Deconstructing Conventional
Welcome to Deconstructing Conventional, a show fascinated by one simple question: How did we get here? How did what we call “conventional” come to earn that title? Is there a better way, and if so, what would it look like? This show is about deconstructing two things: Our individual biases, and the systems that run (or attempt to run) our everyday lives.
We do this deconstruction with an eye for where we can reconstruct something better that leads to flourishing societies, and robust physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. In short, this show is about questioning our assumptions and practicing systems-level thinking.
I’m your host, Christian Elliot, I’ll do my best to stay curious and humble. You do the same and we’re both bound to learn something. Welcome to the show. Prepare to have your thinking stretched.
Deconstructing Conventional
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen: Your Teeth Are Making You Sick - The Mouth-Body Connection to Chronic Disease
What if the root cause of your chronic health issues has been hiding in plain sight—right inside your mouth? Dr. Michelle Jorgensen, a functional integrative dentist and board-certified naturopath, makes the stunning claim that 60-80% of chronic illness can be traced back to oral health problems. This conversation could literally save your life.
Dr. Jorgensen's journey began when she became critically ill from mercury exposure while performing routine dental procedures. After conventional medicine failed her, she discovered the toxic effects of standard dental practices—not just on patients, but on practitioners themselves. This awakening led her to question everything she'd been taught, revealing disturbing connections between common dental work and systemic disease.
The revelations in this episode are both shocking and empowering. Learn how mercury fillings continuously release toxic vapor and undergo temperature-based expansion that cracks teeth. Discover why root canals—which leave miles of microscopic tubules filled with dead tissue—create chronic infection sites linked to conditions from heart disease to cancer. Understand how extraction sites become inflammatory hotspots and how smaller modern mouths lead to sleep-disrupting airway issues that deprive your body of oxygen.
Perhaps most disturbing is how these problems often go undetected because they're dismissed by conventional dentistry. Dr. Jorgensen shares remarkable stories of patients whose persistent health conditions—from thyroid disorders to debilitating eczema—resolved dramatically after addressing hidden dental infections that numerous specialists had overlooked.
Beyond identifying problems, Dr. Jorgensen offers practical solutions: from safe mercury removal protocols to alternatives for root canals, and why hydroxyapatite proves more effective than fluoride without the systemic side effects. She even reveals her personal oral care routine (including why she doesn't floss!).
If you've struggled with unexplained health issues or wonder why certain conditions persist despite your best efforts, this conversation could be the missing piece. Listen now, then visit healingunitedtoday.com to find recommended products and biological dentists who understand these crucial connections between oral and overall health.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
- Root Cause Documentary
- Dr. Michelle's website - Find products, books, courses, and dentists
- Use code: Christianelliot10 for 10% off your order
- Healing United - Recommended Products
Reverse Any Chronic Health Condition in Three Steps - The Simplest Path to Healing You've Ever Seen
NEED TO DETOX AND HEAL?
- Visit our website
- Compare our Detox Programs
- See our recommended products
- Download the Healing United PMA App
- Reverse Any Chronic Illness in Three Steps
Hello everyone, welcome to episode number 48. This episode may save your life, and that is not hyperbole. If you have wrestled with a chronic health condition, I promise you do not want to miss this interview. My guest is a world-class dentist and naturopath, dr Michelle Jorgensen. She may have more insight into the root cause of poor health than just about anyone I have talked to. So if you've never heard about the dangers of fluoride, metal fillings, root canals, extracted teeth, or if you don't know the connection between your dental health and sleep, you're about to have your mind blown.
