13. Dr. Leedia Riman: Your Oral Microbiome, Optimizing Holistically + How You Should Actually Take Care of Your Teeth

What are the top three things that we could start doing right now to optimize our oral health naturally?

Love it. Clean your nose. Saline. Just put some saline up your nose, or if you're congested, do the neti pot and blow your nose really well. Okay. Very inexpensive. Put your tongue in the right position, roof of your mouth, and just start practicing with your kids, with your family, with your husband. Do like, 10, three times a day.

Great.

And breathe.

Breathe.

We forgot to breathe.

The following is an operation podcast production. All right. I'm so excited to sit with you. This is Dr. Lydia Ruman.

Thank you so much for having me. No one said Rumaan before. I love it.

I was waiting for your reaction. Yeah, it's about our ancestors. So, so excited to have you here because you are someone who really represents having a voice as a dentist who can then go out into the world and inspire people to take proactive action. And I also love that you just speak to so many of the shortcomings that are very relevant in our dental and healthcare system. System also. So we're going to cover a lot of things today, but before we dive into that, this podcast is all about becoming rooted. So going back to our roots and becoming more rooted in yourself, in your life, and in your inner wisdom. So what are three things that get you more rooted in your life and happiness?

Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here with you. Three things. Wow. Three. That's a beautiful question. Not with regards to dental health only, and just in general. I think the. The three things have shifted over time. I'm on my third pregnancy, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But it was a very hard pregnancy, and I feel like one of the lessons that God was telling me was is that I needed to rest more. And we don't rest. We're living in la, beautiful city, hustling and bustling. But I've always been on the go, go, go. Grew up overseas. My mom was always working, and. But then when I go to the village where I'm from in Lebanon, I'd see, like, women cooking together, like, all of them together. Like, 20 women, like. And when I was on bed rest, these. These images would come to me. So I feel rest has been a priority for me, and I want to show my daughters how to rest. And I. I get emotional thinking about this, because the other day they wanted to go out and play, and I was very tired, and normally I would have pushed myself because I feel guilty because I do work and I do leave the house, and. And I'm trying to get rid of that guilt, and I'm like, no, mama, can we rest? Like, let's. Mama needs to rest right now. Do you want to rest with me or do you want to have independent play outside? And they actually said, I want to rest with you. So they needed to rest too. Like, we're over scheduling our children from class to class, and. And they're in school, or we homeschool, but it's like a school school. It's like a pod. And. And. And I'm noticing, like, I'm having to break those generational things that have been passed on where you gotta go, go, go, go, go. And then you look at other women who are achieving and you can achieve while resting. Like, you don't have to be.

It's actually part of our superpower.

Exactly right. And I'm just learning that last year, I'm almost 40.

Yeah.

So rest is huge. I've always talked about n my client, like, root cause to dental decay and dental disease and gum disease. And we gotta look at what we're eating. Like, so that. Another thing, in the villages where I'm from, we have the broth, we have the things from the land. There's nothing packaged. And that's how I try to live my life at home as best as possible. But I teach my kids about that. Like, food. Food is your superpower. Like, if you're not feeling well, you can eat something to make you feel better, and it's not chocolate and chips.

Yeah.

So I think that's the second. So rest, nutrition, and then the final thing is community. That I didn't realize how much I needed my community also until this pregnancy, because when you're strong and you're healthy and you're well and independent, you're going. Yeah, you're going. And I mean, I have some great friends all over the world, and I haven't nurtured a lot of those relationships because I've been on the go, go, go, and they love me and understand me and. But it's like, now it's like, no, I want these relationships a little more active in my life.

Yeah. Gorgeous. I'm getting so excited. I just. I love that I'm finally doing this podcast because with this as an entryway, you said your ethnic background is Lebanese. Each person that's been on has really referenced a part of their past. Right. As healing. And this is really the intention. Like, we live in this world of fast pace. We're living in an era of hyper wellness, where so much is being thrown at us. Yet, you know, although you would think that we're living longer and happier, we're not. We're actually. Our health span is not lengthening or getting more sick. We're suffering from anxiety and depression, and most people are having a hard time coping. Like, the system is. Is a mess. So. I'm so proud of you for taking that step this past year. It landed with me because, like, I've really been ma. Trying to master the art of being so in our mind was like, oh, I got to do this as a mom, especially. Right. Mom, entrepreneur, running a couple businesses, wanting to show up for everybody and our friends. It's like, no, no, no. Just be. Just be today.

Yes. Right? Yes.

That's beautiful. You're six. Six months pregnant now.

Yes.

Which is such a special, special time. We'll get more into the pregnancy aspect of things, but I'd love to start off maybe with, like, talk about where do you think that the deficiencies are in the world of healthcare when it comes to dentistry?

You kind of summed it up beautifully right now. The art of being. We're not present. People aren't feeling like there's. We're so far away from our bodies. We're so far away with. I mean, medicine is beautiful. I mean, we've come a long way, like, the types of surgeries that they can do now and a lot less invasive procedures. So I honor that, and I love that. And there's a lot of beautiful scientists working on advancing that. But that's being overused and in overdrive, and the pharmaceutical industry and taking a pill for everything, instead of feeling the. Like, it's. I felt like if I didn't feel in this pregnancy, I wouldn't have learned all the lessons that I'm learning, and I'm still learning.

Yeah. Yeah.

And when we are so far away from being like you said.

Yeah.

It's. It's like you're drugged up in your own body.

Yeah. And I feel like media has such a big part to play with this. Right. Because we're constantly being sold a program, a practitioner, a guru, a product, a methodology, a type of diet, and the list goes on. And we're so desperate to feel better that we latch onto these things.

And it's overwhelming.

And it's overwhelming. Like, even as practitioners, you not agree. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, I thought I knew something. And then there's science that proves this, but you can also find science that's contraindicative of what you Just read. So, yeah, we need to turn down the noise on that for sure. So I think this is where practitioners like you, who are so, you know, deeply focused on getting to the root cause, right? The root cause of the imbalance. And maybe this is something that even happens as a mother, you know, we don't want to just throw these things at our kids to get rid of those symptoms. We're like, whoa, how did it start? How can we get to the root cause of the suffering to make sure that it doesn't progress? You know, is there something that's in the house that I've done? Is there a dietary change that we can make? So why do you think overall health is so important? You know, if people come to see you, I can imagine upon a first visit, they're like, clean my mouth. Tell me what's up with these fillings. You know, but, you know, tell me.

Your approach, your mouth is the last thing I look at. It's the last thing I care about is your dentist. No, I'm joking. Of course I care about your mouth. But it's truly the last thing that I look at because I had this child that came in a few months, months ago. I've limited seeing children because it was before my pregnancy so about like eight months ago. And he was on anti anxiety medications and antidepressants.

Wow.

And it just broke my heart because this kid was suffering like he was. So like the doctors were just trying to mask everything. And his parents were desperate and the desperate, they have so much faith in the medical system and they didn't question anything. And I think it's very important as a mother to question everything. And if your practitioner has an issue with that, then you need to find somebody else. I just needed to say that right.

Now, I love you and I'd just like an own in on that. If you don't have a doctor or a dentist who's your partner in healing, meaning you can ask questions and they have answers and they're supportive and just under helping you understand, then they're not the right practitioner.

I'm your guide. I'm. I, of course, yeah, I went to more school than you in the world of dentistry. And I can guide you and I can tell you the pros and cons of every single type of procedure that you may need or not need. But if you ask me a question that I'm not sure about or is like, I'm open to that because that's an opportunity for me to learn and to grow. And I think even Doctors have lost sight of being. They're not being with their patients.

Right.

So I worked in corporate dentistry for a whooping three days. I really needed the money. After dental school, I was going to.

Say, you have to pay it off. Yeah.

You have to pay your loans and. But I quit midday in two of those offices.

Wow.

And this was before I was a holistic dentist or. Yeah.

And did you realize at that time that the dentistry that you learned, it was just this antiquated way of teaching?

I realized at that time that. That there's a lot of robots in the system.

Yeah.

There's just so many robots. And it was about the number of patients that you saw, and it's about the production. And of course, if you have a business, money is important. You need to produce, you need to make a profit. I'm not saying that, that you shouldn't, but I truly believe that you can produce and make amazing profits by being super honest and taking your time with patients.

Yeah.

And, and, and I'm, I'm so grateful that my office, like, has proven that, like, a lot of people are like, wait, your. Your appointments are an hour and a half long. I'm like, yeah, I need to learn about you. I need to talk to you. I need the right set of X rays, I need the right pictures. I need to talk about your nutrition and all that. So back to this boy to finish that story. So he's on two anti. So he's about 12 years old. How old's your son?

He's just turned nine. My daughter's five.

So, yeah. About your son's age? Like 10 to 11. And he looked like a mouth breather. Like, I knew he was mouth breathing. So we got into diet. We got into if they've ever done food testing, food allergy testing, and they're like, you're a dentist. Why are you asking about food allergies? I'm like, the food allergies are more important than his teeth. Because if we know about any of that and if he's sleeping well at night, he's less likely gonna need these medications. Long story short, I sent him to the right provider. We got some testing done. He was allergic to xyz. They cut that out of his diet, and now they're weaning him off the drugs.

Incredible.

And he changed his life. Yeah, I, I help. Yeah, I helped change his life. And, and that to me, especially now, being pregnant and having lost a baby and felt a loss and. But I haven't met this baby. Imagine, like, seeing your baby Suffering after you've met him and you've raised him.

Yeah.

Like that's detrimental to a whole home. Like that will interfere with the parents's relationships. Like the stress level in the home, it just impacts everything you're whole body well being. Like when one person is sick in the home, the whole home gets impacted.

