Remove Your Mercury Amalgams, with Dr. Yuko Torigoe

After two to three days, after I removed two big mercury fillings from the right side, she said, my shoulder has never moved so freely and pain free. And I was like, wow, like, two days. Like, within a week, she felt a huge difference. And, you know, she's just one of many.

If you want to live like you matter, ditch the pills, look great, and feel Freaking amazing. You're in the right place. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo.

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Hello and welcome to the Feel Freaking amazing podcast. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo. I'm here solo today. Ed's with patients, and today we have one of my favorite people. I always say that, I know, but she really is. She's my personal dentist and the dentist to many others. She is Dr. Yuko Torigo, and she's a biologic, holistic, and biomimetic dentist in the south end of Boston. She's been practicing dentistry for over 20 years, and for the last seven years has really focused specifically on providing biological dentistry for her patients. And I know we've talked a lot in our podcast about biologic dentistry and what it is. We really wanted to have her on to talk about that. So welcome, Yuko. We're so happy you could be here.

Well, thank you so much for having me here, and I know it's been a little journey to get me here, but I'm just so, so, so excited and ready to share, you know, whatever I can offer.

It's great. So I think the first question people always talk about, I mean, now that I drink the Kool Aid, I'm like, of course. But what's a biologic dentist versus what we all think of?

So when we go to dental school, we learn about just, you know, basic. Basic dentistry, which is still very important. And tell everybody, don't discount what you learn in dental school. But what we have not learned in dental school is the type of, like, the safety of materials. You know, a lot of dentists decide to choose a material based on just ease of use, cost, and just what's available. So. And when it comes out to biocompatibility or safety, it's kind. Kind of in the low, you know, low level, and that should be the top level. So I think that's one thing that traditional dentistry don't put a lot of focus on. And so it's in a nutshell, it's kind of, you know, putting what's priority in that, you know, choosing material that's, that's biologic dentistry. And then that's of course focusing on what those material would affect our body as a whole, you know.

Okay, so it's really a focus on safety as opposed to expediency or convenience. And how is biologic dentistry different than biomimetic dentistry?

So biomimetic dentistry uses the concept of preserving the nature. Preserving what nature, you know, gave us. So you have a whole tooth. And again, in dental school we learn how to cut teeth, but little bit aggressive way. And it's, it's not the dental school don't teach to be conservative and less aggressive. You know, there's, you know, very, you know, a lot of patients, I mean, what a lot of dentists try to drill less tooth structure. However, in the curriculum they don't teach enough of how creative you can get to drill less tooth structure. So in terms of doing like, so in, in schools or majority, the traditional dentistry, they do a lot of crowns. And crowns can be partial crowns or full crowns. But again, a lot of times they do full Crown, which means 360°. They're drilling all the way around. And most of the time the unhealthy tooth structures are not necessarily everywhere. 360 degrees. So you remove what's necessary, what's not healthy anymore. But preserving that healthy tooth structure as much as you can is important in terms of like vitality of the tooth. The cavities can be very big, but you don't have to necessarily kill the tooth to, you know, maintain the health of the tooth. So in terms of biomimetic dentistry, we're mimicking the nature and that's preserving as much tooth structure as possible. So combining the biologic approach, which is safety and plus biomimetic, biomimetic is more like physics and that biologic is like by, you know, biology. So combining these two concepts just, you know, it was like perfect match for us.

I remember because I mentioned you're my dentist. I remember when I came to you for a consult and I was like, oh, what harm are these 40 year old fillings having? And you said to me, they're 50% mercury. They never stop off gassing. Every time you eat, drink, chew, brush your teeth, put something in your mouth, grind your teeth, you are releasing mercury into your system. And the thing that really caught my attention was that you said, I don't know if you remember saying this. It's so toxic that when you pull it out of someone's mouth, you can't even put it in just regular biohazard. You have to put it in special biohazard because it's so toxic. And I thought, get it out, get it out. And so that was the impetus because I kind of thought, well, it's been here for so many years, what difference is it making? But it turns out it's making a lot. And I didn't tell you this, that after I got the fillings out with you, I manage my recovery and monitor very closely all my data. And my baseline recovery increased by about 15 points consistently after getting my mercury fillings out. And I kind of thought, originally I thought, well, I definitely feel better. But then I thought, oh, it's just placebo. But then I really looked and I saw that my recovery baseline had gone up and I thought, oh, it's not placebo, it's real. Like it's really. There's something to that. So obviously mercury is a problem other than amalgams, is it found in other places and treatments, for regular treatments.

The amalgam? Yeah, the mercury in the amalgams, just in amalgam fillings.

Okay, okay. So when you talk about being a holistic dentist, do you use amalgams with mercury in your practice?

