Does Bad Oral Health Make You Sick?: Insights from Dr. Kelly Blodgett

Well, welcome, everybody. I have a Special guest today, Dr. Kelly Blodgett, who's a biologic dentist from Portland, Oregon, who I had the pleasure of having dinner with last night. He's in Austin, and welcome to the show. Dr. Blodgett.

Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to meet you and to be here and. Yeah, having a good time in Austin, for sure.

Well, we certainly adhere to a lot of the principles that you follow. I do love the practice of biologic dentistry as it relates to a lot of my patients with breast implant illness. Yeah, we see a large number of patients who are on this journey to try to, you know, get things out of their body that are foreign or could be causing inflammation. So in your experience, kind of give us some highlights and tips and tricks for things that you're seeing that can just help us reduce our inflammation overall.

Yeah, great question. I would say that the, the most obvious that is, that actually gets press is gum disease. You know, anybody with, with gum inflammation, if their, you know, gums bleed when they're flossing or brushing, clearly there's an inflammatory process going on there. And the whole dental industry would agree, like, that's a problem. I would say even the medical industry would say, you know, you gotta resolve that. What's interesting and doesn't get any press is the risk that I observe with people who get root canals, so teeth that no longer have, like, we've surgically removed the blood supply to this tooth, and it becomes a dead organ that's connected to living bone and gum tissue. Because of the porosity of the dentin surface of. Of the tooth, it literally soaks microbes in like a dry sponge and becomes this chronic source of microbes getting into your. Your body. And I would say it's probably over the last 10 years of observing people's health improvement once they get these dead teeth out of their mouth. It's like, it's just shocking. You know, I mean, I was trained to, to do root canals in dental school, so it kind of came as a big aha that, you know, these could be such a chronic source of toxicity for people.

And you send. Because we send every single patient scar capsule off for PCR testing. So for the audience, my audience knows this, but for anybod, anybody who's listening, polymerase chain reaction just looks at DNA fragments, and there are fragments of bacterial DNA, fungal DNA, mycobacterial DNA. And in our series that will be published soon of 900 consecutive samples were much higher. Now, but this series looks at 900, it's about 30 to 34% have biofilm. So that's a, just like Dr. Blodgett mentioned, it's a colonization of microorganisms and it could be bacterial colonization, it could be fungal colonization, it could be bacterial. So in your experience, Dr. Blodgett, you know, in terms of, I talk about biofilm a lot, which is just colonies, colony formation of these microbes, like you mentioned, what do you see form on these, these teeth that no longer have blood supply, like you mentioned?

Yeah, so I started sending those out about seven years ago to a DNA lab in Colorado. And, and for, for the sake of clarity, we would expect for the top part of a tooth, you know, the enamel, things like that that are exposed to the mouth to, to in fact, you know, be coated in, in microbes because, you know, we have biofilm from one end of the GI tract to the other. The root system, however, should not have, you know, microbes living within that system. So far, every root that I've sent, which is probably a little over 500 roots now have all been loaded with either, you know, it's some mixture of bacteria, viruses, parasites, things of that nature inside the roots. Not all, by the way, will have like some. When we look at X rays in the dental world, and for anybody who's had a root canal, let's say, or somebody, the dentist has told them, oh, I think you need a root canal, there might be an abscess at the tip of the root. Well, the vast majority that I send in don't have abscesses. It's just a root that quote, unquote looks normal on an X ray. Yet the patient. It's interesting because one of the things I hear from, from the, the, the human beings that I'm helping is they say, I know something's wrong with us. They have this intuitive sense that something's wrong. But of course, our objective means of measurement, X rays, especially when it's two dimensional, limited to two dimensional X rays, we just can't see it. You know, you can't see microbes on an X ray. So, yeah, my experience is so far they're, they're all loaded with microbes in a place where we shouldn't have that.

So this is even higher than what, you know, I, I see and I've tried to, you know, be as careful about, you know, sampling them and sending them to this like you're using one laboratory. And it's a research based laboratory that does lots of PCR testing. So we feel like we're getting quality information back. But, you know, I get asked all the time just like you do. Can, you know, can we know these things up front? Like, no, there's not a, A way to see a microscopic process on a macroscopic exam.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a ct, mri, X. Like you said, regular X ray. Of course the answer is no.

Yeah.