Absolutely.

So getting to the root cause, and now he's doing much better. We're expanding him with the right practitioner and he's thriving. He's. So it's, it's not difficult, but it takes time.

Yeah. You really do have to become an investigator. Right.

100.

It's interesting. I was on the way over here this morning. I was thinking about oral health as a kid. I don't even remember the video in school where they taught you how to brush your teeth. Right. I remember hating the dentist, clenching the side of the chair. But my mom always like humming and holding my hand. And my mom has rheumatoid arthritis. She has for over 35 years. And so from the very beginning, she was always very introspective. And when she started working with eastern trained doctors, she noticed that the first thing that they would do is look at the mouth. Not necessarily at the health of the mouth, but as the mouth is telling a story, Right. Looking at the structure of the tongue, the color and the coating of the tongue, looking at the gums and stuff like that. My gosh, it just makes sense because like, if your teeth have these roots that are rooting into the entire body, right. They're like messengers that go out into your lymphatic system. So, you know, I think what is a misconception then about oral care?

I always say we got to put our mouth back into our body. Like it's, it's like in dental school, we're separate from the medical students. I remember we were dissecting cadavers in anatomy class. And then we would dissect the head and neck area and they would dissect the rest of the body. And then I remember being in that class, I was like, why don't we dissect the whole body? Like the mouth is part of a body. Like, for me, it was so intuitive that we were separating the mouth from the body. The only time we don't is when somebody needs a heart transplant or a liver transplant or any sort of transplant. Like, and they want clearance from the dentist. And I'm like, if we want clearance from the dentist when we're changing, or shouldn't we always want clearance from the dentist?

Yeah, absolutely.

It's so connected. So, yeah, you got to look at infection. Your mouth is a huge source of infection. There's a beautiful picture I want to send to you for you to see all the nerves and how it connects to your brain. And now there's a new research article talking about periodontal disease and gum disease and its impact on predisposition for Alzheimer's and dementia. How if you do have an infected root canal, you're more likely to have rheumatoid arthritis. Yeah. And I've had some amazing healing stories in my clinic where we've removed some infected root canals. And she's like, I've been in pain for 30 years. And three weeks after the extraction, she's like, I don't feel pain anymore.

Wow.

Does that happen with everybody? No, but it happens quite a bit of, you know, it's multifactorial. Anything autoimmune is multifactorial.

Absolutely. But I do remember, you know, my parents would teach me how to massage my gum with clove oil and stuff like that.

Amazing.

In the shower and stuff. In the importance of not eating so many fast processed foods. Right. Like my mom would, before anything else would hit the table. There would always be a vegetable. Right. Not that I would always eat it, but, you know, with children, it's like we're just imprinting. Hopefully they'll start doing this when they're older. And sure enough, it's exactly what I do with my kids now. Right. So it might not always work, but I think that to your point, there's so many things that we can do. Right. Especially with. You know, I talk a lot on these podcasts about my heart surgery. Right. My cardiologist never asked me about my oral care ever. Or the stress in my life.

You had heart surgery? Wow.

Yeah. I've had two ablations. Two separate ablations. I was put on beta blockers and everything. No one ever talked to me about my oral care until I saw an ayurvedic practitioner and then it became the first area of focus. Right. So this is a big misconception also in the world of dentistry. What are some other big mistakes that you see happening right now?

Big mistakes is where we just jump to treatment and we don't find out why it's needed. We're overdoing root canals like crazy. Certain insurance driven offices.

Right.

Unfortunately, when you have a root canal and a crown, and those are two procedures that are fully overdone in the world of dentistry, and they're very aggressive, there's A time and place for both. There is, but not. It's done maybe 75% over what it needs to be done. But insurances will pay because you have a great before and after X ray. But you can heal your enamel. A lot of people think that they can't heal cavities if the cavity is small enough. You don't need to drill on the tooth. Just because you show a small cavity on an X ray doesn't mean you need to drill it. So most people, when I tell them that, they're like, wait, I can, I can heal my cavity? Like, yeah, you can. And you all can also halt the progression of larger cavities as well. Even if I, I. Someone the other day asked me, they're like, the way you're, you're, you're doing your business, you're not going to have any more business. I'm like, trust me, I have plenty of business. I'm, I'm fine. All the dentists are fine. Even if they all practice the same way, there's always going to be. It's, it's insane how it's like from last. I'm like, if there is an abund students and, and wouldn't it be nicer that you're actually practicing healthcare? I took a Hippocratic oath to do no harm.

Absolutely.

So when. So at one of the corporate offices, they're like, oh, there's a root canal and crown in there for you. So I go in and the person didn't need a root canal. It had a very deep cavity. But I removed the cavity and it didn't hit the nerve.

Wow.

And I go out, I'm like, Dr. XYZ, he doesn't need a root canal. They're like, oh, it's close enough to the nerve. Just do it and just do it. Just do it. I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't. It's my license online.

Good for you.

And I really needed the money that day. I'm like, but I'm like, I'd rather be a Starbucks barista. I'd make more money from.

Wow.

He's like, what? I'm like, you're gonna have to do it. I don't feel comfortable doing a root canal on that tooth if it needed it. And it was a very hard moment for me in my life because I had just moved back from Saudi. Like, I was working out there for a bit. I moved back, I was all alone in la. I had to make my rent payment. Like, it wasn't even about the Loan payment and I had to like live. But I go in and I look at this patient and he's open and so vulnerable. And one thing, to answer the question that you just asked, you need to be able to be vulnerable and feel safe with your practitioner.

Does anyone look forward to go to the dentist? I don't know who can say what they're doing.

It's because you don't know what they're doing. They're like mechanics, they're like plumbers. You don't know what the hell we're doing in there. So that's why. So I actually ended up leaving and quitting that job that same day. But I remember I cried for two hours because I really needed that paycheck.

Wow. I'm just in awe of you. You're honoring your intuition. You're having a voice in a male dominated world.

It was very hard. It was very, very, very hard. And he was a lot taller than me too and he was like, oh my God. But now I feel really good about it that day. I felt horrible. But then, you know, you just go and, and God opens doors and I'm fine. Like, yeah, we're good.

Well, this is where I draw a parallel to the healthcare world, right. So you know, when I start working with my clients, I always ask them to do a full panel of their blood lab, sometimes a saliva test, we understand their hormones, sometimes even stool. And, and when they give these request, when they give these requests to their primary care, their primary care just laughs, right? Like, oh, we don't need to check this.

Why?

You know, your last physical came back fine. You're young, you're healthy, live your life. And it's like, oh my gosh. But because the person, you know, Mona, he's been my doctor for years, right? But it's also like they come into the office, they've got this white lab coat on, they're in a position of authority. Like you have to trust them that they've got the training and the skills and everything to be able to give you the best advice. But I think like we're in an era that is shifting now, right? Like we understand that there is a problem that you know that doctors have not had any training in nutrition. When food intaking food, the information from food keeps us alive.

What a concept.

So this is all happening now. But I really attribute it, I, I really attribute that scenario to the dentist also because you know, they're behind a mask also. You're down in a seat with a light flashing on you and you Just hope for the best. You want it to be over as soon as possible. And I think that for a lot of people listening, this is just going to be a bit of a wake up call. Like, oh, I don't need to have that relationship with my dentist.

No.

And I should have a dentist that's asking. You know, the things that I'm hearing you talk about one cavity to root canals or fillings. Right. Amalgam fillings also. So let's just say with those four things, unless there's something else that you see a lot of, at what point are you able to hold off the process? Or what are some things that you can do before you go for the surgery or the filling?

You know, it's all about relationships and communication. Like, I had a pregnant woman yesterday, and I've been seeing her for about a year and a half, and she's terrified from the dentist. Like, she feels very comfortable with me, but she's very terrified. She's had really, really bad experiences when she was younger. And there's two teeth that need to be filled. They need to have. They need to have dental work on. She has old dental work. It's breaking down. And she's psychologically not ready. Like, she's just not ready. So I can do two things I can focus on. Oh, I need to produce from this account and, and have her come in so that we can do the work. Or I win her over for life and I maintain what she has with me. Giving her full, informed consent.

Yeah, right.

It's. It's not black and white. If there's anything we learned from the COVID era.

Yeah.

Things are not black and white. And a lot of people are waking up to that. So now instead of bringing her into the office every three months for a cleaning, I'm bringing her in every two months to maintain those teeth until she's ready. She gives birth beautifully and safely. I hope every pregnant woman does. And then she can come back after she feels better. Because if you're not feeling good, treatment won't work as well. Nothing works as well when you're not feeling good. If you're driving. If I'm driving here and I'm like, I hate Santa Monica. I hate Santa Monica. I hate Santa Monica. Something's gonna happen that's not good to me. And Santa Monica or wherever, whatever city that you live in, if you're going to the dentist, I hate the dentist. I hate the dentist. I hate. It's just not a healthy. And then you pass that on to your kids. And that's where I want to break that barrier, because it's. We don't want to pass that on to our kids because you can have beautiful relationships with your dentists. It really. You know, I'm just so proud of what we've built because people, like, look forward. Moms are like, oh, it's my time to relax here. It feels like a spa. And sometimes we need to do treatment, but when there's trust, they're happy to do the treatment.

Just, like.

If I need to change something in my diet and I trust you, I'm gonna be happy to serve me as I'm working with you.

Absolutely.

It's as simple as that. One other thing also. You said micronutrient testing, testing all the levels, like, the importance of, like, vitamin D. Like, if people are low on vitamin D, there are a lot more likely to get dental cavities. A lot. And you actually start seeing the changes in the pulp chamber on the X ray. Like, I've been able to. I'm like, do you see that? And they're like, yeah, like, test your vitamin D. They do, and they're super low.