So we are mercury free and mercury safe, meaning mercury free. Doctors don't use mercury containing filling material at all. So we don't place them. But in terms of mercury safe, because some people, again I think more than 50% of the dentists now, they don't place amalgam filling, but they may not be removing them safely when they, when patient comes in with a broken filling that contains mercury or they come in with defective fillings, cavities underneath the mercury filling. So, you know, even though you're not practicing mercury safe, you still have to remove the mercury. And the difference is removing them safely, which is, you know, you've experienced all these coverings and nasal cannula. And we have two special rooms in our office to get rid of as much possible the mercury vapor and particulate. And you know, we have all these equipment and it doesn't take long. It's like just few minutes. And it's safe for the patients, my staff, myself, the other patients who come into our office. I don't want my staff or anybody to be be affected negatively affected by exposure to mercury. So, you know, in terms of mercury free, again, there is many, many dentists out there not using mercury as a filling. But mercury safe, that's Very, very few of us. And I wish again, like in dental school they could teach this so that, you know, it's just kinder approach to, you know, everything.

Well, it's funny because I have patients who are dentists and I feel kind of badly, but I'm always saying to them, I'm not so sure you should be a dentist because your mercury levels are so high and they're not working in biologic settings, and so they're not protected or they're not protected the way you protected me and yourself and your staff. And so I. I've said to them, like, you know, can you transition into teaching instead of actually seeing patients? Because it is so toxic for people. And it shocks me to watch, like, it shocks me to see how high their levels are. And I don't know if you've experienced. I mean, I'm assuming you test yourself.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, Ed sees me. She's my doctor physician, and I have been trying to detox. I had. Before I started practicing biologic dentistry, I tested my mercury level and was off the chart. Off the chart. I didn't have any symptom. I'm like, I'm feeling great. But my, my heavy metal levels are arsenic, cadmium, every lead, everything, not just mercury was. Everything was high. And just, you know, I've gone through this person. I'm still going. I. It got to a point that I had to come in for weekly IV with you guys. And I'm still doing it. But after seeing Ed last year, my mercury level went down by half. Wow. You know, I'm again, it started from super high, so half is still high. But again, like, it for me, it's an occupational exposure. Especially like when I was working at Boston University in dental school, there was no protection for me. So, you know, I was taking lots of supplements and. But that still didn't help because there's like 200 students working and no ventilation, you know, so now that I'm not working at school and I'm only working in a dental office that is safe and protected, so I feel much better. And again, that's why my mercury level went down. But, like, I'm scared for other dentists who are not protecting themselves. You know, I think it's important.

There's so many things that you just brought up, Yuko. One is perfection is not the goal. Progress and improvement is the goal. Because if you were sky high, to be 50% of sky high is a huge improvement. So that's what we're looking for, is Continuing to move the needle and make it better. That's one thing that I hear. Another thing that I hear, and what you're saying is for people like you and me, who don't easily move those toxins out, there's the intense detox we do. And then there's the ongoing detox. The food, that movement, the sleep, the supplements, the lifestyle, the life that promotes moving that toxins out gently and slowly. Because you can get rid of about 1% of your mercury any given day into your gut, but you recycle 99% of that. So if you have a dysfunctional gut, you're not going to get rid of your mercury. So ensuring that all the systems are working. And then you said something else that was so poignant, the implication of mercury for long term health, because it's terrible, right? Like head to toe stuff. So brain function, autoimmune disease, thyroid disease, hair loss, we think it leaves in the bones, the organs, the fat, difficulty losing weight, so bad periods, any kind of female issue, you name it, and mercury is implicated. So it's important to do your best. I mean, essentially, if you have a mercury filling, if you have a silver filling in your mouth, Yuko is the kind of person you need to see. So do you have. Can you share with us an example of a patient who got their mercury, other than me, who got their mercury fillings out and noticed a difference? Like, what difference does this make for people?

So, you know, everybody's different. And initially when I start to hear a drastic health improvement, like right away, I was a little bit skeptical too. I'm like, I think it's psychosomatic, you know, but when you hear over and over and over, you're like, I've read articles, I know scientifically this is, you know, not just out there, but I have one patient, she had a lot of mercury filling on the right side and she shared this with me later. But she always had right side health issues like shoulder immobility and then like hip and just everything on the right side. She had issues. And she said after two to three days, after I removed like two big mercury fillings from the right side, she still had something on the left side. But she said, my shoulder has never moved so freely and pain free after the removal. And I was like, wow, like two days, like within a week she felt a huge difference. And you know, she's just one of many. So, you know, again, I don't have a scientific journal written by me to prove this, but you know, patients after patient tells me that Some of the long term kind of health issues, you know, resolved, whether it's two days or like in a month or a year, just I feel so happy to part of their initial journey because removing the mercury filling is not the end of the journey, you know, and that's just the first step. And then from there you can go through the detox, you know, process like with you guys and you know, it's an ongoing takes village of practitioner to, you know, bring health to our patients. But like I am one of the first people who could help them and that makes me so happy.

Right, right. It really does take a village. Right. Because it's the nurses who do the IVs, it's the doctors who do the diagnosis, you do the removal and then all of the other providers who support the adrenal function like the acupuncturist, the bodyworkers, magnet therapists, like there's so many other people. What do you recommend for people who had their mercury fillings in place? And how do I say this? Once they've taken their fillings out, are you saying go see my colleagues? Are you saying the journey's done? What do you recommend for people when they've already had their mercury fillings out? But like me, I had them for 40 plus years before getting them out.