Speaker 1:One of the things I appreciate about her is just how genuinely holistic and empathetic she is in her approach to wellness. She is not just an information dispenser. You can tell she really cares about her patients. So, similar to other doctors I've interviewed, we started by talking about her story and what it was like waking up to the disservice of her profession and what it has devolved into. We talked candidly about what that was like, and she has some fascinating stories about questioning the sacred cows of the dental industry when her profession really doesn't want to hear that, or they even threaten to take away her license if she says the wrong things. So, in addition to the stories about dealing with other dentists. She has some inspiring stories of health transformation that have come from the result of fixing bad dental work. So, right out of the gate, she made the bold claim that, in her estimation, bad dental work. So right out of the gate, she made the bold claim that in her estimation, 60 to 80% of chronic illness begins in the mouth. So I got her to elaborate on that as she talked through the dangers of metal fillings and root canals and extracted teeth and she dropped some nuggets about cancer and eczema and thyroid problems and sinus problems that you do not want to miss. So other things we covered in this episode are the idea of palate expansion, the wisdom, or lack thereof, of extracting wisdom teeth. I also tried to put myself in the shoes of the listener and just got her to speak to the emotional and financial aspects of dental work and she had some wonderful perspective about that, and I even got her to divulge her oral care routine and whether or not she flosses. So stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:Among other cool things about her is that in her own kitchen she created a line of dental products and she just kept refining them until they were market ready. So after reading her book Healthy Mouth, healthy you, I started looking at all the ingredients and the labels of the products I was using and thought crap. All of these products I thought were healthier are actually full of garbage. So my family and I have switched to her products and they are awesome. Her tooth powder is as advertised. It cleans and whitens better than anything I've used and I'm not worried about rotting my teeth by trying to keep them white anymore. So that's just one of the cool products we discussed. She even has a toothpaste and a mouthwash specific for gum health that I learned about during the interview.
Speaker 1:So I'll have links for you in the show notes where you can find Dr Jorgensen, her products, her books, her network of philosophically aligned dentists and more. And I also have a coupon code for you. She gave me one that I can give you a 10% discount with. So the code is just my name it's ChristianElliott10. So my last name has one T on it ChristianElliott, with one T ChristianElliott10. So I do get a small commission if you use that code. So I would greatly appreciate you using it. Every little bit helps and it allows me to keep doing the deep dives to bring you the distilled version of actionable insights from people who have real solutions. So in supporting Dr Michelle and her mission, you also support mine. So thanks. For those of you who don't know, we have also created a recommended products page on our website, healingunitedtoday, where we have painstakingly been vetting products that we can get behind. So you can find Dr Michelle's products and many more on that page at healingunitedtoday. And that one final thought before I play the interview. So thanks to all of you who have left reviews. I so appreciate that. For those of you who have not, if you have something flattering to say, please take a moment and leave a review, because it will encourage other people to take a chance on listening to the show.
Speaker 1:Okay, without further ado, here is my interview with the inspiring, caring and gutsy Dr Michelle Jorgensen. All right, hello everyone, welcome to today's show. My guest is the lovely Dr Michelle Jorgensen. She is a functional integrative dentist, a board-certified traditional naturopath. She's also received certifications as a therapeutic nutritional counselor and a certified nutritional autoimmune specialist. She also has an amazing line of dental products, which we'll talk about in a little bit. She is the author of six books, including the one where I first came across her work, called Healthy Mouth, healthy you. And she has a new book coming out next week, may 20th, called Living Well with Dr Michelle. And just to give you a sense of the baller that is Dr Jorgensen. She also teaches and coaches healthcare professionals like, not surprisingly dentists, but also chiropractors, naturopaths, medical doctors, nurse practitioners, nutritionists, massage therapists and coaches like me about a truly integrated model for what I would call real healthcare.
Speaker 1:A major inflection point in her life, or her professional career, was 10 years into practicing dentistry. She became quite sick and realized that the cause of her illness was from exposure to mercury, from drilling metal fillings out of people's teeth without proper protection. So we'll get into that story in just a little bit. She's also become quite the homesteader and gardener and offers classes to learn, for other people to learn, to do the same. She's a wife and mother of four. She claims to be a grandmother, which I don't think she's. She doesn't look old enough to be a grandmother, so I'm skeptical about that one. But anyway, dr Jorgensen, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm glad to be here and I am a grandmother of two, my favorite two little humans on the planet.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's confirmed. I will get. We want some video or visual evidence of this, but I'll take your word for it. So thank you for coming All right. Well, there's so many things about you that fascinate me, so I told you before we started. I limited myself to one of your books, but give the listener a brief background about yourself, what led you into dentistry, and then talk about the journey of becoming a biological dentist and then eventually a naturopath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so to get to dentistry was a pretty easy thing for me. My father was a dentist, my grandfather was a doctor and actually I had an interesting experience when I was a senior in high school. I knew I wanted to do some sort of medicine and what I did is for a project for school. I went and interviewed every doctor in my neighborhood, or every doctor I knew, and I interviewed every dentist I knew and I asked them all should I be a doctor or should I be a dentist? All the doctors said be a dentist. All the dentists said be a dentist. I said well, consensus seems to be be a dentist. So that's what I did. I started right off school and actually I moved quite quickly through school, graduated when I was 23 years old from dental school. So I've been doing this a really long time.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was. It was an early start for me.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm fascinated why all the doctors told you to become a dentist. What was their rationale?