Wow. Is that the structure or the. Of the tooth, or do you think it's because of the food, the poor food choices or food cravings that come with those deficiencies?

I think it's both. I think it's both. I think we're not out in the sun enough. Yeah, Kids are inside. I mean, I've been inside for the past six months now. I'm a lot better. I'm out and walking. But I felt a different mental difference. Mentally, I felt a difference. Orally, I felt a difference, like, my whole body.

Right.

And you feel it when you're out and hell in the healthy sun and. And eating good, nutritious food. Broth is a staple on my table. We always have that. Taking it back to basic ancestral. We always had broth. Growing up, when I was. The few years that I spent in the village, and then now it's so. It's. Yeah, I lost my train of thought. There's just so much I want to tell you.

Yeah, we'll keep going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

I'll keep going back to this.

But.

But I think, like, one. Maybe what you're talking about really ties into this idea of an oral microbiome. Right. So this is something that is becoming known. It's, you know, becoming another trendy buzzword as microbiome is, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but as with the gut microbiome there's still a lot to understand about the oral microbiome, but the fact that, like, you know, the first stage of digestion literally starts in the mouth. Right?

Yeah.

Your mouth is connected to your anus.

Yeah.

Right. Everything in between is also connected. So with the state of our oral microbiome, what are some of the preventative measures that you really talk about that we wouldn't expect?

Number one is nasal hygiene and mouth breathing. So when your nose is clear, like every night, my daughters and I blow our nose together. We spray saline up our nose. The spray, especially for congested. It's winter. Winter here in la, but wherever you're at, it's dry. It's so dry. We have a humidifier and an air purifier. So this has nothing to do with your teeth, but it has everything to do with your teeth.

Yeah.

The air we breathe, the quality of the air that we breathe. You don't want mold. You can't live in mold. It's like, because you're going to start grinding the crap out of your teeth. So we're looking at the environment in which we're being in. So my daughters now know they clean their nose. That's like, part of our routine at night.

Okay. Oral microbiome. Start with your nose.

Start with your nose.

Simple saline solution. It costs, like, nothing.

Nothing.

Do you ever recommend putting oil in the nose? This is what we do in Ayurveda.

Yeah.

To just lubricate 100%.

100. That's wonderful. Especially if you don't have a humidifier. Or there's always solutions if you don't have something. Like, I don't want to tell people. I want this to, like, inspire people to do better, not to be overwhelmed, that they need to buy a bunch of stuff. So oil is great. You can.

Great.

You can do great saline. You can make your own saline at home. Yeah, you can. But if you just. It's like about, like, I don't know, five bucks or ten bucks. So we do that. And then mouth breathing, we want to prevent mouth breathing. So when you can breathe through your nose properly, you're more likely to be able to seal your mouth at night. If you can't and you need extra help. Of course, I'm saying this all under, you know, you need to be talking to your dentist about it. If you can't breathe through your nose, please see an airway centric ent. There's a great one here in LA that I send all my patients to. I took my daughters, too. I took My husband, my dad. Because I just want to make sure there's P and C, that they can't. That they can breathe through their nose. And then there's mouth tape and that saved. So, like, there's a video guy that helps us take videos for the office, and he's been working with us for about seven years. And I've been talking about mouth tape for about, like, six years.

Wow.

And he's like, lydia, as soon as you told me that I gave him a bunch of samples the company send me. He's like, I haven't stopped mouth taping. When we're on tour, I'm more rested. I don't drink as much coffee. Wow.

Because you're sleeping better.

Because you're sleeping better. Like, really, you need to optimize your sleep for your oral health. It's so that's. That's a big misconduct that they're like, oh, wow. Why are we talking about that?

Let's zone in on this a little bit. Because, like, whenever these things become trendy on social media, you know, becomes fad. Like, it's another thing that people need to do. We have moms posting. I want a good night of sleep. I don't want to feel guilty for not mouth taping. I don't want to feel guilty for not taking a cold shower in the morning. It's not about that. It's about really considering the impact of why it's effective. Right.

We gotta understand why we're doing it.

And I get it. Like me, like many others, I'm sure the idea of putting tape over my mouth kind of freaked me out. And then a dear friend of mine, Dr. Trish Smith, she's a sleep expert and she gave me mouth tape that wrapped around my mouth and. Wow.

The myotype.

The myotype. It was incredible.

It's incredible. Yeah.

And I've never gone back and it didn't hurt. Taking on or off. My husband can use it over his beard. Totally fine.

Yes.

Such a game changer. As somebody who suffered from mold exposure, I just noticed that when I was looking at my OURA ring, the I was getting deeper levels of sleep just by mouth taping. As a mom, getting more sleep is a game changer.

That changes your life. It changes how you show up. It changes. Changes how you prep for your kids, how you prep for yourself, and it just changes how they perceive you, like, as a mom. So.

And it's tied to longevity 100.

You live longer and you. You enjoy your life a lot better. And there's also myotape for a kit, like a kid size. I love my tape. For me, it doesn't free. It doesn't bother me. So I present both options.

Yeah.

But for my daughters, it freaks them out. So I do the one that. But it's. Try it. If it bothers you, do the Myotape. The Myotape. What it does. What's beautiful about the Myotape is that it positions your muscles in the right place, which. I wanna talk about something else that's super important. And the reason it's called Myotape. So there's myofunctional therapy for the orofacial muscles.

Got it. The fascia of the face.

Exactly, exactly. And that is so important if your child is mouth breathing or even if you're mouth breathing. To get our muscles stronger, we're eating softer foods. We're eating packaged foods. That doesn't stimulate our ancestral. Ancestrally. We ate harder foods. We chewed. We took our time chewing. We.

Yeah.

And right now we're not taking our time chewing. Things are processed. Things are. Let's just get quick meals from the store. We don't sit together as a family. Like, the other day I was talking to my husband. I'm like, we need to sit together more as a family. We do a few times a week, but it's just. We were renovating. I was sick, I was always upstairs, and my. I missed that time as a family. And when you're sitting as a family, you're chewing more, you're talking more, you're connecting, you're taking your time. And that's like, part of your oral health.

Totally. I love that you said that. I'm gonna make my husband listen to this because we have a rule in our house that at dinner, nobody can get up until everyone is finished eating.

I love that.

And I'm the slowest eater, so everyone has to stay. So I'm hoping. I'm hoping I can train them to just, like, take their time, eat a little slower. But as you're speaking, my mind is going off. I'm like, wow, what's something that our ancestors did? So there's acupuncture in the face, which is the meridians of the face, which is attached to our jaw right in our myofascia. Then there's cupping, there's oil massages on specific pulse points on the face. It's like, oh, my God. Gosh. It's all connected. It's all connected. So beautiful. Okay. Oral microbiome also. Okay. So the importance of nasal spray. Maybe a little Bit of a natural oil, like coconut oil or apricot oil or something like that in the nasal passages. Sesame oil was really common to the ayurvedic tradition.

I didn't know that. But I always recommend a little bit of coconut oil because everybody has a little oil. Everyone has it.

Yeah. So the third thing, and this is kind of funny, my one item, if I was deserted on a stranded island, if I was stranded on a deserted island, is a tongue scraper.

Oh.

So when I became a yoga teacher, my dad's been using it forever. It sounds so disgusting. I know. I've had the same tongue scraper for 20 years. But it's metal.

It's metal. You can clean it. You don't need a different one. Is it copper?

It's copper, yeah. And so twice a day, I can't leave my house unless I scrape my tongue before I go to bed. Because you take off excess AMA toxins within the body. And if you think of the muscle, like our muscles, if we sweat through our skin through our tongue, we have excess toxins. Right. So can you back this up 100%?

The first thing I do when I wake up, when I'm not pregnant and nauseous.

Yeah.

Is scrape my tongue. I do that before I brush my teeth. And if I ever have to choose between that or that, I scrape my tongue.

Yeah.

Okay. Tongue scraping is integral to optimize your oral microbiome, because when we're sleeping, we're detoxing. We're detoxing through our skin. We're detoxing through our tongue. We're detoxing through everything.

Yeah.

And all that gunk that comes out when we remove it, we're supporting the good portion of our microbiome because that what's on our tongue doesn't serve us.

Oh, my gosh. Great.

So my daughters are tongue scraping. They don't do it 100%. Right. But they're not scared of the tongue scraper. You know, I expose it to. So I'm always taking. Trying it to my daughters and kids, because when your kids see monkey see, monkey do, and a lot of times they're like, how can I get my kids to do this and this? And I have issues with them in other areas, but in the oral health area, and I just need to always remind myself, like, think about how you taught them to brush and tongue scrape and nasal rinse. And not only do we nasal rinse with saline, we do, like, the neti pot during, like, times of congestion. But they see me, and they're like they're watching us. So if you're eating well, they're gonna be more likely to eat well. If you're tongue scraping, they're more likely going to be tongue scraping. And then oil pulling is another great one as well. That's really, really, really good for your gums. But not everybody can tolerate it. So this is what I tell people. Try it. If you can tolerate it, great. If not, do it for a few minutes. If not, it's okay. But tongue scraping, I feel everybody can do.

Absolutely everyone can do. And I think the experience of it alone. Right. So I think a lot of people with. Or my clients anyways, with. With oil pulling, they just use too much. Start with a really small amount of coconut oil.

Yes.

Swish it around your mouth. Set a timer off. Listen to some music.

Garden.

Garden makes you focus on nasal breathing also.

Yes.

And then once you experience that followed by tongue scraping, it's just like your oral health feels on point.