When we see our patients, we make sure we're not telling them that everybody has to get their mercury's out. And especially if they, if their condition, like the filling condition is not defective and don't need to be replaced, then I give them an option. And luckily we have a lot of patients who come in wanting to have their mercury out because again, they, they learned from somewhere. They, and they, they made their own decision to have the mercury move but safely. So, you know, we don't necessarily tell everybody out there, like I have friends and family who have mercury filling, but I just kind of keep my mouth shut but you know, let, let the world know what we do. And you know, there's so many organization out there putting out all the information that they know it's available for everybody to, to learn. So and again, like I said, when, when they come in to have the mercury fillings out because they want to, regardless of the condition, I'll just let them know this cannot guarantee an improvement of your health or, you know, anything that they might be expecting. But you know, we just want to make sure that we're giving them an educated and informed, you know, decision for them to make.

Yeah, I mean having experienced it, I'm a huge Fan and a huge proponent. So how can people find biologic dentists?

So there's an organization called iaomt, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. That's where I started the journey. And they have just. Members are all a little over a thousand, and they have listing of all the biologic dentists all over the world. And so people who wants to find the biologic dentist, they could go to IMT website and then just search, you know, your location. Who are the biologic dentistry? And they have very extensive information, like how many times each member's attended meetings. Some people are there just kind of as a. Okay, I want to sign up for biologic dentistry, but never came to our meetings. You know, so. And then.

So there's teeth in the evaluation.

Yes.

And how do you know if someone's good when you go to them? Like, obviously, don't just go in expecting your mercury fillings to be taken out. Right. Evaluate them.

How do you.

What would you be looking for to know? Okay, they know what they're doing.

Yeah, I think that's a very hard thing to measure. But I think, you know, in anything you do in life, you have to find the right match. Right? Like whether your life partner, whether that's your career, you have to feel it's the right match. So for us, we try to make sure we listen to our patients. A lot of our patients have been kind of dismissed by other practitioners. And so I think that's one thing that patients can do. Are they really here to listen to my story? Being here for me, because we do spend. Our initial appointment is for a whole hour, and sometimes we run overtime because I'm a talker. And sometimes patients and I, we just get into these conversations. But I think no matter what, where you go, you don't want to go to an office where they don't think of you as a warm person. Like, I. I been to, like, hospitals, and I was just a number, you know, and I felt like I was just inconveniencing them when they. When I asked questions. Oh, can you go over these lab results? Oh, okay. Okay, we can do that. Like, we'll call you, you know. No, I want to talk to you right now, and I want to pick your brain. So I think that's, you know, one. To me, that's an important thing. Do you resonate with your. The person that you're seeing and you want to develop a relationship with that provider? And, you know, obviously a word of mouth is a big thing. So if somebody goes to this, you Know the biologic dentist and they recommend you that. That's the best. You know, that's what we also rely on. So it's. It's hard. I know there's so many reviews out there. You know, what about the.

In the actual. You know, when I showed up for my mercury removal, it was like a hazmat scene. And, and, you know, look, I'm in the scene, so I took my binders on the morning of. And I fasted and got an IV and all that stuff. But. But, like, what should people who might not know the scene be looking for? Is there a checklist? Like, do they put a dental dam on? Do they put oxygen on you? Is there a checklist that you could say, look for these four things to add. Here's the four questions to ask her. I'm making that up.

Well, for sure, like, they have to. They have to know what they're looking for in terms of. I'm sure people who are interested in, for example, like, safe mercury removal. A lot of our patients are very much aware. Do you have mercury separator? Do you have that hazmat mask or something equivalent to that? There are some masks that are less. Less bulky, but it is. Has a mercury filter and rubber dam. For sure. For sure, for sure. There are a lot of people using an alternative like a suction, but rubber dam is extremely important. And then some sort of external vacuum because there's a lot of vapor particulate.

You know, you gave me oxygen. Yes, so I had oxygen. Plus you did the suction and the. I call it a dental dam. But you call it. Is it a dental dam? Okay, so that plastic, that, that latex sort of stretchy thing that isolates the tooth.

Yeah.

So it doesn't go anywhere else. And then you draped me.

Yeah. And then the head covering, you know, so I think. And then also with the iomt, they have a certification as well. It's called smart certification. So someone who has been certified, and I'm actually the education committee who certifies everybody. So every month I certify a few people. So those, those smart certified doctors, they go through extensive, like, tests and presentations. So you definitely want to seek someone who has that type of certification, not just saying, oh, I'm a biologic tennis. Anybody can call themselves biologic dentist, you know.

Right. Don't read. Don't listen to the marketing. Look at, look behind the curtain. Okay. Where can people find you? And we'll put everything in the show notes. So. But where can they find you?

So you can. They can Visit our website HarmonyBoston.com and yeah, all the information is there.

It's great. It's great for all the listeners. Go get your mouth taken care of because it influences your health and it can help you detox like I did. So, Yuko, thank you so much for being on the feel freaking amazing podcast. I'm so happy you were here because this is such a critical topic and for all the listeners you can find out harmonydental.com and if you're not in the area, you can look for a biologic dentist. We'll put the link in the show notes and be well. Thanks for being here, Yuko.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

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