Bex and Dawn,

I second everything that Veg said in her reply. You have both been such a resource and encouragement on this forum, and much of the direction that I am taking has been based on the direction and learned wisdom that I have received from people such as yourselves. You have been a great help, and I wish and hope that somehow I can return the favor someday, somehow. I have been praying for the people in situations such as yourselves on this forum every day, and I'm sure that there are others that care about you that are praying for you as well. I know it sounds like a cliche to tell you to not despair, to not get discouraged, to hang in there--but I know that we still really mean it with all sincerity. I wish there was something that I could say or do to help in some other way. If there is anything that I can do, please let me know.

For the record, the more I think about it, the more that I feel that Walter Clifford is very knowledgeable and trustworthy in his field of expertise. I base this on the results of patients that have received the kinds of materials in their hips and other joints that are also used in the CEREC crowns. If these joints (which are actually placed within the body) are not causing major complications after years of use, then it seems to me that they should work well within the mouth as well, where they are in much smaller quantities. Besides, if these metals are already oxidized, then how would they become further oxidized in the mouth? Isn't this where the problems normally begin--in the metal's oxidation process? I can understand that old-style porcelain crowns may have caused problems in the past, but I understand that they also used to be held in place by a metallic base of some kind, which is where I suspect that the problems were really coming from. As I have mentioned in some of my previous posts, my problems began when I had my 'gold' crowns placed--even before my mercury fillings. I think that the main problems are related to the 'shiny' metal issue, just as Walter Clifford described. This would cover the old porcelain crowns with metal bases, all metal fillings containing dissimilar metals such as silver and mercury, and would also cover crowns with dissimilar metals such as gold and nickel. All of these 'shiny metals' to me would be guilty of causing huge amounts of electrogalvanism, which is where I believe that these matals are being introduced into people's systems and making them very sick. When the plastic or resin-based materials have been used and have made some people sick, it seems that it is the plastics in these materials that are causing the sickness (i.e. a hormone-type of effect), and not the metal oxides within them--is this correct?

My humble opinion would be that we should start an informational polling thread to share with everyone on the board, that would cover some basic information, possibly to include some of the following items:

1. What dental materials have been placed in your mouth?
2. How long have these materials been in your mouth?
3. Which dentist placed these materials, and were you satisfied with his/her work done? Did they follow a particular protocol, such as the Huggins protocol?
4. How much did this dentist charge for their procedures?
5. What kinds of precautions did the dentist use to minimize mercury vapor exposure during amalgam removal?
6. What kinds of precautions did you as the patient use to minimize your mercury exposure during amalgam removal?
7. If the dentist was good, where is this dentist located, so that others on the forum might use their services in the future?
8. Did you use testing of any sort to determine beforehand if these dental materials would be safe for you?
9. Did the test(s) miss anything regarding an allergic reaction that you might have had later?
10. Did you follow a specific order in the removal of your amalgams or crowns?
11. Have you chelated since having your dental materials replaced?
12. What kinds of chelation have you used? What dosages did you take, and how often?
13. Has the chelation been successful so far? What kinds of symptoms have decreased/increased since starting chelation?
14. Did you make any 'mistakes' during your chelation process that you wish you would have done differently in hindsight?
15. What kinds of supplements have you used during chelation? Have they helped reduce your symptoms?
16. Do you have any other possible health issues that do not seem to be related to your dental materials (previous or present)?

If we can get this information from everyone that has already been through this before, I feel like we should be able to get a better idea of what things might truly cause a negative impact. At the very least, we should be able to minimize these negative impacts, shouldn't we? As far as I know, I don't think that anyone on this forum has complained yet about the CEREC materials, is this correct? I remember at least one poster that had favorable results with these. Walter Clifford also seemed to think that they were VERY biocompatible, and I'm not sure what motive he would have to endorse one material over another. Bex also mentioned that one dentist said that no one had reacted negatively for 18 years now to CEREC materials that he had placed. I would have to take that dentist's statement by itself with a grain of salt, since he has an obvious profit motive. However, if there were several of us on the forum that could also testify to the biocompatibility of CEREC materials, then this claim would seemingly carry a MUCH greater weight of validity. I totally agree with Dawn--I just cannot trust dentists or doctors anymore--I only trust people that have had first-hand experience of some kind. Even then, I have to use common sense, and make sure that people relating first-hand experiences are not relating these experiences due to a profit-motive of some sort. (Sorry, that's the conspiratorialist within me that I have a hard time taming these days.) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

If anyone agrees that we should start this kind of thread, could they please mention it? I have been a little apprehensive about starting a new thread of this sort since I am pretty new here to this forum, and maybe am barking up the wrong tree due to my lack of experience (?).

Thanks,
Jason