I watch all these kids with their sippy cups that are filled with milk, that is sugar, that filled with juice, that is sugar. And we're just bathing our mouths and it's influencing the oral microbiome 100%.

So cavities are still from brushing. You absolutely need to brush your teeth and you absolutely need to keep sugar off. So let's talk about, how does sugar relate to cavities? Because, because everybody says sugar causes cavities. It's actually not true. There's a step in between. Bacteria in your mouth eat sugar. When they eat sugar, they poop acid. That's the way I like to describe it for kids because like, oh, gross, that's really what it is. So they poop acid. Now, acid dissolves minerals. If you've ever done that experiment where you pour coke on the battery terminals and your, your car battery and it just goes, you know, eats off all that mineral buildup. That's what it does. So acid from the bacteria or from food, either one will dissolve the minerals out of your teeth. Now remember we talked about, that's what a cavity is. So when minerals are pulled out of the enamel, bugs crawl in, they eat more sugar, they poop more acid, they dissolve more minerals, they crawl in further. That's all a cavity is. So if you are feeding your teeth with, Are you feeding your mouth with bacteria? The sugar love or the bacteria. Sorry. If you're feeding your mouth with the sugar that the bacteria love. Exactly. You are going to have higher levels of acid. You're gonna have more tooth decay no matter what. So the diet is absolutely crucial here. You cannot be giving non stop sugary things or acidic things. This goes to the soda as well. You can't be. Or, and even, even lemon water things that people think they're doing for good. They're doing it all day long. Sipping lemon water all day long. You're dissolving the minerals in your teeth all day long. You cannot acid on your mouth all day long.

Yeah, and I think that that is, that is what's really notable is the all day long. No one should be doing anything all day long.

Nope. Nope. And your body has this natural ability to rebalance the ph, the acidity in your mouth. It's called, called saliva. But if you never give your chance, your mouth a chance to not have something in it, the saliva can't do its job. So you have to have a rest period in between snacking. You can't just snack all day long. Your mouth is always going to be acidic. You can't drink all day long, your mouth is always going to be acidic. Other than water, water's the only thing that doesn't change the acid base balance in your mouth. So if you consistently feed your mouth lots of sugar, guess what's going to show up? The bugs that love sugar and the bugs that love sugar are the ones that cause cavities. So it does change the oral microbiome. There's one other thing that changes it and that's a lot of the products that we use today from a tooth care standpoint. But even some of the foods and things we eat have antimicrobials in them. And we think this is a good thing. Like, oh yeah, let's kill all the bugs. This is the bugs are the enemy. Well, bugs are only the enemy when they're the enemy bugs. There's a lot of really good bugs that are actually so mouthwashes that have high levels of alcohol in them, which are pretty, pretty much every conventional mouthwash. Listerine. What do you think the burn is? That's alcohol. What that's doing is it's killing all the bugs in the mouth and in your gut because guarantee you you're swallowing a little bit of that, so you're throwing off the entire microbiome. All of a sudden the bad guys flourish and you have out of control gut issues, out of control tooth decay. Because the acid loving bugs are the bad guys. Those are not the ones you want. And they're the ones that are going to create a lot of havoc in the mouth and in the body. So you have to give your mouth a time to regenerate, to rebalance. And you cannot be using all these antimicrobials in the mouth. Things that kill bugs like alcohol. And there's triclosan, which is in a lot of toothpastes, which is just a. It's. It's a thing that they are going to use on a surface disinfectant to kill bacteria.

It's an antimicrobial, so that, you know, your toothpaste can last in the tube longer and not grow bacteria, but at the same time, it is inhibiting the healthy growth of bacteria in your mouth. Because we need those microbes. They are supporting our health just like we need that our commensal or our beneficial microbes in our gut.

Yep.

Right. Okay. Husband, I hope you heard that, because we are not to use those alcohol based mouthwashes and that conventional toothpaste. Husband, please hear that.

Yep. I'll send you some. You can try that. He's gonna actually love mouthwash that I have. People are like, I want to drink that stuff. It's so amazing.