So, you know, this kind of goes back to limitations in both dental training and medical training about how we assess and assign symptoms to a disease and then try to create a treatment plan in these settings where, you know, microbes form biofilm, which stimulates our immune system. In this case, probably cause a chronic, almost prodromal type phase of, you know, maybe not be completely infected all the time in the bone. But I used to make. Or make. Yeah, I would make a mandible out of a fibula. That was part of my career. Complicated, you know, if you're. I remember I was getting my board examinations and they pulled one of my, my mandible reconstructions for, for, you know, a jaw cancer. And that is a very complicated. As you mentioned, it's the beginning of the GI tract. Lots of microbes. I mean, it's a host. And to get everything to heal with, you know, hardware and to get. To get it watertight, sealed up because they remove part of the. The tissue or the tongue or both, and bone, and you're just like, it's a lot going on. So I certainly feel. I'm surprised we didn't have more issues. But, yeah, I know.

The body's a miracle.

Yeah, that's amazing. So I feel like. And you mentioned a little bit of how the oral cavity, obviously, at the beginning of the GI tract and when you don't have a functioning or a good microbiome, how it leads to all sorts of other problems. So if you're not digesting your food, not eliminating your food, or having normal bowel movements, absorption is a huge, you know, kind of. To me, it's a big black box. People ask me all the time things like, you know, Dr. Whitfield, can I eat a bunch of collagen? My skin get better? I'm like, well, the shorter answer is no, because collagen is such a big molecule that you can't absorb it, so it has to be hydrolyzed into smaller peptides so that we can absorb things. But as you mentioned when we were discussing earlier, like, people have to have normal, you know, if you want to call it waste management, you know, going on to be healthy, maybe you could, you know, talk about the oral health and how that affects your gut microbiome and then downstream.

Yeah, well, the mouth is, it's such an interesting play. I'm so glad you brought that up. And it's not every day I get to talk to somebody who's familiar with reconstructing a mandible, let's say. Like that is, oh my gosh, when I can think about trying to put that together versus a knee, let's say. Like there's so much and, and, and of course there's also like the social and functional side of just having teeth. You know, how does our smile look? How do our teeth function together? If you're missing them, how on earth are you going to chew your food? I mean, they're not just there for good looks, you know, it helps, of course, but, you know, being able to combine your food with the enzymes that your saliva is naturally designed to give them so you can in fact process them in the stomach, it all works together. You know, in terms of oral microbiome management, I mean, we could probably talk for hours on the things that I see that are a normal daily practice for folks these days. Whether it's with the best of intentions. Right. You know, like, well, I'm drinking kombucha now because I heard it's good for my gut and probiotics and stuff. And it's like they're sipping on low concentration of acid ongoingly for six to eight hours a day, let's say. And then they're wondering why their teeth are melting or something else. I see frequently is like multiple metals that have been put in somebody's mouth. It's, you know, it's creating this galvanic, you know, sitting in a salt bath of we call saliva, you know, and wondering why these currents are, are shifting the ecology in the mouth and making some teeth more prone to breakdown than others, like from an electromagnetic standpoint. And we do this without any, you know, we just load people's mouths up with dissimilar metals without ever asking, one, what's the, what's the energetic shift going to cause? Two, might this person be sensitive to any of the components of the metals that we're putting in or the alloys? I should say so. It's, there's so much going on there that we just as a profession have closed a blind eye to.