100%. 100%. Yeah. I love those two. And then I talk about brushing and flossing. Like, brushing and flossing is the last thing. So I came up. So I have a course that I put together, and the essence of the course is the five pillars of dental health.

Let's talk about that. Tell me about the five pillars of dental health.

This, when I say this to patients, they're like, oh, my God. So our oral hygiene at home is only one portion of it. So you have oral hygiene at home. Right. It's the brushing and the flossing. And now we're adding tongue scraping and whatever else they want to do. Right. Nutrition, what you eat is just as important. It's like, you can't work your work out. Your work out yourself out of an unhealthy diet. If I'm eating McDonald's every single day, I don't care.

The cows come home, you can work out, your insides won't be happy.

No.

Yeah.

So same thing with your oral health. So if you're eating crap all day, if you're feeding your kids goldfish and pretzels and Ritz crackers, which are like nails on a chalkboard for me, when I see kids eating those outside or when I just see it at the market, like, it hurts. It really hurts.

Where have you been all my life? Do you know how much pushback I get from moms about goldfish crackers when I post about them?

Oh, my God.

Just read the ingredients that are in them and the marketing behind it for.

Kids and give your kids candy. Not Goldfish. Like, yeah, sticky candy is just as bad. Goldfish crackers are just as bad. Actually worse than candy because they actually think it's healthy. It's a healthy cracker. And it's horrible for you. So nutrition. So you have oral hygiene at home.

So we'll keep that as a separate episode.

I can talk. Talk about goldfish crackers for, like, a whole hour. Can we do that? Let's do a live on that. It's. It's. It's like, so. It's so funny. So for my course, I got a bunch of goldfish crackers. Like, the three. Like, they. They had them. And my. My daughter's like, mommy, you're buying this for us? She's, like, in shock. Like, I saw one of our nannies bought one one time for her. I made a huge deal. I'm like, please, never. That's not that. My kids love broccoli. Like, it's what you present to the kids. So my kids snack on red peppers and green peppers. And I'm not saying we're perfect in our diet. Like, when we go to birthday parties, I'm not going to be the crazy mom.

No, they can have it.

They can have it.

What we have in the. In the home, we can control.

You can control. Exactly. So. And I'm like, baby, I'm doing it for a project, my love. She's like, can I taste some? I'm like, what do you think? How do you think it's going to make your body feel? I always ask that question to my kid when they want to eat something, and sometimes they choose to continue eating it. And then an hour later, she's like, my. My stomach, my. My tummy hurts, mama. I'm like, now, you know, so we gotta empower ourselves to be and feel Absolutely. Like to learn about that.

Before you keep going, do you ever ask your kids to look at their stool? Their poop?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's my indication. So if parents are looking for a way to get their kids off of these. Food addiction, right? Ritz crackers, the bars, the goldfish crack. It's food. Food addiction.

Yeah.

These food companies put a shitload of money into making it highly addictive on top of the marketing that goes into it, right? So at our house, I get my kids to look at their stool. I love it when they understand the difference in the quality of the stool. If they're sitting on the potty for a little bit longer than, oh, yeah, mommy, I did have goldfish today, or I did have the ice cream, or I had that. Yeah.

So, okay, what's your poo telling you? As a book?

What's your poo telling you?

Yes, it's a great book.

Okay, well, we get to all these things. All right, we digress. We'll do another episode on nutrition. Yes.

So nutrition. So oral hygiene at home, which is kind of the. The basics, plus the scraping and the oil pulling, etc. Nutrition, then your relation, your dental home, your relationship with your dentist, it really impacts your oral health. Because if you go for 10 years not seeing the dentist.

Yeah.

If you don't look forward to seeing your dentist. Like I look forward to going to see my OB right now.

Yeah.

Like, the first two OBs that I had at the beginning of this traumatic pregnancy, it was awful. Like, I would get anxiety. Like, you shouldn't get anxiety before you go see your practitioner.

Yeah, it's.

It's there. Yeah. I feel so strongly about that. So if you don't have a dental home, if you don't have a hygienist that you love or a doctor that you love, how can you build on the healthy habits? And dental disease is a silent disease until it becomes very advanced. So if you don't catch things early, it's gonna blow up in your face in an abscess and an infection and a need for a root canal and a need to pull a tooth out. And cracking teeth. We saw so many cracked teeth during COVID Stress.

From stress.

From stress.

Dental disease is a silent disease until it blows up. Blows up. And just like within our bodies, we ignore our symptoms, but our dentists should be part of our healthcare team. Right. Like, if you want to get better in any other aspect of your life, your dentist should be part of that program with you.

We see. We should be seeing our dentists or hygienists a lot more often. So all my patients in the practice, in our practice get cleanings every three months.

Three months.

That's like a rule if I'm good.

Kids, too.

For kids as well.

Every three months at the beginning.

So when I'm meeting them, because I want to sometimes not do a full cleaning and I want to give them a high five.

Yeah.

And I want to like, oh, Dr. Lydia's not always in my mouth with her light and her scary mask. And we want to break that stigma, but also I want to break it not by allowing them to watch Mickey Mouse. I don't want to digress them. I don't want to. I. I don't want them to be focusing on something else. I Want them to focus on their appointment.

Yeah.

I want them to look at our instruments and not be scared of them.

Yeah.

Because if they do that when they're kids, they're less likely to need them in the future.

I've gone through three dentists for my kids now. The last one, two because they were firm believers in fluoride. The last one, she looked, she thought that I was a bit of a distraction. My son's body was clenching up and so I sat there with him holding his hand. And I was saying, just relax the back of your neck, relax your shoulders, like trying to guide him through it. And again against the no fluoride rule.

Oh, wow. I have a great pediatric dentist for you.

Thank you.

She's amazing. We're at no fluoride. You don't need fluoride. You don't need fluoride for healthy teeth. If you need fluoride, that's a band aid.

Yeah.

Fluoride does make your teeth stronger. I'm going to say that. But you don't need fluoride to make your teeth stronger. There's something called hydroxyapatite that is incredible. And I've been able to remineralize a lot of small cavities using it.

We'll talk about your favorites.

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.

All right, so nutrition.

Nutrition a dental home.

Oral care.

Oral care at home. Okay. Supplementation. Sometimes you just need a few supplements to optimize our food quality isn't like it was 30 years ago.

Completely different.

Even if you're going to organic farms and our soil is different. And it makes me sad when I think about that slit. But there's people that are working on making it better. Yes, they're on it. But just something as simple as vitamin D3 and K2 for your kids. A cod liver oil because it has fat soluble vitamin A and that's crucial for dental and bone health.

Yeah.

So there's certain dental supplements that I discuss with my patients. Some patients are like, okay, let's get our micronutrients tested to see exactly where they are on the spectrum. But if you have a cavity, you're almost a hundred percent sure that you're low on vitamin D3 or vitamin K2.

And do you recommend D3 with K also for kids?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Typically that's not something that comes in the game. Up until recently anyways, until we're older. Fascinating. And it's so easy to get into our children through drops.

There's the easiest dropper.

Nordic Naturals has these really great Omega 3 supplements that are great for kids. So to get down, they enjoy them.

Yeah, yeah. So you also want to bring joy in the process with your kids. Like, we sing and dance when we're brushing our teeth. Not every single night. Some nights I'm like, I just need you to go to bed. Like, I want to go to sleep. So I don't want to seem too idealistic, but you just try to instill joy. The fifth pillar of dental health is habits. Mouth breathing. Excessive snacking. If our kids are constantly snacking.

Yeah.

They're not going to eat at the table. They're not going to eat. Their proper nutrition and snacking is a habit. They don't need to be getting as much snacks as they do here. I mean, in America, they love to give snacks. Like, where I'm. We don't know. There's no snack.

My parents are immigrants. We're very different growing up.

Yeah. Like, we don't do snacks and it's not necessary.

It's actually terrible for our digestive systems.

We got to give them a rest.

Working. Yeah, yeah.

So snacking, excessive pacifier use. So any habits, any tongue. Thumb. Tongue sucking. Thumb. Thumb sucking, blanket sucking. Any sort of habit that is an essential part of their oral health to get that taken care of.

Beautiful. So for a sound bite, can you just recap the five things?

So the five pillars of dental health are nutrition, supplementation, oral hygiene at home, having a beautiful dental home that you connect with that you can happily go to every few months, and lastly, habits.

Great. It is these small microhabits that can be detrimental to our oral health. Right. So when we talk about these disruptors, obviously nutrition is a big one of them. When I think about snacking, like, it would be different if our kids, if adults were snacking on carrots and celery and, you know, things that we actually, actually had to chew throughout the day that were nutrient dense. It's very different than what we're snacking on. We're snacking on processed food. Food. Even if it's a protein smoothie, it's loaded with sugar that we're not even chewing. For the kids, it's the crackers, the chips, the cookies that are even labeled as healthy and Paleo and keto or whatever. It's soft, chewy, sweet flavored foods.

We're in a smoothie craze.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I enjoy my smoothie, don't get me wrong, but smoothie.

Do you remember when protein powders were sold in the supplement section of a store? Like, they're considered a supplement.

Yes. And now it's like in everything for everybody.

Yeah.

I tell my kids, I tell my patients, I tell everyone I like. If you don't see where your food comes from while you're eating, then you're drifting away from root.

Yeah, Right.

It's. It's just that. So when I make snack boards for my kids, when their friends come over, they. Of course they want snacks. I'm not depriving them of snacks, but what are we snacking on? So celery is a great one. Green apples are great ones. Those are dental detergent foods. Like, they're. They're biting into it. They're cleaning. You know, you. You clean. They don't feed the bad bacteria in their mouth, obviously, all the berries. But cucumbers are great anything. My kids love crunch because it reminds them of chips.