Speaker 2:they just said from quality of life standpoint. You know there's no rounds in the middle of the night. There's no, you know, things like that going on. So if I wanted to be a mom, which I did, they said from a quality of life standpoint, your dad has a better life than we do, so go be a dentist.
Speaker 1:There you go. Okay, talk to us about the journey of becoming ill from mercury, Like how did you connect the dots? That that's what was happening to you and what were your symptoms.
Speaker 2:That was not as easy as my decision to become a dentist.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That one was a lot harder. You know, I was watching my dad we were actually practicing together and he's still practicing in his mid-70s and I just thought that that's what I would do, that I would just keep practicing forever, you know, and everything would just go along like it had for him. And I was enjoying practice and about 10 years and I started to get really sick and I didn't know what it was. So I started doing what we all do, you know going to doctor after doctor and doing things that I could like changing my diet, and you know things you do like everybody does at home you stop eating certain stuff and, yeah, you know whatever. And some of it helped a little bit.
Speaker 2:But the doctors didn't have any answers and I was doing tests and x-rays and still no answers. And my biggest issues were my gut. I couldn't even drink water, sometimes without pain. So something was pretty off there. My memory was just shot and I've always had a good memory. I couldn't complete sentences, I couldn't remember patients' names from room to room. So again, something was pretty, pretty, pretty noticeably off there. And then the third one was just really bad painful numbness in my hands. I couldn't sleep at night. I couldn't blow dry my hair, I couldn't hold my my dental instruments anymore.
Speaker 2:So I got to the point where I just actually put my practice for sale. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was a young mom, four young kids, mid thirties. My husband worked for the practice as well, so this was our entire livelihood going up in smoke right here and nobody could give me any answers. And I thought, well, I'm interested in nutrition now that I've been working on my gut, health and diet, so maybe I'll be a nutritionist in a dental office.
Speaker 2:So I found a dentist that had a nutritionist in his office and I just said can I, can I call and talk with you? How does this work? I called and talked with him and he said your symptoms sound a lot like mine. Have you looked into mercury poisoning as a possibility? And I said well, no, no, I don't have any mercury fillings in my mouth, cause I knew that silver fillings are at 50% mercury. We were taught that in dental school, but I was also taught they're perfectly safe. And so you know? And I said I said no, I don't have any fillings and they're safe anyway. And he said well, first of all, is it? You know, maybe it's worth just getting tested to be sure. And he said it's not the fillings you have. It's the fillings you've been drilling out for the last decade with no protection, and that was literally the first time I'd ever heard those words. So I got tested for mercury poisoning and that's what it was Mercury off the charts.
Speaker 2:So now all of my neurologic symptoms made sense because mercury is a neurotoxin. So it was affecting my brain and my thinking. It was affecting my hands and all the nerves there. It was affecting my gut, which is very much nervous Gut brain you know gut brain connection there. And all of a sudden everything made sense. But I didn't know what I was going to do. The doctor said well, if you're going to keep being a dentist, you can't keep putting it in while you're getting it out. You know you're not going to get better if you keep just dosing yourself every single day again.
Speaker 2:So I had to find was there a way to remove these fillings and not get more mercury in me? And I found there was. There was an organization I had never heard of before who had protocol for this. It's called the IAOMT and they had their smart protocol which was an entire list of things you could do so that you didn't get exposed to mercury during removal. I had never heard of them before, never heard of these protocols.
Speaker 2:So I started doing all of this because, basically, in dental school I had been told if I told my patients that their fillings could affect their health, I would lose my license. So that was the only information I had about mercury was that it won't and you'll lose your license if you say it does. So. We had never, I'd never, ventured down these paths. These weren't, these weren't like safe paths, you know so. But now I had to. So I started going down that path and I would walk into the operatory now, to, you know, remove fillings with a hazmat suit on and gas mask, and my patients would say, um, excuse me.