Okay, I would love. I would love to try. I hope he would love to try. He generally follows behind my lead by about three. Three years. Yeah, that's my husband working. I'm working on it. I'm working on it.

Let's stop her.

Tell me about your book.

Yep. So why in the world did I write a book that's not about dentistry? I actually have multiple books, but this one's not about dentistry. It does have a lot of dental, little snippets in there. But it's basically my story of getting well. You know, I often have told my story of getting sick, but this is my story of getting well. And while I was trying to get well, I studied all sorts of traditional medical systems because I was really questioning modern medicine, you know, the modern medicine that I've been trained in. I thought, what in the world? I didn't know any of this. What else do I not know? And I became really disenchanted with it all. And so I started studying all these traditional medical things. Ayurveda, Chinese traditional medicine, German herbalism, Native American medicine. And I realized that they all had such value in different ways, but they were so confusing. Everything had a different name for things. And even though it kind of meant the same thing, it used a different word and a different name. And I knew no one was going to study things like that. So what I did is I took all of that information and I put it into a framework that everybody can understand. So going back to your cells, do the healing. What do they need to heal? What I've figured out is that all of these traditional medical systems, basically, it doesn't matter. Eastern medicine, western medicine, Ayurveda, it doesn't really matter. It's what do your cells really need? And it's often difficult to figure out where to start. So all of those traditional medical systems used the seasons of the earth and the elements of the earth in some way. So they would classify our bodies as I'm an air, or I'm a water, or I'm a fire, or I'm a different thing. And so I put those all together into a classification that I call seasons. So you use your symptoms, you plug it into a symptoms assessment, and you can do this right now online, go to livingwellbook.com and you can get the free seasons assessment. And it pops out based on your symptoms, which season you were in. So let's say it says you're in spring. It means your liver is struggling right now because spring is correlated with liver and gallbladder. And if you think about spring, it's all about renewal and detoxing and cleansing and fresh and green. And that's what liver and gallbladder needs. So it's a system to say, what do my cells need? What do they need right now? And how do I give it to them? And to give you a starting point and to give you very actionable things to do, all based on the elements of the earth, seasons of the earth. So it's kind of combining this crazy I'm a gardener, I'm a cook, I'm a grandma, all these things. But I'm also a scientist and a doctor. And how do we make it come together so that every single person in the world can take charge of their own health and can keep themselves well?

Well, you are all those things, all those amazing things. And you're also a thought leader. And I am, I'm certain that people will listen to this and want to know how they can work with you. So talk to us about what that process is like and how they can work with you. And you have compiled a directory of people to work with in the event that they can't come see you in American Fork, Utah?

Yes, yes. That's the most common question we get on all of our social channels is how do I find a dentist just like you? So we finally said we better just find some dentists just like us and put them on a directory. So, yes, go to livingwellwithdrmichelle.com you're going to see our dental directory on there. It's free. It's going to be the dentist that we have vetted and figured out that they have some of these same they might not do Everything that I do, but they do some of what I do. And so you still call and find out. And I've got information on my website all about which questions to ask and what to find out about. If you want to come to Utah and see us, we have a large multi specialty practice, so we have a lot of doctors under one roof. So you come once and we see a lot of patients from everywhere and we are very good at facilitating. You see multiple specialists. It's kind of like going to the Mayo Clinic. You know, you see multiple doctors when you're there. And we work to navigate that and really cohesively make a seamless visit to take care of everything while you're there for a few different visits. But, you know, my biggest belief is I can't help everybody, but somebody can help everybody. So I'm going to help you find those people that can. And I'm going to try to teach as many practitioners as I can and honestly, as many of you as I can. So you can go to your dentist and say, there's something more here. I think you need to, you know, learn more or do more or find out more or go find a new one that, that can do that.

Yeah.

And, you know, we all have to hold our providers accountable because the information is out there. And anyone who is questioning this, like, I still, my, I mean, my kids are 16 and 18 now, but for years when my, when our dentist, because I don't, I don't think we have a holistic dentist very close to us. So I took my kids. Yeah. Now I'm going to look in the directory. But for years I took my kids to a traditional dentist who would say, do we have permission to give your kids fluoride treatments? And I'm like, no. And so like I was the mom at the dentist who was getting the stink eye.