Yeah.

That's. Why do people like chips? It's the crunch. It's the texture. It's like. It feels good. I'll give them a popcorn that I make at home most of the time.

Yeah.

Every once in a while, I get, like, the healthier one from Whole Foods. You know, I'm not. Yeah. The lesser evil. I don't know. Yeah. And if they really love crunch, like my kids. Seaweed, all the peppers. I put the peppers in all the different colors in front of them. They love it with hummus. So it's.

Yeah, it's.

You got to make end. I get them in the kitchen with me when I can. The past six months, I haven't been able to. I'm like, too sick, too pregnant.

Season.

This is a season. So I always preface it, but it's. It's. I also don't want to overwhelm moms that, oh, it's always perfect and dandy. In my house, it isn't. You know, you just really try your best.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So that's a great concept. We always talk about eat the rainbow, get the kids to look for the colors again. It's just imprinting on them for the future.

Yeah.

And we think about, you know, if you looked at studies on prebiotics and probiotics for oral microbiome health.

I don't know of any specific studies.

Yeah, you were speaking about the crunchy veggies. And, you know, I have a company called Jicama based on jicama, the prebiotic. But it's great because it's a prebiotic fiber, but it's chewy, has a ton of fibroids. You have to really chew it. Right. But kids Love it. It goes with nut butters and hummus.

And I haven't tried jicama in our home.

I love it. Yeah.

But I haven't given it to my kids, so that's. That's a good idea. I believe in getting your prebiotics and probiotics from food.

From food.

So that's why I haven't. Even though I need to dive in a little bit more, because I get asked that a lot in the. In the office. But if you're eating garlic and you're eating onion, I mean, I'm Lebanese, so there's garlic in everything. Every everything. Maybe too much garlic, but onions, the pickles, the sauerkraut, the kimchi. Like, look at the ancestral ways that all cultures eat. Not just so. It's so. It's so nourishing. Like, I feel so good drinking my broth and putting some sauerkraut or kimchi on my eggs in the morning. Like, it feels good. I feel satiated. And ever since I started making these little changes and actually having, for me, breakfast is very important. Especially now being pregnant, when I don't have a solid breakfast, I feel it like, an hour later when I have a good breakfast that is nourishing. Like, I always have a probiotic and a prebiotic in there. I always have my protein, my good fat. What a. It's a game changer.

Absolutely.

It's like, you feel so good, you show up differently in the day.

Absolutely. So that ties me into another big trigger that I assume is very common for the gut micro. That ties me into another concept which is likely associated with the oral microbiome, and that's stress.

Oh, my God.

What is the impact of stress on our dental hygiene, on maybe the ph of our mouth? You know, when we think about the optimal environment for our mouth, the bacteria that have to live there. What is the impact of stress?

Stress is. So everything was we listed in is. I'm like translating from Arabic, like, in one hand, and then stress is in another hand. And I saw the impacts of stress tremendously during COVID Like, people were eating more at home, they were cooking more at home in general, maybe not the healthiest foods, but they were spending more time at home. Not on the go, but the cortisol levels, the unhealth. Like when you're in chronic flight or flight, your system is off in your entire body. Your mouth is significantly more acidic. Your salivary glands are not producing saliva as much. Saliva is very important for a healthy microbiome because it washes things down. It's like a shower for your teeth.

Right. And you're not producing it the same way because your body is, you know, running from.

If you're in flight or flight, you're not digesting.

Yeah. It stops digestion.

It stops digestion. Right. What is salivary production is a key portion of digestion. Digestion starts in the mouth.

Right.

So if you're in flight or flight, you have not only less saliva, but a poorer quality of saliva. You're not digesting your food well. So even if you're eating great, you're not getting all the nutrients extracted from these foods because you're in flight or flight. And then you're more likely to not care as much about yourself. Like when you're not feeling well and you're stressed. I know I can speak for myself. Like when I was stressed, when I was vomiting a lot, I just was not brushing my teeth properly. I wasn't caring for myself. Oh, yeah, I couldn't. So I felt that impact. But when you're aware and you start getting down that road, you, you, you snap back.

You're not spending time on personal care when you don't feel good.

No, you're not at all. And then you're also clenching and grinding.

Yep.

And you're not. You're de. You're more likely to mouth breathe. So that's just a recipe for. For problems for oral health problems on all ends, periodontal gum issues and dental issues, all.

So managing your stress and mindfulness is also a precursor for the health of your oral microbiome and your dental health for the future.

100%. 100%.

And you mentioned the cracked tooth. What was the cause behind it? Was it teeth grinding?

It was clenching.

Clenching.

So this woman, gorgeous woman, and she has really a good set of teeth, like really good teeth. And she called us up, she's like, I'm in dire pain. And they're like. And I'm like, I wonder why? Like, it's. So she's also going through some hormonal changes in her life. And stress impacts your hormones and how they function. They. It. It stops the messaging from happening between hormone to hormone or receptor. And long story short, she had broken her tooth right in half. I know, it's.

Yeah, it's.

So we. The only option was extraction. We have to remove her tooth.

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Yeah.

Are you seeing it more often now than before?

So much. So much so. I want to preface anything I say with our teeth enamel is one of the strongest. It's the strong. It's stronger than your boat. Like, it's harder to grind down than your bone enamel, yet everyone is grinding it down so easily.

Wow.

So that just goes to tell you how much pressure your teeth are taking.

Okay.

And so someone like you comes to my office and I see the reason I love mouse is each one tells a story. Sorry, I can. I can tell so much about your health just by looking at your mucosa, your teeth, the wear, how you're wearing whether you're grinding or clenching, etc. So we always ask about mold. Mold stresses your system like crazy. I had a black mold case patient. She was detoxing for two years. Like it's a serious.

Almost at a year and a half now.

Wow.

Just turning a corner.

Wow. And you feel probably much better. I mean, night and day, right? Yeah. Jinx. Yeah. But mold is huge. Parasites. Parasites are huge. I mean we, we just got a puppy this week. He's so cute. So much work. But like we deworm our animals. Like ancestrally we deworm our animals. Why don't we deworm ourselves? Like that should be a practice that we teach our children, that we implement with our families because it makes us live longer. There's studies showing higher cases with cancer and parasites. So parasitic infections in your gut and your body can cause you to clench and grind more.

And are you addressing parasites as a family? I'm curious.

Yes, we are.

Yes. Tell us about that.

So it's so funny right before. So the past two years I've been doing two parasite cleanses a year. That's just been. So I'm the first in my family always. Obviously my husband's like, what? And then now he's working with somebody because I'm not going to guide him.

Right. Doesn't work.

Don't, don't, don't treat your family. Don't guide your husband. But tmi. But I, I passed a huge parasite. Wow. Crazy it before I got pregnant by like four months. And parasitic infections have been linked to infertility.

Fascinating.

So I use Cell core products. I really love cell. I love how they're kind on the body. But I would always say be with a practitioner that helps guide you.

Yeah.

So I like my husband was somebody I trust and I know she's actually a patient of mine and she launched so she's working with her and for my daughter, I didn't, I don't do my younger daughter. She's four years old. She's a little too young. But my seven year old there's a brat so we've done a little bit of binding. So I do binders for her. But I will be doing a parasite cleanse after I'm done with the pregnancy and we'll do it together.

I'm smiling because I just ordered Selco products for my husband and I.

Perfect.

My son gets binders also. Just gently, just, you know, just support and. Got it.

Put some chlorella and if you do.

Smoothies, we call it green water.

Perfect.

Oh, can I have some green water today?

I love it. I love it. I. I love. I'm going to start using that. Yeah, Yeah. I don't. We don't have that. Gentle.

Gentle things that we can do to support their systems. Right. Yeah. And, you know, are you finding. You know, I really focus on a bedtime ritual to really help people shift from fight or flight into rest and digest, especially with my kids. But I can imagine that this is something that would help them also prevent any teeth grinding and stuff like that.

So if your children are grinding their teeth, that's a huge red flag. Okay, please address it.

Okay.

Please address why. So, for example, my younger daughter used her pacifier for a little too. So here I am telling everybody not to use pacifiers for as long. But sometimes you need to, like, it's. It was my sanity on the line, so either her teeth or my sanity. I chose my sanity.

She needs you.

She needs. She needs me. She needs me. We started expanding her. She was bedwetting. She's four. She was bedwetting three to four times a week. It was starting to drive us crazy because I didn't want to put her back in diapers. It would have a psychological. She's. She was very anti. I didn't want to force that. Long story short, I started expanding her. Her jaw. We actually have a palatal expander in there right now. I haven't been posting much about it, but I should. And bedwetting has stopped by 90%. Crazy tantrums have stopped by. Wow, like 70%. And it's like I have a new child and if I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it. Even as a dentist. Even as a functional adult dentist.

Yeah.

It's incredible to see the impact that that expander is also making her put her tongue in the right position while she's sleeping.

Right. Tongue placement.

Tongue placement is everything as well.

Like, no one's ever talked to me about tongue placement. We talk about it in yoga.

Voila.

Exactly.

You're talking about it in yoga, but why are you talking about it in yoga? You need proper tongue placement to breathe properly.

Yeah.

And to breathe properly is to have a healthy body.

So expanders their roof of the mouth.

Tongue comes up right behind your teeth. That's where there's a song in Arabic and it makes the kids go, ah, like ancestrally. So I sing that to my kids and I have them do that to me to repeat that back. But if your kids are grinding and if they don't have any to Spaces between their teeth. They need expansion.