Speaker 1:What's going on here?
Speaker 2:What's going on here. This is a little different than the last time I came in, and so I would explain the story and I'd say, you know, this is for me. And they would say, well, but isn't this probably good for me too? Yes, it is. Well, my mom might be interested in that. She's actually been feeling really sick and maybe you know, or my doctor would be interested in that. She's kind of getting into this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:So then patients and doctors started asking me things like well, what are your thoughts about, you know, fluoride? Do you still believe it's the best for you? And what do you think about root canals, you know? And I said, well, I've done. You know like a thousand of them. Well, what do you think about them? Are they healthy long-term? And these questions from people, people outside of the industry, made me stop and say, wow, if I didn't even know that I could get sick from doing my job, what else in my job could be impacting not only my health but all of my patients' health? And that opened an entirely new door that I never intended to go through. And now we have a multi-specialty, multi-doctor office campus, really, where people come from around the world to improve their health, and it's all based on the foundation that mouth health affects overall health. In fact, 60 to 80% of chronic disease can be traced back to your mouth in some way. So that is the very short story of a very long journey to get where I am today.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is well said, very succinct, and I guess I'd say a few questions Now. What percentage of the people that are trained as a dentist actually know what you know? Is it fine? Are they finally teaching this, or is that still? You're not allowed to talk about this.
Speaker 2:with most dentistry training today, oh no, you'll never hear this in a school. Yeah, and schools are always I mean, in any profession, it doesn't matter where you're at, schools are always about 10 to 15 years behind the actual profession, behind advancements in the profession. Schools are that far behind. So it doesn't matter if you're going to medical school, wherever you're going to be 10 to 15 years behind really where the front runners in the profession are. That's just the way it is. It's just a slow evolution.
Speaker 2:So my whole emphasis now is teaching people like your listeners, because if they know what they should be looking for in a dentist, then they'll start to go and ask it of dentists and dentists will have to say, well, okay, I had literally five people this week come in and ask me about this. I guess I can go see what this crazy talk stuff is all about. And then they can go and they'll seek out you know either my courses or other courses and start to learn. Because from inside the profession I mean we're probably one 2% at most and dentists are not interested in hearing what I have to say.
Speaker 1:Wow, Well, and you didn't lose your license. You're still here and you're still able to talk about these things, and so obviously there's a way forward for that. So anybody listening to this, take heart that that's. You don't have to be under the thumb of. We will take away your ability to transact and feed your family if you talk about truth.
Speaker 2:So yeah, research is on the very front end. So research is even ahead of practitioners, and practitioners are ahead of schooling. So research has now proven everything that I say you know that mercury is released from fillings 24, seven, that you can get mercury toxicity from the vapors coming out of a mercury Like. I can say all of that now because now we have research that's actually proven all of that. But when I was starting this 15 years ago we didn't have that, but we do now.
Speaker 1:Great. Well, thank you for having the boldness to speak up, and I look forward to unpacking more of that as we go. But before I get there, what did you do to overcome your own mercury poisoning? How did you get that out of your body and get rid of the symptoms you were dealing with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's when I had to learn a lot of other things too. I had to learn the first of all there's different kinds of mercury. There's the kind of mercury that's in fillings and there's the kind of mercury that you're going to find in fish and vaccines, and they're actually different mercury. So there's elemental mercury and, um, anyway, different, different versions of mercury, and so the kind of mercury that I had from fillings actually excretes through kidneys. So what does that mean? Means my kidneys needed to be healthy. My whole entire, you know, urinary system needed to be healthy. So I had to get that working to be able to get rid of it. I had to figure out where the mercury was hiding, because mercury just goes and hides, and I call it neighborhoods, you know. It just goes, hangs out, and so you know behind the shed back there, and you gotta, you know, use your searchlight and get it to get it out. And so you have to use your searchlight and get it out, and so you have to use something called a chelator to pull it out to then be able to excrete it. So, kidneys working first, then I had to start using chelators and I found real quickly I could not use very intense ones. So I was using things like cytodetox, a bunch of different others, and I got sick. As sick, I mean literally. I got down to like 110 pounds. I was so ill. Sick, I mean literally, I got down to like 110 pounds. I was so ill. My mom said you look like a walking skeleton, like what is wrong with you. I'm like I can't eat a bite. I'm so ill. And so I just said I cannot, I cannot try to get it out of my body this fast. I can't do this, I'm just going to. I'm not going to survive this. So I had to slow way down and I've since learned. So what I started using was a lot of chlorella and just plant foods. Green foods have a lot of chlorophyll in it, which is also a very good, just gentle, natural detoxer. So things like lettuce and spinach and arugula and bok choy and those kind of green foods.