Yeah, I get a lot of folks who obviously are trying to, as you've probably experienced, shift into a more natural, more holistic kind of state of well being. So I have women who've had Breast augmentation or breast reconstruction, no longer desire to have a breast implant. It's a big decision to make. And they just want to feel better and get healthier. And they'll do as you know, when you have. A lot of women are very sturdy and they will do all sorts of things to themselves to feel better, whether it's intense sauna, workouts, diets, supplements, fasting, like whatever, whatever you can name. Women are incredibly not averse to discomfort or, or whatever it takes to get stuff done. And I have to have. And you can tell me if I'm wrong. I try to get people just to eat whole foods and avoid obviously anything ultra processed. And I want them not to acidify or alkalize their fluid intake. So I try to be pretty specific about what I want in a prep phase because I put people on really high protein diets and I give them digestive enzymes because if you ramp up their protein, you'll get a bad gut situation with fermentation if you don't help them digest it with more proteases. So, like, I don't really care what diet you have. That's not, I'm not the diet, you know, monitor. I just want the protein to be higher and, you know, cut out bad carbs and bad fats and, and then you'll, you'll be on a more healthier, you know, journey. And I'm sure that will help your oral health as well, as long as you're paying attention to. And I'm sure you can give us some tips about, about that. But I, I went to, we were talking about, you know, teeth cleaning before we went on. I went and had mine, you know, clean the other day. And I've always had a pretty high protein diet. And that causes buildup on my lower teeth on the buccal surface. Hygienist is like, you eat a lot of protein, don't you? And I'm like, yeah, I do. And I always will because I function better on a higher protein diet. So I try to get everybody doing this standard. For me, listen, standard diet is a gram of protein per kilogram of body weight a day. So if you weigh 150, it's basically 70 grams. So when I, I ramp it up to one and a half to two to two and a half grams of protein per kilogram of body weight in a given day. So I'll have like smaller people on 150 grams of protein. They're struggling, you know, they're like, I have to go, you know, kill a deer or A chicken or you know, eat a whole thing of, of soy protein or whatever, which we don't want them to do. And we give them little hacks with amino acids, you know, a smoothie with protein in it. There's, there's lots of ways to do that, but maybe speak to like all the different adjustments and concoctions. You already mentioned kombucha, but people do lots of things to their fluid intake, which I'm sure causes problems for you.

Yeah. And when I think of the general population and what is socially driven, I guess it might say like, you know, there aren't like thousands of Starbucks for no reason. You know what I mean? Like, like I just think of. And interestingly, most of them aren't going in and asking for a bulletproof coffee. You know, it's like I want the, yeah, they want the Frappuccino with the, you know, four pumps. And, and unfortunately, because not only are the substances risky for, from an oral health standpoint, but we're putting them in vessels where you can easily sip on them with a lid, you know, all like for hours. And, and one of the greatest risks in oral health is the frequency of exposure. So I mean, if I were to think of, let's say somebody had to have a can of coke a day, they were just like, I got to have my can of Coke, you know, and they said, what's the best way to drink this? Well, I would say, well, you know, one, if you could have it with food, that's going to help, you know, decrease risk due to the inherent sugars and acidity. But also if you could get it into your, you know, through past your mouth in the shortest amount of time, that's going to also decrease risk. Now that's probably going to put a tax on your, your pancreas and your insulin levels. But again, like people today, like when you and I were kids, you'd get a can of Coke if you opened it up, like you had to drink it, you couldn't take it to class, you couldn't put a lid on it. You know what I mean? And today it's like the availability of those substances on an ongoing basis is just, it's like at an all time high. You know, the, the concept of, well, let's fluoridate the daylights out of everybody doesn't work. If it did. We've been fluoridating communities for decades now and, and generally speaking, decay rates haven't decreased, you know.

No. And to your point, like, and we, we have to have discussions and I'M I'm pretty plain with, with people. If you want to work with us and put in the time and effort, just like it would be to go visit you in Portland, there's some certain, just fundamental things you have to do. You have to cut out for me, gluten and dairy sugars that don't come from foods. So processed, ultra processed foods have to be eliminated, basically, if you're going to be part of the, the, the process that helps you get better. And sugar is a huge problem. It's incredibly addictive. If you've ever seen a little one have their first, you know, ice cream or whatever, it's basically a huge dopamine rush, which is like crack to a kid. And I guess if you want to be really critical, how we were taught growing up is you have your, you know, Cheerios or Froot Loops and a big thing of orange juice which is just packed with sugar.

Yes.

