Fear of the Dentist

Fear of the Dentist

Many people are afraid of the dentist and there is a good reason why. Their bodies are giving them a strong message, through the feelings of fear and avoidance. “Do not drill another hole in my teeth!”

How Conventional Dentistry Works

When you go to the dentist for a checkup he (or she) will use x-rays, a dental examiner, and visual inspection to see if there are any cavities present. When a cavity is found, the dentist gives you the bad news. As they are taught in dental school and legally required to do, dentists offer their patients a surgical treatment for the disease of dental caries in the form of removing the diseased part of the tooth by drilling and replacing it with a synthetic material.

Tooth Drilling

In the drilling procedure conventional dentists will use a high speed drill, because it saves time, which drills as fast as 350,000 rotations per minute. High speed drilling creates high friction and raises the temperature of the tooth nerve causing irreversible nerve damage in 60% of cases. In addition, a negative vacuum pressure from the high speed shatters a portion of the fragile microscopic nutrient tubules within each tooth.1

In the 1800s dentists originally used gold in a careful way to fill painful teeth with cavities. But gold was too expensive for most people to afford; imagine, for example, paying the equivalent of $10,000 for one filling today. Since dentistry was unaffordable for many people in the 1830s the Crawcour brothers made their way from France to the United States to popularize a low cost gold alternative – Bells putty. With Bells putty, which consisted of a melted silver coin mixed with mercury, they could fill teeth in two minutes, and no drilling was required.2 While effective in the short term, the mercury was very toxic and many teeth discolored or died3 not to mention the other side effects that were caused by mercury exposure. Dentists who placed mercury fillings were called quaks (or quacks) after the old Dutch word for a noisy peddler selling mercury-containing “health” potions and salves: Quacksalber.

Dental Fact
In 1845 the American Society of Dental Surgeons banned the use of mercury fillings because of health concerns.4

The economics of mercury fillings instead of gold triumphed and the American Society of Dental Surgeons fell apart by 1856. In 1899 the American Dental Association came into existence to promote the use of mercury-laden fillings. 5In 1896 the fate of our teeth changed forever with the work of dentist G.V. Black. He reformulated mercury fillings making them less toxic and longer lasting. He also developed new drilling protocols which are summarized by the principle of “extension for prevention.” In other words, drill a bigger hole (extension) to give more time before the tooth needs to be retreated. This technique, although changed to some degree in modern times, is the foundation of modern dentistry. G.V. Black’s “innovations” included drilling away all the discolored tooth structure, and then creating a wedge shape within the tooth in order to place a mercury filling that would remain secure. In plain words, dentists are taught to drill big holes in teeth, because that is what works best with mercury fillings. This procedure became enshrined in the curriculum taught in dental schools, and dentists have been enthusiastically drilling parts of our teeth that are not decayed, or that can remineralize, for the last hundred years. The problem with “extension for prevention” is that we lose healthy tooth structure. A dental student from India wrote to me explaining this dilemma:

As a dental student I drill teeth every week. I'd rather say that I have to do this to pass my exams. When I see my patients sitting on the dental chair with their eyes closed, I feel for them as they are losing their tooth structure forever.

Tooth Filling

Once there is a large hole in your tooth something needs to be put in its place. Alzheimer’s disease6, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, lupus, and some forms of arthritis all have one thing in common – mercury. 7 Mercury is considered hazardous waste in fluorescent bulbs at the amount of 22 milligrams. A normal mercury filling has approximately 1000 milligrams of mercury. In watching a video teaching mercury filling placement, I saw myself the messy process of installing mercury fillings as hundreds of shreds of hazardous mercury are spread all over the mouth. When a foreign substance, particularly a metal, is implanted in the body, the body can mount an immune system reaction. This toxic substance can cause or contribute to diseases such as those just mentioned. The book Whole-Body Dentistry by dentist Mark Breiner describes dental immune reactions in children. For example: one child became sick and unable to walk from mercury fillings and stainless steel (nickel) crowns, and another child developed leukemia from these same dental materials.8

It isn’t just mercury amalgams that are toxic. While less toxic, white composite fillings made up of ground glass and plastic still cause immune reactions on average in 50% of patients. One of the most popular composite fillings caused negative immune reactions in 90% of those who received them.9 Conventional dentists do not check filling compatibility with your body. Composites of plastic and glue can contain toxic chemicals like bisphenol A. Modern fillings last on average 5-12 years depending on the material. In the case of amalgam fillings even with all the extra drilling, only 25% will last 8 years or longer.10 While there are some good composites on the market, with such a short life span, the typical filling is not a long lasting solution for tooth decay.

After the drilling and filling comes our least favorite part – billing. Drilling, filling, and billing is the model of conventional dentistry and it is also a business model. The dentist with lots of medical school debt, a family to support, staff to pay and so forth, needs to make a lot of money to stay in business and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. The more teeth that are drilled and filled, the more money is made. There isn’t much incentive in this system for curing and preventing cavities because without the drilling and filling business model it becomes more of a challenge to turn dentistry into a profitable career. Because many alternative dentists are afraid of being sued or losing their license, they don’t want to practice dentistry that is beyond the accepted drilling and filling protocol. The incredibly strong profit motive has many dentists blinded by dollar signs. People know most dentists are in business for the money because they can see it and feel it. It is easy for a conventional dentist to get greedy and recommend the least conservative (as in most profitable) approach to treating cavities. As a result, many people have lost faith in dentistry; with each new dentist they try, the profit-motivated dentist continues to fail to put the patient’s needs first. Even dentists have lost faith in their profession. Dentist Marvin Schissel wrote a chilling commentary on the shoddy dental work performed by dentists trying to maximize profits called Dentistry and Its Victims, and dentist Robert Nara wrote Money by the Mouthful, exposing how easy and common it is for dentists to make money by pushing unnecessary dental treatments.

With all the toxic materials put into people’s mouths causing immune system responses, the short life span of fillings, the damage caused by high speed drilling, and unnecessarily prescribed filling treatments, the conventional dentist doesn’t really offer his patients true health care, or a permanent solution to tooth decay.

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