Yeah, we're doing that with my son right now. He is nine, and his two front teeth are only having lost and growing back now. So it's just. It's all late. But I'm assuming it has to do with spacing 100%. All right. So stress. When I'm thinking about stress, the. The first thing that I go to with my clients is always hormonal health. So when I was pregnant with my daughter, I bit into an apple and. And my lower gum just ripped open. And at the time, I was like, it's fine, it's fine. You know, I don't. I. I wonder what to do. I'll just wait until after I give birth and I'll fix this later. And no, I had to go have gum surgery. I had to get stitches and everything, but not one person had talked to me. I knew oral care was important, flossing, et cetera, but no one talked to me about that.

Yeah, it is so important.

And it could have been prevented.

I'm sure it could have been prevented. Yeah. So you were pregnant. So the hormones were going. They were going wild. They were on the rise for sure. So we need estrogen for quality collagen synthesis. We need estrogen for proper bone synthesis. So we need estrogen. But when we have too much estrogen, when you have too much progesterone, it makes our gums very, very, very sensitive and receptive to inflammation.

Got it.

And when you're pregnant. Right now I'm pregnant. I feel it right now in my mouth. So I'm getting cleanings every month and a half to two months.

Wow.

Because my hygiene at home is not the best because anytime I put a toothbrush in my mouth, I get extremely nauseous, and I have, like, anxiety from nausea because it was so severe at one point in time. It's much better now, but you're more likely to get. There's something called pregnancy gingivitis. And people. Most pregnant women have it. Most pregnant women don't know they have it. And most of the time, it resolves by a few cleanings. Like it's something. Such a small thing that you can do for yourself as a pregnant woman, even. And what are you snacking on as a pregnant woman if you're nauseous?

Carbs.

Carbs. And are carbs supporting the upbuilding of mucosa and no sugar. It's sugar. It's. It's. It's so. And are you sleeping great. Like, I was sleeping horribly my second trimester because the progesterone also rises. And are you taking care of your hygiene? Not as much. It's the last thing. I didn't floss for two months. I couldn't. Like, I physically couldn't. So I'm going to talk just about pregnancy right now. Pregnancy. We need a lot of support. We need a lot of love. We need a lot of kindness to our gums. We need a lot of love for our whole body. Like, I really feel like the way we need to treat our mouth is the way we need to treat our entire body. So it's. It's so important to get these preventive cleanings before you get pregnant. But if you get pregnant as a surprise, just go visit your dentist for a simple cleaning, simple checkup, no X rays, nothing. Right. Just see your dentist.

So can we break this down as women? We don't even think. Think about the shifts that could happen to our oral health as our hormones shift. Okay?

That's my mission. That's one of my missions in life.

I'm here for this. All right, so let's talk to women, then, mothers with young girls who are going through puberty. We've talked about being pregnant. Let's talk about perimenopausal and then menopausal. What are the things that you're seeing?

Okay. Amazing. These are all transitions. Yeah, Right. And let's just talk about puberty really quickly. Puberty usually. Braces. Come on. Right? They're in school. In America, we have vending machines, which drove me crazy when I. When I moved to the States. I was shocked at the crap that was in our vending machines. Yeah, okay.

Wild.

So that's why what you're doing is God's work, like, empowering women. It's just amazing because that's where changes really begin. Okay. So all of a sudden, there's a surge of estrogen and progesterone, making this pubescent young woman more prone to gingivitis. So gingivitis is the first level of infection in your gum, and it's fully reversible. So I have localized gingivitis in a bunch of my mouth right now just because of the hormones. So I have pregnancy gingivitis that's reversible. But then they slap on braces, and they don't. They don't emphasize how important oral hygiene is. And they're like, oh, we'll see you for a cleaning every six months. And then she has, like, I don't know, like a volleyball tournament in six months. And she couldn't make it. And then it goes for another year. This is so classic. I see it in my clinic all the time.

Wow.

Braces come off and there's these white spots around the brackets.

Yeah.

Severe inflammation. Boom. Phobia from the dentist starts. So if you have a pubescent daughter, I would take her to the dentist every three months, have her have a beautiful relationship with that dentist. She has braces or even Invisalign, because Invisalign can trap food.

Right.

People get. If you're not cleaning properly, it's actually a perfect storm for dental disease. Just have her go more frequently. Take her every two months. Just, like, until she gets through that phase. It's okay to invest another one or two appointments in the big picture. That's a lot cheaper, right, Than dealing with a huge cavity.

Absolutely.

And then it turns into a root canal, and then it turns into an infection source your mouth. That's puberty. So let's go to pregnancy. So what you experienced, your. Your gums were very, very. You have a hard time healing. Like, you rip up open right away. Like your body's preparing for childbirth. You need all those hormones. And I always say our vaginal tissues are very similar to our oral tissues. Histologically, they're similar. And the hormones that we have vaginally and orally are very similar. So estrogen and progesterone receptors, and also both the types of tissue, they heal very quickly. Like they. You can vaginally, you can heal very, very quickly and orally as well. Okay. But when you have a lot of estrogen, progesterone during your pregnancy, you're more prone to infection. And then that gingivitis, if it's not nipped in the butt early, it goes to something called periodontitis to your bones. That sounds terrible. It is terrible. It's irreversible.

Wow.

So that's why I am so keen on, like, spreading this awareness to pregnant women, because just a few extra cleanings can make a huge difference.

This should be common knowledge.

Like I always say, like, we see our. So I. I'm going to start seeing my OB soon. Every week.

Right.

Who sees their dentist during the like. Who, Who? So my. My first OB with my first daughter. She said only 3% of women know that they should go. They should go to see their dentist during their pregnancy. Because it's an old woman's myth that you lose a tooth per pregnancy and you usually have teeth problems during pregnancy. And over 65%, I think it's more Than that. But research shows it's 65% of pregnant women have dental disease during and soon after. I didn't even get to breastfeeding right now. So just part of prenatal dental care. Prenatal care. There needs to be prenatal dental care.

And again, if women knew this, that's the drive to make it happen.

That's the drive. Is it so important not just you taking care of your teeth and me taking care of my teeth while we're pregnant. It transfers to your baby.

Yeah.

Okay. So when you have periodontitis and severe gingivitis, you're more likely to have premature labor, lower birth weight. And also everyone seems to have. A lot of people have seemed to have. Having fertility issues. And if a man has periodontitis and gingivitis, severe gingivitis, sperm count is lower, sperm motility is lower. This is all research, like base. I can send you the articles on that. Like I binge on that. And then it also takes a couple longer to conceive if they have active dental infection.

So a man is an equal contributor.

To one fertility thousand percent.

And it's also linked to their oral health. And like.

Yes, yes, yes.

We need to talk about this more.

Yes, 100%. So here we have pregnancy. Right. We missed one transition. That's common now. Ivf.

Ivf.

Ivf and egg freezing. Like half my friends have frozen their eggs. Yeah, I have a lot of friends going through ivf.

We have. We're having babies later. Right?

So we're having babies later. Like I got married at 31. I had my first baby at 33. You know, it's not. I wasn't 25. Like so there's a beauty to that. But also it makes it harder.

My last pregnancy was a geriatric pregnancy.

Oh, I meant geriatric.

Thank you for that. It feels really great.

I'm praying this baby comes a week and a half early. So he's born when I'm 39 and not 40. Vanity.

Yeah, it's wild.

It just impacts you psychologically. But okay, so IVF, IVF. So I have a patient who's gone through 20 rounds of IVF.

Poor woman.

Like all those injections and all those hormones, IVF doctors, OBGYNs. I really want to build the gap between the dental world and the medical world.

Right.

Because at the end, who, who's going to benefit from this? It's the women that are. Cuz hormonally, I'm. I went crazy the first three months.

Yeah.

And they're Getting all these injections and hormones don't discriminate. So we have the progesterone and estrogen receptors in our. In our mouth. So it makes you way more prone to dental disease. And when you're worried about conceiving, you're not worried about your dental health. You don't think about that.

Nothing else matters except for getting pregnant, Right?

Nothing. Nothing. And I don't blame them. I mean, like here, you know, I lost one baby. It was awful. Like, it felt awful. I felt like my body failed me. I felt like I failed me. I. You start getting thoughts in your head that you never got before, and here you are. Imagine I had to, like, give myself injection after injection after injection. So there's a psychological component, a stress component, a financial component.

Yeah.

And all that stress also impacts the woman. So let's focus on prevention, let's focus on building that trust and, and that bridge between the medical and the dental world. Like women's dental health isn't only medicine.

And I'll say I work with a lot of functional medicine doctors. When we think about getting to the root cause, oral health doesn't come off very often unless it's something that really comes up in conversation or it's a major distraction or symptom that's core.

It's core. And I don't know how it's not coming up as often. You cannot have good gut health if you don't have a good microbiome in your mouth. If you have an awful microbiome in your mouth, I don't care what probiotic, what colonic, whatever you do, you're not going to be able to have a good microbiome biome in your gut because you get, I think, don't quote me on this, but 30 or 40% of your gut microbiome comes from your mouth.

Yeah.

So if that's off, this is going to be off as well. So. All right, so we have ivf, egg freezing, and iui. So anybody undergoing this, I beg you, just go visit your dentist, get a checkup, get a cleaning, be proactive. Tongue scrape, you know, floss more. We didn't even touch on. We didn't talk much. Yeah. But take better care of your oral health because it really impacts. Because not only is it impacting your baby before they're born, it also impacts your baby after you're born.

Absolutely.

So people are like, oh, it's genetic. My mom had bad teeth. I have bad teeth. No, no. There is a genetic component as to everything. There's a Genetic to Alzheimer's.

But your genetics is not your destiny.