So you, you wonder why kids have, you know, you have trouble getting them in the car and the teacher's like, why won't they. Your, your kids won't calm down, but you just loaded them up with a ton of fructose, which we don't really break down. And for everybody listening, obviously, glucose is, is the molecule we normally utilize and our brains utilize it for energy. That's why, you know, it's the most demanding organ is your brain in terms of energy and mitochondrial function. But if you eat trash and drink trash, your brain will behave like trash. So, you know, we, we try to get people on the right track, you know, from the jump. And certainly people ask me a lot about their, their dental health and, you know, should there be an order to this and we can, you know, talk about this. I deal with very, very large surface area devices. So breast implants is spherical and if it's textured, it's like the topography of the Rockies. So the amount of contact your body has with it increases as, as, you know. So if it's smooth, it's less contact. If it's textured, more contact, more stimulation to your immune system, more T cel cell activation. So you get these drivers of an immune response. And there are certain things in literature that are coming out now that show that the biofilm, you know, around these can be real drivers for auto immune stimul stimulation, which makes sense, obviously. So when people try to get me to pin me down, like what order to do things, the order to me is not as important as in the other things that we talk about changing. And then certainly if someone's got really, really bad dental health. They have to get that taken care of. In fact, when we were in surgical training, any cardiac patient, any heart patient who was getting a valve or anything else, or kid getting a stage of their procedure, you'd have to look in their mouth and you'd cancel them if they had active disease or like you said, gum inflammat. I don't think everybody understands this, but probably the. I would say the heart surgeons were the first people I learned this from because that just was in my training. I ended up working with them a lot initially, and they would say, all right, anytime Susie or Johnny has to go get his, you know, dental stuff done, he has to have amoxicillin, you know, suspension before that appointment. And if you don't, basically, you're going to see their bloodstream with bacteria. It can coat their implant or in their heart.

Yeah.

And you get endocarditis. Like, this is not rocket science. Like, we've known about this forever.

Yeah, yeah.

But somehow we've. We've got to. Or we've lost our way in terms of thinking about this. But I talked to two patients about them. Like, so when I used to place implants for breast reconstruction, all our patients had a standing prescription, you know, through the office for teeth cleaning, because that's how you get robotella in your bloodstream is very common. I think we're on the same page with how those things can happen.

Absolutely. Well, I think you bring up such a good point because, you know, if we look at the standards as dictated to us, the, you know, the dental people, by the American Heart association, like, absolutely 100%, we know that, you know, things like heart valves, knee replacements, hip joints, things like. Like, you're at risk. Why? Because the same lymphatic drainage and blood supply, you know, feeds those areas, as does the mouth. How on earth can we expose people to microbial exposure with root canals and never consider that that is also presenting risk for people? So, like, let's say I was a matter of fact just this last week, connecting with a young woman. She's in Mexico currently with her mother at a cancer treatment center. You know, the idea is, well, we want to. We're going down here to get treatment that's more holistic in nature to help her with her breast cancer. And I said, well, if you'd like me to look at her dental X rays, feel free to send it to me. I'd be happy to give you my opinion. So they send it to me. And she says, yeah, they Want to get out her mercury fillings. And I'm like, that sounds like a great idea. And then I noticed, well, one of her teeth has been treated with a root canal. And so I'm asking her, have they talked to you about taking that root canal out because it's a known source of infection? And she's like, yeah, they said it looks fine on the X ray, so they're going to leave it. My experiences and I've helped so many people now who have been given diagnoses of, let's say, you know, cancer, which says to me, like, the body system is out of kilter. It wasn't designed that way necessarily, but because of the things they've been exposed to, like, that's likely triggered this event. I've seen so many people, when we remove, when we get the mouth cleaned up, miraculously, like, their symptoms of cancer disappear. And I'm like, well, isn't your body designed to heal itself provided we remove the sources of toxicity, which in the dental world is going to look like root canals.

Right.

Particularly like. And nowadays, speaking of implants, like, in my world, titanium implants for teeth have been around for, well, more than 50 years now. And they can be wonderful ways to replace teeth, of course. But if that person starts experiencing bone loss due to inflammation, we call peri implantitis. Inflammation around implants, man, there. That is, you know, a witch's brew. You know, it's a hot, hot mess, and it's going to go systemic. And for anybody who's, you know, got breast implants or, you know, any joints that might be already prone to inflammation, like, there's so much risk involved in that, but. But sadly, the dental profession just isn't really looking at it that closely.

Yeah, I think. And I always try to. And maybe you have similar conversations. I think I've had several discussions, you know, with colleagues, and I try to be very plain about how I look at any chronic inflammatory process. And autoimmune diseases predate implants. So, you know, whether it's dental or breast or a knee, autoimmune diseases have been around since, you know, I think first reports are late 1800s, basically is when you can really kind of see them first breast implants. 1962 in Houston. Cronin and Jerome, you know, placed it. It's a Dow Corning device. And I don't know the first titanium dental implant, but so the tim potty has a chronic inflammatory process. We already know you can have it without implants. So if you place an implant in somebody who's already genetically predisposed to this. Sprinkle in mold, lime, phthalates from your plastic water bottle, or glyphosates from your, you know, herbicide, pesticide infested food that you're eating from the dirty dozen, and some, you know, heavy metals, because the groundwater where you live, like, where I live, has arsenic in it. It's not really a good situation for you.

