I know how you feel Bex, it all sometimes seems like a tradeoff of sorts. I just feel that right now, I have the worst possible combination of conditions in my mouth, and anywhere I go from here would have to be up. I have three (shiny metal per Walter Clifford's description) gold crowns that are probably also loaded with nickel, and these are immediately next to two mercury-laden 'silver' fillings. In addition to this, I constanly grind my teeth (bruxism?), and used to love to drink hot coffee (hot drinks not good for mercury fillings).

I'm not even sure what order to go about having all of this removed, now that I am aware of how dangerous they are. I wonder if I should I start with the crowns (which are covered 60% under insurance), or should I start with the fillings (which are not covered by insurance at all)? I had the gold crowns put in almost 10 years ago, and this is where all of my sinus/nose/brain fog problems started. Then my fillings were added about five years ago (makes me mad, because I was just starting to learn about the mercury issue around then, and even asked my dentist point blank if there was any mercury in those fillings. He of course told me 'no', which now I see in hindsight was an outright lie, but like a fool I never really went out and checked out the info for myself.)

And then I wonder, will I find amalgam underneath my crowns as well? Can I trust an insurance-based dentist to safely remove any amalgam underneath my existing crowns, if he should he find any? The only thing I feel that I have going for me, is that I accidentally found out yesterday during some Internet research that the insurance-based dentist that I want to see for possible CERAC crowns replacement is married to the biologic dentist that I will be seeing here in my hometown. I was amazed to find that there were only two Huggins-protocol based dentists that I could find listed in the state of Minnesota, and one of them happened to be literally 9 blocks away from my house! So I figure that maybe I can get my X-rays, etc. done with the insurance-based dentist, and he will have no problems sending these things to his wife's dental office, as there hopefully would not be the suspicions that I have unfortunately seen some of the other forum members have to deal with when wanting to transfer records, or view their own dental records. We truly do live in a Communist country here in America. It certainly isn't the America that I grew up in as a kid. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Sorry for rambling on. I just want to say Bex, hang in there and don't let these things get you down--they are really just temporary setbacks in the grand scheme of things. I guess in the end, we just have to just keep telling ourselves that this will all be worth it one day, and that these are just some of the obstacles that need to be overcome in order to be normal again some day. Hopefully, the trials we are all going through on this forum will serve a purpose to help others in the future, so that at least they will not have to endure so much suffering and uncertainty in order to simply get themselves well. If nothing else, this forum is helping all of us to put together a lot of data, so that we can see as a collective group what is working, and what is not working for us. As time goes on, we will continue to have a clearer and clearer picture of the effects of our choices, and will be better able to offer useful advice to others that someday in the future will be travelling down the same road as we are now. Viewed in that light, I think the future looks pretty bright for all of us here, even though some days it feels difficult to continue plugging away.

Take care,
Jason