It's not your destiny at all. So I'm, I'm a little crazy about that. Any person taking care of my child, any nanny, any family member, they come get a cleaning in my office before they get close to my kid. It's just, it's, it's, it's a baseline.

Yeah.

Even if they said they got a cleaning, though, they're coming to my office. It's so important. It's so important because it's familial. You're. You're carrying your baby, you're breastfeeding your baby, spoon sharing. Some people kiss their baby on the lips. I'm not a fan of that, but to each their own. If you're going to kiss your baby on the lips, please get your teeth cleaned.

Absolutely.

Please. Because cavities are contagious and gum disease is contagious.

Yeah. Bacteria H. Pylori.

Right. Yes. And then, as if that isn't enough, the breastfeeding phase is very depleting for a woman's body. So a lot of cavities start coming up then. And then gum pain starts coming up because your baby is literally taking all your nutrients. So that's why we focus so much on minerals.

Yeah.

Micronutrients, supplementation and getting protein, great quality fats, all that. And I also, there's some women, I'm like, I need you to see a nutritionist. I mean, I can only do so much in my clinic with my. But sometimes you need professional. Like, go see a nutritionist, have him or her blood test you. I have a few people that I refer to and, and have them do that part. So we need to help each other. Like, I need you to help my clients just as much as you need me. Like, we, It's.

Well, it's that integration. Right, Exactly. If there was an integrative approach to healthcare, it would seem so much more.

So much.

Right.

So much more simple. So. And then you get into perimenopause and menopause. Yeah. And that's a whole different world that nobody's talking about. And I'm seeing all these things. And so you have estrogen and progesterone again, but now they're dropping. So they're doing opposite of what's happening in all the other transitional phases in a woman's life. Puberty, IUIs, IVF, pregnancy, et cetera. So you need estrogen and progesterone for optimal salivary health. So what's something that menopausal women Complain a lot about dryness, vaginal dryness, and it's oral dryness, too.

Yeah, yeah.

So for our salivary glands to produce good quality saliva, you need the estrogen and the progesterone.

Right?

So when that drops, think about it, you stop producing and you get something called serostomia, which is dry mouth. And that is a perfect storm. I've seen so many menopausal women come in with, like, rampant cavities along the gum line, and they don't know, just didn't know, had they come in for more preventative checkups and care. There's little things that we can do to help with the dry mouth and at least just keep the microbiome in check with more frequent cleanings. We do ozone cleanings in our clinic, which are amazing, but also tongue scraping. If it's not too dry, you don't want to be scraping your tongue. If it's too dry, you can cause laceration. So salivary health, bone health. So you need estrogen to build good quality bone as well. A lot of menopausal women have osteoporosis.

Right.

It's, like, on the rise. It's insane. And the medication they're giving for that is just another. That's another podcast. But so that drop the homeostasis of your bone breaking the osteoclast, and the osteoblast is off, and you have bone around your teeth, so they're more likely to lose teeth. So imagine you're going through all that hormonal changes, and your mind is feeling it, and your body's feeling it, and your soul is feeling it, and then you have to lose a tooth and get five cavities. It's overwhelming. So let's build the community, the connection with our dentist and just have you come in more frequently just to keep things in check. Yeah.

And look, talking about a lot of the things that we've talked about today, you know, when I was at my worst with mold, I'm like, it's just. It's not fair. Like, I thought I went through the process, and I'm healing again. I went through the process of healing again. Then you have a child, then your hormones change, then perimenopause, then menopause, and it's like, God, if we just look at this as a gift, never ignore our symptoms. Right? And I think back in the day, when we had the support that we needed, when we had ancient wisdom, when our environment was different, when stress was different, sleep was different, support was different, we probably didn't suffer as much. Right. So I would say as a takeaway, despite the doom that comes of thinking like, oh, my God, these things that I have to be proactive with, simply, it's a communication system from the body 1,000%. We can just listen the communication system so that we move forward and optimize, so that we don't have to worry about these things in the future.

Exactly.

All right, so those are some of the things to look out for. We haven't talked about. We haven't talked about enamel and stuff like that. So something I wanted to address, obviously everyone's going to want to know the products that we can be using, the things that you consider as being safe. Something that was really tough for people in my family to get off was Listerine.

Oh, my God.

So Listerine was invented in 1897 and it was invented as a surgical antiseptic that was then turned into a commercial mouthwash. Everyday use mouthwash. If you've ever looked at the ingredients of Listerine, like, I'm sorry, it looks like toilet cleaner. Colors, dyes, propylene glycol, gasoline. You know, we think that we need to kill all the bugs in our mouth, but just like our gut microbiome, we're killing necessary bugs, bacteria that help our oral microbiome, that help our oral microbiome thrive. So talk to me about some products that you love in a perfect world as good oral hygiene for morning and night. What are you doing?

I want to keep it simple for people and I want to educate them to make the right choices in the country that they're in. Because I'm sure everybody all over the world is going to be listening to this. No fluoride is needed. It's a toxin. We're not going to get into all the details and the history.

It can impact your brain.

It can impact your brain health, pineal gland IQ levels for babies, mood disorders. So much. No fluoride. But we have a beautiful fluoride replacement that's been used in Japan for over 45 years. It's Reese, it's. It's backed by research. There's. Some people are like, oh, is it backed by. It's backed by research. Hydroxyapatite. So just look at your toothpaste and look for that ingredient. Okay, so that's for toothpaste. There are cleaner toothpastes on the market than others, but usually the ones with hydroxyapatite are cleaner. There's a new toothpaste that just came out. I started using. I really like it. They Have a hydroxyapatite varnish. It's called feed your good guys. Fig. Wow.

Feed your good guys.

Feed your good guys. I've been using it just for a few days that I literally got the. The gift box. But I really trust these dentists that created this. There's also RiseWell. It's a good brand. There's Boca.

Tried all these.

But you look in your country, it's going to be different. Or you're sitting. Everybody has access to the ones that I just listed. But look for hydroxyapatite. That's the most important thing. That's with regards to toothpaste. Tongue scrapers. I love copper tongue scrapers because they have a bactericidal effect. But if you can't find one, there's. The stainless steels are also just fine.

Absolutely.

Yeah. But don't tongue scrape with your toothbrush. That's what I want to say. A lot of people are like, oh, yeah, I'm tongue scraping. I'm like, what kind of tongue scraper do you use? Oh, I use the bristles on my toothbrush. You're just spreading the gunk. You're not getting germs and the bristles. Right?

Yeah, Good to know.

Mouthwash. I want to make shirts that say, says, say no to mouthwash. It is so bad for you. It's really. If you need to mix to torance. So my brother, my brother, my husband's addicted to mouthwash. Until recently, he's been ordering Listerine like my husband is ordering Listerine. I had to stop the subscription. Wow, it's a dick. Just like they have addictive things in food. I think there's something addictive in it like that. So do salt water. Put a little bit of peppermint essential oil. Not too much. I don't like too much essential oils for your oral microbiome, but rinse with that. But if you're tongue scraping and you're oil pulling, there's peppermint flavored coconut oil. There's ozonoided coconut oil with peppermint flavor from Puro3. It's a company I really like here in the States. You'll feel good, you'll feel fresh.

And if you're addicted to mouthwash, get to the source of why you need the mouthwash.

Right, Exactly. If you have halitosis, your mouth breathing, you have a cavity, you have a gum infection. Yeah, you have a really deep gum infection. And just side note, mouthwash for men is really, really, really, really bad. It's been associated with harder, with higher rates of High blood pressure and, and usually it's because they're masking mouth breathing. And mouth breathing in men has been associated with erectile dysfunction. It's insane. It's all connected. Say no to mouthwash. Beautiful. So and if you, if you're trying to reverse or remineralize smaller cavities, baking soda rinses are great. One teaspoon of baking soda to 10 to 12 ounces of water is great. You rinse with that, you alkalize your mouth. So there's other ways like the salt and the.

Is there a holistic version of teeth whitening? Like a lot of these treatments are invasive, they're harsh, they cause tooth sensitivity.

That's one thing. You know, 80, 20.

Cosmetic.

It's cosmetic, yeah. And I do it and I enjoy it and I love it. I dye my hair. It's your smile. You want to feel good about your smile. Research shows that when you feel good about your smile, you perf you, you perform better in the world. You show up differently. You're a brighter light, you, you're more confident and your confident carries you through. So to me, if you wanna. When they say non toxic bleach, there's no such thing, right?

There isn't bleached bleach, just bleach.

There is a brand out there that's like a crest strips that is more natural but you don't get great results with it. So I don't want people to waste their money, but if they want to try it, they can. It's called Luminex. But you're not getting that bright white.

And what about the source of tooth sensitivity?

Oh, that's so. So I have too sensitivity now during pregnancy.

So a lot of hit me like in the past three weeks, voila.

So your hormones are probably shifting. It's always related to hormones. It's. It's insane. You have or recession. So I have recession in two areas from all the clenching I did. So if I wasn't being so proactive with getting my teeth cleaned, I would have had a lot of problems in my mouth. As a dentist who came in pregnant with a very healthy mouth, like I'm very, very proactive. So sensitivity hydroxyapatite really helps with that. If you have one or two teeth that is like zinging you where you can't brush properly, you probably have recession on those teeth. There's a few things that we can do for you. There's a laser treatment that's so mild and conservative. It's usually temporary, sometimes a month, sometimes six we had a patient come from Dubai just for that laser because they wanted to do a root canal for her for that sensitivity. If that doesn't work, we can do a filling or we can do a graft. So I'm going to be getting grafts in my recession because I just want to rebuild what was lost.

Right.

And not have a filling.

But again, I'm hearing from you, like, really focus on the foundation.

Yes.

Clean up your products. Look at the pillars of dental care and dental hygiene first prior to building up onto these.