Yeah, totally.

It's pretty complicated. So a lot of those patients to us will look the same, I'm sure.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and it's. That's right. It's the same human host. You know, just expression is going to be individualized, of course. But, you know, one of the things we were talking about last night that I appreciated so much is like the, the art of listening. As a, as a healthcare provider slash healer, you know, someone who listens. It's amazing to me what people are able to, like, the lens through which I can see their health story if I slow down to listen, you know, especially about their history and where they came from and what they're exposed to and, you know, what their food choices are like. I mean, I, I love asking the question, tell me about your diet as a kid and, and then what, you know, did it change at all when you went through high school or college or, you know, your early adult life? And just listening to that story, it's amazing the things that I can hear and see and about why their body may have made the, the shifts that it, that it made health wise, you know, it's really cool. Yeah.

I mean, it was, as we were talking about last night is I would be in training. So I trained for six years of general surgery and two years of plastic surgery. And we would go have, we want to go see a ball game. We go to a sports place to watch games and we get like, you know, wings and have a beer, like normal stuff. But I would get sick and get bloated and, you know, I, you know, I couldn't, you know, have, you know, much in the way of beer without feeling really bad. And people are like, oh, Kelly, you're soft. You can't have a beer. You know, And I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And I remember as a plastic surgery resident, a friend of mine said, because I told him, like, yeah, every time I have a beer, I know I don't feel good. He's like, oh, well, you should, you know, just try a different drink, try a liquor or something. And it all went away because it was not gluten. So I'm a non celiac gluten sensitive, you know, person. And this was inherited by my daughter. And when she was in 2017, we had went to attend the super bowl party and brought our kids. It was a kid friendly party. And they had too many, like, whatever, beanie weenies or pigs in a blanket or whatever. And the next day she didn't feel well. And I remember she ran up to me with this horrified look on her face and started dry heaving. And of course, I. I'm the guy who spent, you know, the better part of his career taking care of kids with cancer, women with cancer. So I immediately go to bad places in my head. I'm like, oh my God, she has some kind of pancreatic tumor. Immediately like, all right, we're going to the, you know, the pediatric, you know, ER and get a CAT scan because, you know, Rob has to know that there's nothing wrong that's gonna my child. But ultimately she has non celiac gluten sensitivity. HLA typing shows that it's not celiac disease. And we know her genetics. And so for everybody listening, if you don't detox well. So your immune system has very specific ways to detox. And you have a lot of exposures and you eat poorly and you don't sleep and you drink out of plastic bottles and you use bad products that are, you know, not paraben free or things that are unsafe. I think the, the latest data said that women use products that contain 100 different chemicals that they apply to their skin daily.

Jeez.

So if you just think of that, that's a lot of things to expose a very sensitive endocrine system to. Because women don't have the testosterone to buffer out some of the things caused to that increase their cortisol or affect their estrogen or. I mean, there's. It's just a complicated situation that's not getting any better. Honestly, it's just getting complicated.

Yeah. What you just described, I. I visualize my shower, Rob. Like, you know, I got a bar of soap. My wife's side is very lot more products. And it's just. They're marketed to, Right? Yeah.

I mean, but in terms of detoxification, for anybody listening, you can go to the environmental Working group website and put in the product you're using, because whether it's for you or your children, I've had people have lots of different exposures. And triclosan is an antibacterial that's in a lot of products like wet Wipes. But you absorb that stuff and so do your kids. So if you have trouble eliminating it, it's like anything. Like, you just have to be aware and, you know, you know, you can control a lot of things. You can control what you put in your mouth, what you eat and what you drink. You can start right there. Everybody says maybe they can't visit us, you in Portland, me and Austin. But there are certain steps you can take, you know, listening to us talk that, you know, starting that way with a better diet, you know, for both your oral health, your. Your. Your gut health, which will affect your, you know, gut, you know, brain axis. All of that thing. All of that requires just making a change, a personal choice, you know, from the moment you decide that you can change, that you can cause, you know, a real health change just by doing.

