Jill,

Thank you so much: I've actually had a couple of long discussions about all this with my husband over the last few days who knows a lot more about all of this than I do (though he obviously is not an expert), and he reasoned persuasively exactly the same thing as you have said here. So, thank you for posting, because it gives me a second confirmation of a well-thought out persepctive.

Yeah, our feeling about the root canal tooth is that there is indeed NO rush to get it out.

And Dr Garcia does strike me as just the slightest bit overzealous in her root canal convictions (not that I necessarily disagree, just that it seemed that her wanting to pull my root cnaal tooth seemed to be a fait accompli before she even discussed my situation and needs with me).

This zeal to focus on my root canal is actually somewhat off-putting since I made the appointment to see her in order to have my mega battery-tasting filling asap, but she derailed that into a complex project that, according to her, must begin with the removal of the root canal tooth. And truth be told, she spent less than 2 minutes discussing amalgam filling issues with me in spite fo the fact that that's why i was there!

She basically waved that off, sayign vaguely, "once we get the root canal taken care of, we'll replace all your amalgam fillings." (She is on the right track, of course, but disappointingly dismissive of the issue that had brought me to see her).

What is even more frustrating about her approach here is that the timeline stretches out rather far into the distance: if I follow her protocol, I am first to get the root canal out (I scheduled this for next month; tho now I am of course in the process of serious re-evaluation of this and I think i will call to cancel), THEN I must WAIT a few months, she said, in order for the tooth socket (is that what it's called?) to heal ... and so she wouldn't start work on this bridge until OCTOBER....

I.e., she expects me to just keep sucking on this awful battery-tasting mega mercury filling until then. The more I have been thinking about it, the less confidence I feel in her judgment.

So yes, I am going to start exploring options!

I am seriously considering the false tooth option... for reasons of vanity I don't findmyself jumping for joy over this one: I'll evidently have to confront/deal with my vanity and fears of imminent "hag-ness"... lol! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

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Hi Law Student,

Thank you, so much, for your extremely informative post as well.


So:

At this point, I am leaning towards the following scenario:

A) find a safe dentist who will remove that d**mned amalgam filling and replace it with cerec (cerec seems like the best of all evils?)

B) Let the root canal tooth be for the moment (like Law Student, mine doesn't hurt either), and when I can afford it, get it extracted and then replaced with a false tooth rather than a bridge (it's close enough to the front of my mouth that my vanity desires a "falsie")

C) get all my other amalgams safely replaced (again with cerec, I assume)

The reason i am thinking of having the root canal tooth out btw as step # 2 rather than put it as step #3 is that during the course of my talking wiht my husband about all this, we figured out that that the root canal may very well be the precursor to all my health problems (prior to the root canal, I had pretty good to excellent health, within a 6 months to a year of the root canal I experienced onset of FMS, breathing problems, MVP and several dozen more symtpms that you all know about and most of you share with me).

I don't mean to suggest that the root canal would be the only cause of my health problems. After detailed analysis of my health problems and "mystery" symptms (and ruling out all other causative factors that I and my docs are aware of) and extensive review of the available literature on mercury amalgam poisoning, there is no doubt in my mind that my body is being battered by chronic poisoning from my amalgams. yay! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Anyway, this was a very interesting realization, and in fact is what Dr Garcia had said she suspects. (Again, her views and suspicions re root canalas being a serious contributor to many people's health disorders are sound in my view, but it's just that right now, I happen to need to get the mercury filling out first before I deal with the root canal! Very sorry if I keep repeating myself. The frustration has me a little riled up.)

Alright. Sorry for the long-winded post. As always, thoughts and comments most appreciated.


OP