Speaker 2:But I found that I actually have a genetic variant that doesn't allow my body to get rid of toxins very easily, and you may talk about this, I'm sure you probably. It's called MTHFR. I got one for my dad, one for my mom. So my dad was fine, you know, because he didn't have both. I got both of them and I don't label toxins very well, so I like to think of it like a UPC code on. You know it comes into the body, your body goes up bad, get rid of that one. Oh good, keep that one. You know my body doesn't label things very well, so I couldn't get rid of the mercury. And on top of that, I've since learned that women who are expecting a baby detox about 80% of their mercury into their first baby. And guess what? I was in birth order Number one and my mom had a mouthful of mercury fillings.
Speaker 2:So I think I probably had a mercury burden from birth and then I had the genetic inability to get rid of it and then I started adding it and you know I started working in my dad's dental practice when I was like 14. So I started adding it early on and then went to dental school and I think by that point, like it was just, you know, game over for me. So I because I think it was over a lot of years getting in, I had to take a lot of years to get it out. So I was doing low chelation, slow detoxing for about eight years before I really felt like my brain was back.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, that that is more of an involved story than I was expecting. That's quite a journey and for somebody who's been through what you've been through, to think eight years I might be at this detox thing a while. There's a recalibration that goes with that to find your path to detox. That's a good, helpful intel. Thank you for sharing that. Before we get to some of the particulars of the dental industry, I guess I just wanted to humanize this a little bit more. Tell us, if you will, the emotional side of what you learned, because you basically had to come to terms with, like being part of an industry that was causing major amounts of harm in millions of people and more or less reinvent yourself while being threatened you'd lose your license if you spoke out. So what was it like emotionally going from traditional dentist to biological or holistic dentist?
Speaker 2:You know it was really hard, particularly because my father is very much traditionally. You know, we were both traditionally trained, so there was a lot of mistrust, a lot of even making fun of you know, of these principles, just even internally, and so we were practicing together when all this started, and that was very difficult to say. I don't really have a choice here, so I know you don't believe.
Speaker 2:What a choice here, so I know you don't believe what I'm doing and I know you're even making fun of what I'm doing here and you know the team's watching you. So this is really hard because they also need to do what I tell them to do here. So that was certainly challenging and I had to just decide what was.
Speaker 2:The most important thing here Was it my own pride, my own, you know, all of these things, my own, you know version of me. Or was it the truth what I was finding and I've always been one that I've been underestimated pretty much my entire career. You know, going into dental school all the I was, you know, one of a very few at the time. It's not 50, 50 in dental school, but 50, 50 male, female students, but not when I was there. We were very much the underdog and they all said, well, the only reason you're here is because they have, you know, status. They need, they need a certain amount of women in the class, they have to have a certain amount of women. So I was very used to these underestimations and I said, just watch me.