Those things totally well. And I'm glad you brought up the Environmental Working Group. I mean, I get asked a lot like, well, what's the best? You know, what's the best? Dental, toothpaste or whatever. And I'm like, you know, there's no best. My advice is download the healthy living app by the Environmental Working Group and just go to your wherever you like to get your products and click on the barcode and figure out, like, all right, well, how risky is this stuff and do I want to make a change? Like, there's so many ways you can be empowered to make better decisions, you know, to decrease risk, which. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah. And something that I will give some airtime to, and air, no pun intended, is the quality of the air is going down, not up. So, like, you're visiting us from Portland. You're on the coast. I always get a lot of folks with a lot of mold exposures from the coast of our country. And in Texas, we have tons of trouble with mold and cedar and oak and just the air quality in general. When I first moved here, I was having tons of trouble. My wife loves to leave the doors open and let the outside ventilate with the inside, which is for somebody with, you know, sensitivity to mold or cedar or oak is. Is difficult. So we use a lot of air filters. We use the Jasper, which I showed you this morning.

Yeah.

And it really helps me. Actually, I didn't tell you this, but I started taking it to where I operate. So I'll just take the Jasper with me when I go to the operating room, because you're going to be there and you're. You're breathing in and out the whole time. And the quality of air matters. You know, I think, like, everybody's on board with filtered water, but somehow filtered air hasn't made it to the mainstream.

So funny. I mean, it just cracks me up because you think about, like, yeah, like, you might be able to go a few hours without some water, but, you know, you're good. God willing, you're going to be taking in air, you know, every few seconds. Probably the quality of that's going to matter for sure.

Well, just anybody who's, like, been up in the mountains, whether you're just visiting for a hike or, like, it's a very different environment. You know, all things being equal, you're like, the air is very different up here. And when you come down into the city or, you know, an urban area where there's a lot more cars or industry, you know, here in Austin, we have lots of preserved areas with lots of cedar and oak. And it never. So people need to understand. Austin never gets. Or used to never get cold. It would all be very temperate, so there would never be a freeze and stop the pollen. But there's been a couple instances now where there have been, you know, times of the year where it froze in, like, January, February. But that's why when people come to Austin, they have a lot of difficulties. So somebody who moves here. A lot of people have come from California, obviously, and Oregon and Washington and Florida.

Yeah.

Big state. But then they're like, ah, you know, the, you know, the. The allergies. Well, you have to think of it this way. If. If in fact, you didn't use something to filter your water, you'd be drinking a lot more heavy metals in the water and you could tell the difference in the water. So you should actually get astute enough to notice the difference in the air.

Yeah.

Because when air is clean, you can tell a difference, and that's what's affecting you when you move here. So, like, all of my clients, wherever they come from, I tell them, like, you got to increase the quality of your hair. And we, you know, give them information. Information regarding that. That's probably one of the first times they've really thought about it critically, like, versus obviously thinks, you know, like all the. The media marketing that's gone to water filtration. My goodness.

Right.

Is a ton.

Yeah. You know, I think it was kind of an interesting experience there through Covid for us, anyway. Like, we had. We had invested in a bunch of IQ air units back in 2017, 18, and already had them in place. And, you know, they're just part of our. In a dental environment. Right. Like the dental office. Most dental practices will be one of the most toxic air exposures you'll find, you know, the aerosols. So it kind of makes sense, you know, like, well, if you just intentionally filter your air, there going to be so much better. So I remember I got called one day by the local ABC news affiliate and they wanted to know, hey, you guys are going back to work. The state government has said you can get in there now. Like, how are you going to manage all this stuff? And I'm like, oh, my gosh, come in and take a look at this. Right. Like, if we're concerned about viruses, bacteria, all this stuff and air filtration, like, check out what we've been using for a few years now. And they're like, oh my gosh, why wouldn't every dental office use this? This makes so much sense. And of course it does. Like, every room in our clinic has this stuff in it. It's for which I'm grateful, as is my team, you know, because we're exposed to that stuff all the time.

Yeah, you're. You're in the worst possible position as a dental care provider because of the oral cavity and, and the nasal cavity. Right. Yeah, right there.

Yep.

It was not. We talked about a little bit coveted was an awful kind of situation, but it led to a lot of changes, and some of them been, you know, very good changes. And thinking about air quality is definitely something that got, you know, top of mind.

Yeah.