Yes.

Right.

Yes. Yes.

We're going to start wrapping things up, but I have to ask about alkaline water. Alkaline water delivery and stuff like that. You know, what about the types of water and liquids that we're consuming?

So I had a patient who I hadn't seen in about a year, and he came back and he had six cavities. And I was like, what's happening? I'm like, so I can easily fix the cavities. And we did fix them by what happened to him. So his mouth was very acidic. So we test the acidity and mouth in our exams. I was, you're super acidic. I'm like, what are you drinking? Are you drinking, like, whiskey? Like, are you, like, it's. He's like, no, I'm drinking regular water. I'm like, what kind of water? He's like, he's like, water. I'm like, can you tell me the name of the water? Like, what kind and where does it come from? Sparkling water. So he's constantly drinking. And sparkling water isn't, like, horrible for you, but if you're chronically drinking carbonated beverages with or without sugar. With. Sugar will make it a little quicker without. So he was drinking Coke Zero and sparkling water all day, every day. So he literally, like, put a rock in sparkling water every single day and you'll see it start. So what you're drinking is very important. You do want to drink more alkaline water. You don't want to drink acidic drinks at all. And if you do want to enjoy. So some people do want to enjoy. Right? Drink it through a straw.

Yeah. Like, rinse your mouth out afterwards.

Rinse your mouth out after. Don't brush for another 30 minutes.

Great.

But drink lots of water after. I enjoy my coffee. I really, really enjoy my coffee. I'm not going to stop drinking coffee.

I don't take coffee away from my coffee.

Okay. I don't either. You know, like, even for. But you know what? The more your clients see you and the More they talk to you. Maybe they'll make that change one day. Right on their own.

They understand.

Exactly, Exactly. That's how I deal with my smokers.

Yeah.

Not going to tell them to stop smoking. They're going to dislike me. They like to smoke. You're not going to tell. But the more you talk about, like the blood flow to your gums and the healing properties, et cetera. So drink through a straw, enjoy it until you're ready to give it up.

You got it. Find out why you want to smoke.

Yes.

So these are all incredible. My gosh. There's just so many takeaways that we've tied your oral hygiene to every single system in the body.

It really is linked to everything.

And I'm really understanding that there's a time and a place to do these really simple practices. Right. For optimization, when the time comes, we include modern science. Like modern day dentistry is probably. I'm imagining a gift in your world. In the right time, in the right place, when it's a necessity, both worlds can fuse together.

East needs to meet West.

Yeah. But. Okay, fantastic. So in closing off, we always do these quick rapid fire questions. Okay. Whatever comes to your heart. What are the most common mistakes or misconceptions that you're seeing women make with their health?

Not understanding their hormones. Yeah. Not understanding their hormones and not. Not taking care of themselves when they need. You're always taking care of your kids and your husband and your. And I'm taking care of my patients and so are you. And we're giving, giving, giving, giving, giving.

Yeah.

We need to slow down and give ourselves.

That's so good. Sometimes I feel like I work with so many women who just identify with how they feel as being normal without understanding. Like, oh, you know, no, it's, it's a key, which is hormone that's inserted at the right place or it's actually turned off and you can switch that and get back to a different state of being 100%. What's one way that many women are making healing and health too complicated?

They're overwhelming themselves. They're listening to too many people.

Yeah.

And they're not thinking of the basics. Like, really, like, we've been tongue scraping for years. It's an ayurvedic practice for you. We've been oil pulling for. These are very simple practices.

Yeah.

Sometimes dinner for us is just broth and a piece of sourdough bread. I don't have energy to make anything else. And that's okay.

Yeah.

We don't need, we don't need to cook up a storm. Every single. We need to be eating less.

Yeah.

So. And I'm, I'm guilty of this. Like I, I, I always want to do the best for my family and the best for my patients and the best for my husband and the best for everybody. But let's simplify things. Let's sleep better, let's sleep more, let's rest more.

Rest more.

Yeah. And, and for me, and maybe a lot of women can, can connect to this. I was tying my self worth to my productivity and like how my business was growing and now it's, I'm tying myself forth with how much I'm taking.

Care of myself which is impacted to your hormones and your stress and how you're going to digest everything.

Everything, everything. Yeah.

Beautiful. Back to basics. Simple is sometimes the most impactful thing that you can do. Right. And always ask yourself what your ancestors did. Not my answer. You know, go specific to who you are and where you come from and what.

They all did the same thing. Yeah, they just used maybe different ingredients from the land, but they all did the same thing. Really beautiful.

What's your favorite ancient healing recipe?

As in food or food or what's.

Your favorite ancient healing recipe or remedy?

Bone broth. It's a constant on my stove and if it's not on my stove, I'm buying it from a good source. But broth is so healing, so nutrient dense for my breastfeeding patients that like just sometimes you don't have time to eat properly. That I love. And yeah, I love that. And I love liver.

I saw that on your post.

Yeah, my kids love liver. They ask for liver, but that's because I didn't force it upon them. Yeah. Those two, I think from nutritional. I think, yeah.

Is there a recipe I have to ask that your mom or your grandmother or I have this idea that these ancient healing remedies are dying off with our, our grandmothers and our aunties.

100.

If I had my way, I would travel the world going to every single country and finding these sage women and just like publishing.

Be a dream. Be a dream. Yeah. This broth recipe is my grandma's recipe.

There you go.

Yeah, it's my. And it reminds me of her. She passed away like a couple years ago and she really impacted how I'm practicing because she was taking 25 medications when she died. She was chewing up her teeth. It was, it was horrific. And I'm like, it doesn't have to be that way. It really, really doesn't. And I got a lot of pushback when I tried to talk to the doctors in Lebanon. So I'm like, you do what you can. That's one other thing. Do what you can. If there's something you can't do, then don't put that pressure on you. We put so much pressure on ourselves as women.

Absolutely.

Like, I have to remind myself that daily, especially during my pregnancy. It's like right now I'm growing a baby, I'm growing another, like, human. Grow humans in our body in nine months. That's it. Months. And then we birth them, and then a whole the next. We do so much and honor that. Like, really honor yourself. I find that the world will honor you as much as you honor yourself.

And let that be your mantra. You know, I'm doing the best that I can.

Yes.

This is my best today.

Yes. Yeah.

What are the top three things that we could start doing right now to optimize our oral health naturally?

Love it. Clean your nose. Saline. Just put some saline up your nose. Or if you're congested, do the nutty pot and blow your nose really well. Okay. Very inexpensive. Put your tongue in the right position, roof of your mouth. And just start practicing with your kids, with your family, with your husband. Do like 10, three times a day.

Great.

And breathe.

Breathe.

We forgot to breathe.

Beautiful. So we talk about these ancient healing. We talk about these ancient healing traditions. What about modern medicine? Are you excited about what modern medicine is doing for dentistry?

1,000%. We have a laser machine. That's incredible. For example, it's. I don't know how much it was, but it's a big investment. And we got one and we got trained. And I've been using it for a of years. Couple two and a half, two years right now. And what an incredible piece of art it is. I can't do dentistry without it. So it has very deep level photobiomodulation. So we do that after we do injections or lung treatments with the mouth open. It helps people. The mitochondria perform better. Healing is faster. It helps us present a lot of root canals because it slowly removes the decay and it remineralizes and it disinfects about 1 to 2 millimeters below. So there is a lot in modern medicine that we need to be talking about. I don't want it to be like, I. I don't want to bash on modern medicine, but everything has to be used appropriately.

I'm a. Thank you for saying that. I'm a firm believer. We just have to integrate the Two worlds. There's wisdom and ancient wisdom and what our ancestors were doing.

Yes.

Modern day medicine is so. Still figuring things out.

Yes.

That sounds like a brilliant device.

Yeah.

I could talk to you for hours. We could. We could talk about so many things. We will. You're going to come back on. We'll talk about some different things. You're most excited, I'm sure, about the beautiful human inside you.

Yeah, I can't wait to meet him.

But, you know, tell people. How do you like staying in touch with your community? Tell us just a little bit about the course that you're going to be relaunching.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having me here. So I'm pretty much on Instagram. I haven't expanded. I don't have time to be on all these other platforms. Dr. Lydia D R L E E D I A. It's Lydia in Arabic. So my mom spelled it the way that she pronounced it. I used to hate that, but now I love it because it's very unique. But Dr. Lydia and the course, it's something I'm very proud of. It's how to reverse dental cavities in kids. I started off with the kids because we always focus on our kids before we focus on ourselves. But when you take this course, you're learning for your whole family, including yourself. So it's so funny you asked about that. I just got a testimonial three days ago from someone who took my course over summer and she goes, I went back to my dentist, I followed a few of the tips that. A few, not all of the tips. Like I give a lot in this course. And she's like, we didn't have to do any fillings on my daughter. Whereas they recommended like three fillings over the summer. This is an eight year old. So we just prevented trauma on an eight year old drill and fill. Dentistry was avoided. And so I'm really excited. I'm going to be relaunching it in February. I'm not sure when this episode is going to be out, but end of February. But yeah. So I'm so. Parents are loving it. You become a mini dentist for your kids. And that's what I want to do if I create a bunch of mini dentists all around the world. That's how dentistry is the number one chronic disease amongst kids and adults. Half of the world has dental issues and it's so preventable, but it's so interconnected as you to everything else.

Yeah. You know, after today, I'm just really learning. This should be one of the pillars on the wheel of health that everyone needs to look at 100%. So thank you for everything today. Your knowledge and your wisdom, your beauty and your energy. Like, gosh, you just put a completely different lens on this for everyone. So I love you. I can't wait, wait to share this together.

Love you, too.