Yeah. Rolling their eyes. Are you going, she's the crazy one. Great. Right? She's crazy one. Yeah, yeah.

I'm sure that I have that in my chart like crazy. But, but we, it's, it's time for people who are going to their providers to say, listen, we, we know now we know and you need to do this better and they can do it better. Are there training programs? Like, I know for me, when I, when I wanted to walk outside of conventional medicine, I mean, I'm a very conventionally trained surgeon. Right. Like, went to one of the top medical schools in the country, did a general surgery residency, did a breast cancer fellowship. Like traditional, traditional, traditional. And I had to go to The Institute for functional medicine and A4M in order to get my real education.

Yeah, right.

Are there ways of dentists to get this kind of education?

There are, there are. It's. It's easier now than it was when I was looking for. Sure. But the IA, the IAOMT is a nice starting place. I also have training for dentists on my site. So if you know somebody and I have training for dentists there, I speak conferences and try just to bring this information. Honestly, my focus of the inform of information is about how do we make this accessible for people? How do we make it easier to see a dentist? How do we make it easier for them to. To question fluoride and us not make them feel guilty? How do we, you know, how do we make it easier to get the kind of dental care you're looking for? So there are organizations and the more you ask, the more there will have to be. So you will drive the movement.

Okay, so this book sounds amazing. I know that people are going to want a copy. It's not out yet, but you can pre order, right?

Yes. And please, this is actually something I'm going to ask. This is an ask I'm putting out there right now. Pre orders are so important for these kinds of books because what it does is it alerts Amazon and Barnes and Noble and the publishers that people are interested in these topics and so they'll promote the book and they'll print more. And so when you pre order the book, what you get is you get the seasons assessment that I told you about. You get that for free and you get a first steps get guide, all for free. So don't worry, you don't have to wait until the book is released. You're going to get a bunch of stuff as well as all of the pre order early bird bonuses and things that are going to come along until the book comes out. So yes, livingwellbook.com please support these movements and help us to get the word out that this is something that you are interested in knowing more about and you support books like this. Thank you.

Awesome. So everyone go to livingwellbook.com and pre order. When will the book be out?

May 20th.

Amazing. Amazing. So everyone go make sure you get your copy. I'm. I'm going to log on and get my copy as soon as we finish recording today. And I am so grateful to you and the amazing work that you're doing. And not for nothing, but it was pretty brave because I know that it was driven by your own personal illness and your own personal struggle. But I also know that it's very hard to walk outside of the conventional paradigm. And I am sure that you have received some very not nice reception from your previous colleagues. And you, I'm sure, have been exposed to a considerable amount of criticism for doing what you do. So it is both brave and noble to and you are really helping people. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for moving this needle ahead and for really creating a new path for people behind you to follow. You've done all of the heavy lifting for them and it's really amazing.

Thank you. I appreciate that. So if you enjoyed this episode, please.

Share it with someone who needs to hear it. And quite frankly, everyone really needs to hear this.

Everyone who has Keith I say yes.

Everyone who has teeth needs to hear this. So share it with your friend, your mother, your daughter, your neighbor, your colleague at work, and make sure that you like it. Leave us a comment. We'd love to hear your feedback and know that I will be back next week, same time, same place. It's Dr. Jen, I forget.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Keeping a breast podcast with Dr. Jen. I hope you found the discussion informative and empowering. Remember, breast health is health, so by staying informed and taking proactive steps, you have the power to optimize your well being. My team and I encourage you to apply the knowledge gained from today's episode to make positive changes in your life and share what you've learned with others. If you enjoyed this episode episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback and support mean the world to us and help us to reach more people who can benefit from these conversations. Stay connected with me on social media where I share additional resources, advice, updates and announcements related to breast health. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Dr. Jensimmons and remember, MyGen has two N's, so until next time, remember to stay proactive, informed and confident in your breast health journey. The key to your health is you.