Today I had the last two amalgams removed, out of 17 total in the last ~5 months. Mercury free, finally. I will be ordering DMSA tonight and in a week or so start on 25mg dose using Cutler's protocol.
The last 4 amalgams were removed at the whole-body dental clinic
Groton Dental Welness Spa (MA, USA). I switched to them (they are about 50 min drive from my home) after having done the previous 12 at a local 'mercury free' dentist, which due to incomplete protection was starting to cause flue-like symptoms (which were getting worse) after the visits.
The Groton folks are genuine experts, both in protection and in dental technique. My dentist was Dr. Jean Nordin-Evans. She and her assistant had space suit like outfits (with separate air) for the removal phase. I was covered in gauze, triple suction air streams (I held one tube, assistant another, third one was above), oxygen tube to the nose, active carbon under the rubber dam, ionizers in the room air. The basic amalgam removal is very quick (about 30 sec/amalgam) and no dust or debris reached my mouth or nose. Neither visit gave me any flue-like symptoms (with the previous dentist, they were getting worse, each new visit).
All of the dental work (6 of the 17 amalgam fillings were upgraded to crowns; also, 4 other composite fillings needed replacements) was done entirely
anesthesia free, I just sit in the chair and they start working. With the Groton folks, within hours I was back to perfectly normal feeling in my mouth, as if nothing was done, no gum discomfort or tooth sensitivity. With the previous two dentists on this job, I would certainly "know" for couple days that there was dental work done (and where exactly). Here, absolutely nothing. I think this is due to the combination of exceptional dental skill of Dr. Jean Nordin-Evans combined with the
healing power of the anesthesia free dentistry.
Since couple posts on this topic got mixed up in another unrelated thread, and since I haven't seen this technique described anywhere else, I will append the descriptions below. Hopefully, they can benefit others here as well in their future dental visits. I think anyone who tries it as suggested, will never want to go back to novocain again. For those too afraid to even try it once, the first time you can tell your dentist that you wish to try it but to watch for the "signal" in case you change your mind at any point. That's how I did it the first time and my dentist agreed. I didn't give the "signal" that time, and the back-out "signal" issue never came up again with later dentists. I simply tell them 'no novocain', 'yes I mean it', 'yes I am sure'...
Bex: Curious about your comments - [color:"green"]"I don't use any anesthetics for dental work (pain is therapeutic, it promotes healing and stimulates introspection)"[/color], ...... I wish you'd explain further, the only thing is promotes in me is agony, stress and the desire to put a bullet into my head and possibly the dentist as well....not sure where the therapeutic side is in that...If you examine how your body (or any biological organism) works, you will find that, on one hand, every important function is supported by layers of fallback mechanisms and on the other hand, each mechanism or component, serves or supports multitude of functions (e.g. consider your hand, tongue, brain,...). Our bodies show
amazing degree of frugality in their design, every bit is used in multitudes of ways, everything 'earns its keeps' manyfold.
Pain, of course, has its
most obvious role, which is to serve as a signal to your motoric system that there is some damage being done to you and you better back off. It would be astonishing and quite out of the frugal character of our bodies to imagine that this is the
entire role of the pain. After all, the rest of your nervous system, central and peripheral, pick the signal, then your glands pick its echoes from nerves,... and eventually virtually every cell in your body knows about it. All of the systems receiving this pain signal, in whatever form and internal language it reaches them, will try to do what they "think" (they are all
intelligent networks which do think, utilizing the same kind of distributed computing algorithms that your brain does) is best for you. At the top level, your motoric system, your muscles, tendons and bones, will want/try to get you out of there, to stop the further damage. Your immune and repair systems, will hurry up and mobilize to fix the damage, to repair and heal what can be repaired or to jump in with multitude of backup mechanisms if the damage has impaired some functionality.
By taking novocain to block the nerve signals from reaching your brain and then propagating to all other systems, you are blocking this entire chain reaction which mobilizes the repair and healing. The cells right next to the damage, having no choice, will sense the distress and do the best they can do, but the rest of the resources of your body (including the repair resources from your full immune system and your glands, the specialized functions only they can do) will be deaf and blind to the emergency and will do nothing to help. As novocain wears off later in the day, the aches will start. But that will be "long" (in equivalents of our "months" for the much faster cellular clocks) after the damage has occurred, hence the signal and the message will be distorted (like retelling a story months or years later, from memory), not presenting the precise nature and level of damage that the initial sharp, crystal clear signals carried.
To see the difference, consider a human society as an organism (a social organism, which it actually is). Pick some painful moment in the life of this organism, say, September 11, 2001. Imagine now, we blocked all communication from the twin towers in New York to the rest of NY or country/world. Consider how much more damage, suffering and death there would have been, had we left only those in the towers and the few buildings around them to fend for themselves for the next few months (equivalent to hours of novocain effects, as seen by your cells), so the rest of the city and the country could be spared from all that pain and distress?
Your body is similarly a vast kindom, universe unto itself, or in language of matter-energy it is an unimaginably complex intelligent network of trillions of your cells, and "you", the mind stuff making "self", is the "god" of that universe. Novocain in effect cuts the "god" of this universe out of the picture until much later, leaving only the localized cells around the tooth, with their limited resources and narrow specialties, to deal with the damage on their own.
Believe me, I went to a dentist as a child and never had an aneasthetic. THe pain was awful, I dreaded going and she used to tell me off for tensing myself up and sometimes the pain was so bad, I almost had her slip with the drill and I think she slapped me as well.......You also need to compare what happened after you got out of the chair, the rest of the day, then days that followed. Without novocain, I am back to nearly normal fully functioning state as soon as I am out of the chair. With novocain, the face is numb and swolen, with aches breaking trough the rest of the day, full healing and immune response postponed (allowing bacteria & toxins to take over, overpowering the limited local defenders & detox capacities).
I get more introspective from an anesthetic, I lie there thinking "i'm such a whimp, but at least I"m not in pain"Introspection here, in addition to enriching your overall experience of life, your sense of being, helps make the pain more tolerable. Just consider the
polar opposite to the intense pain -- the
intense pleasure. What happens if during such moments of intense pleasure, you were to start observing these sensations closely and analyzing them? The same happens with the pain when you start looking very closely into it, trying say, to pinpoint what is it exactly at its very core that makes it so different than intense pleasure? Or, since "you" are "god" of that little universe, you can focus on your glands and immune system, or on all cells downstream the pain and its echoes, as they receive "the message", then observe and help guide their mobilization, their repair and healing actions. After the initial jolt or two, when all you want to do is leap out of the chair and bolt out of there, the pain becomes a message and another little colorful pebble in that which is all there is.
Another important advantage of the anesthesia free or total experience dentistry --
dentists are much more careful with their work and lot less drill-happy.
Maybe with more effort/practise I could, but I"m not willing to risk this in a dental chair.It is much simpler and more rewarding than you imagine.
[color:"green"]After the initial jolt, which you must meet face on and deliberately move into, your
mind eye enters the core of the pain and this sensation is now the sole object and focus of your observation. Without you noticing how or when exactly, the threshold into the magic is crossed here, and suddenly you are hovering in awe over this call unfolding into your inner realm to awaken and mobilize its healing powers.
You become like the divine spirit rising above the beacons of Gondor as they are lit from one to the next mountain top, to call for aid the horsmen of Rohan. The sting disolves instantly and the dreaded procedure is magically transmuted into the
extraordinary spiritual experience.[/color]