During the pandemic for us, where we didn't have, you know, a strategy about that. And now, you know, I think I have 11 air filters in the office. Some, you know, large number, room by room by room, you know, just like you said. And now I, you know, I'm. I'm such a kind of advocate for it. I carry an air filter with me, which is not. We're not talking a small air filter either. When you see it, it's several feet tall. And I. I hoist it up on my shoulder in the morning when I leave my office and go put it in my car and, and head to the surgery center and just unload it.

And bring it in.

And I. For everybody listening, I don't like bad water. So I use an echo water system wherever I go. So I've had one installed at the surgery center where we operate. And we don't drink bad coffee like Keurig coffee. I don't do any of that. So we brought the same coffee maker. It's a Danish coffee Maker Mocha Master from the same one we use at our office. We put one over there and we drink bullet and I just drink black coffee. The last thing really was just the, the air. So then I just, you know, basically, you can do a lot of things to improve environmentally, you know, your situation, whether it's at home or at work. You know, you just gotta actually decide to change and do something about it because you can. It's not right. Doing what's right is not necessarily what's convenient most of the time.

Well, and I think as it relates to kind of making. You're bringing up such a perfect point as it relates to dental issues. Right. Because when I think of, you know, working with a nutritional therapist, let's say, and they're like, you know, we want you to try X, Y and Z, and, and you can make modifications as you go. Most of what people are experiencing, dentistry becomes a permanent fixture, you know, so that filling in your tooth, the crown, the, the veneer, the root canal, the implant, what have you. So it, I think it would behoove us as providers to think about is the person for whom I'm putting this in and permanently installing it. Is it something to which I, I can reasonably think that they would be sensitive, you know, and for all the listeners out there, for anybody interested in understanding what products work for them and what don't, there's a test that we run for people called Biocomp. Likely you do a blood draw. We send the blood through a process of centrifuging and sending it off to this lab. They will tell us for all the products on the market currently, which products are least reactive, moderately reactive or most reactive. And we just try to stick with those products for any person that are least reactive.

Because there's no specific to dental.

Yes. Yeah, that test is specific to dental.

That's great.

What's cool is that it is compared to five years ago, the size of the test has increased by like five fold, meaning the amount of products that they're able to test has become so large. And as you might expect, like, there are certain products on the market that are way better designed. Oh, sure, of course, you know, yeah. And of course most people tolerate them very well. But the interesting thing since I started using this to seeing like, huh, there are, you know, that 1 to 2% of people who aren't going to do well with that product and they might, you know, be more. They might be better suited to have a different one. So it's really helpful now as a, as a biologically minded dentist to choose materials for people intentionally whenever I can. And it's like it might only cost $400 to get the test run. It's not a major investment.

No, that's a huge value add to anybody listening, I think. And I had this discussion with Dr. Applauded last night. People ask me all the time. First of all, I don't place implants anymore. And I never was somebody who placed a lot of implants for a number of reasons. Mostly because my career has hinged in performing oncologic reconstruction using microsurgery. It never allowed me the time or the space to have a very large volume of another type of practice, just given the number of hours I spent in the operating room during microsurgery. But I also had to have discussions with people about cancer reconstruction, and it was very hard. The youngest person I ever had that discussion with was 24. And to have a complex discussion about a device and or tissue reconstruction and its effects, both short term and intermediate and long. You know, when the industry defines long term survival as five years, it's a, it's not an easy discussion to have with someone who's, you know, young, who just got this really difficult diagnosis, may or may not have good support from family or spouse or a significant other. And then, you know, just like you're trying to educate people to make informed decisions, this allows you to help them make a better informed decision.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's spot on.

All right, well, if someone wants to get in touch with Dr. Blodgett or visit him in Portland, I'm going to let him tell you all how to do that.

Thank you. Yeah, so I own Blodgett Dental Care in Portland, Oregon. People can find us. My website is www.blodgetdentalcare.com. the best way to reach out to my team. If you're interested in us assessing, you know, what's going on for you and how we can help you optimize your oral health, just reach out to my team. There's a link in the upper right hand corner that says, you know, like, connect with us. You just send them a message. My new patient coordinators will be happy to start an email or phone conversation with you and we'll help you figure out how to optimize your oral health so that the rest of your body can, you know, not be hindered by anything going on in your mouth.

Well, it's been a pleasure to have you on. I really have enjoyed this discussion. I think we have a lot of alignment. I look forward to having you on again in the future.

Thank you so much, Dr. Whitfield. Appreciate it.