Speaker 2:And basically that's what I've done the entire time, with this as well. Is you know what? I'm not here to change your mind or to preach to you or do anything like that. And that's really how I've navigated this. I've just said you know what? Just watch me. Just watch me, and if you see me getting better and if you see me helping people to get better as well and changing lives, then you can choose to believe and to be on board as well, if you don't want to and that doesn't fit for you, then you know. You are absolutely, you know, able to have your own beliefs and your own belief systems. But I'm going to do what everyone and I can't. But I can do what I can do Because, as I started learning, I wanted to share with everybody. I started buying everybody blenders. They can make smoothies.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean all this stuff and buying them recipe books and so excited to listen to this podcast and listen, you know, read this book. And nobody did it. And I was really offended for a while and then I realized, you know, we're all our own journey. So I learned if somebody asks me a question about what I'm doing, I answer the question. If they ask me another question, I answer that question, but I let people take their own pace, their own path, and that really was the thing that I had to figure out, emotionally as well, is it's okay, I'm doing this for me, for those that I'm going to influence, and if people want to follow, I'm here for them, but I can't make anybody do what they don't want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that my admiration for you just went up. I've resonated with a lot of that over 20 years as a health coach. I've had to come to terms with I can't. I can lead them to the water, but I can't make them drink, and the best I can do is show up and answer the questions or ask them thoughtful ones and get them thinking. It sounds like a very similar path to you, and another thing I admire is just the guts to do it while you're still talking or while you're still in the profession, Because I know of other dentist people who've retired and will talk about yeah, this is where my industry is not helping but to do it while you're still in practice and to take some of those arrows or to have awkward moments with your own dad in practice, that's. There's some some guts and resilience in there. So well done, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I have an interesting story actually about that. So I was, I had been taking a really long continuum, a continuing education continuum, so it was nine sessions and each of these sessions was about $6,000. So you can start doing your math, adding this up. Okay, and each one was a three-day session. So I had to travel to Seattle time away from work, the cost of travel plus the cost of the thing there. So I was at the end of the nine sessions and the last day so you can see, everybody that is at the table with me would have committed a lot. Right, these are the top of the top in the dental profession, the people who have really committed their time and their money and their everything to becoming the best.
Speaker 2:So I was at lunch on the very last day, surrounded by, you know, these other dentists that had gone through the same process, and someone at the table started saying oh yeah, there's this crazy dentist in my office who wears like this hazmat suit when he's taking out mercury fillings and the whole table started laughing. So I sat there and I thought do I say something? Do I not say something? And I always say something. So I spoke up and I just said you know what? Can I share my story with you? And then I shared my story, the same story that I shared with you just now.
Speaker 2:I shared my story and, of course, they were all very embarrassed and very apologetic and I said that is not why I shared my story. I shared my story because if I can save one of you from going down the path that I went down, that will be worth it. That's worth all of it If I can save one of you from that exact same path. And what I've learned is that no one can dispute your story because it's your own. They can dispute a statistic, they can dispute an anecdotal story of someone else that you share, they can dispute all of that, but they can't tell you that your story and your journey is wrong. So lean on your story those of you who are listening lean on your journey and stay there.
Speaker 2:And anybody who wants to follow you and learn more from you will come to you, and I hope that the people that were at that table that day have made some changes for their own health, for their own health sake. But it's just all about sharing your story.
Speaker 1:Oh it is. I can just feel it while I imagine being in that room and the way that you navigated that. I love that you started it with permission to tell your story. You asked a question first and you got the permission to okay, well and a story. Like you said, nobody's going to dispute that, but yeah, it was. There was a conviction in you that I can't be quiet about this in a room full of these people and, yeah, who knows how many lives you saved or will save just because you're talking to me today. So well done, I love that. Okay to me today. So well done, I love that, Okay. Well, you mentioned earlier the statistic you estimated 60 to 80% of health problems start in the mouth. So give the listener some context for those percentages. How could the number possibly be that big?
Speaker 2:Yep, so a lot of chronic disease. Most chronic disease is inflammatory based right? I'm sure you talk about this all the time.
Speaker 2:You know it's inflammation and inflammation. I've heard it phrased inflammation, you know. Basically, aging is simply inflammation. It's the body's own response to something in the in the world. And you talk about this all the time. We went over the toxins and cleaning things up, and so the body's response to any sort of insult is going to be inflammation. It's the way our bodies are programmed to fight for us, right? It's our own bodies to take care of ourselves, so our cells are super good at it and it turns on inflammation. But if it can never get away from that inflammatory burden, then the inflammation never turns off.
Speaker 2:Well, there's three biggies inside of dentistry that can lead to that chronic inflammation that a lot of people aren't familiar with. So the first one is the mercury. Like I just talked about, mercury is very inflammatory. So if you're going to get mercury fillings removed, please only do it if you're going to do it safely, because if you go to just any dentist and they're going to drill it out, you're going to breathe it in, you're going to swallow chunks. You're just going to get more mercury in your system. You're going to be more inflamed.
Speaker 2:So, make sure you're going to the iaomtorg directory, or I have a directory on my site, livingwellwithdrmichellecom. Go on that site. Go find a dentist who's been trained to do that. So that's number one. I won't spend a ton of time on that because it's pretty cut and dry. Do you have the fillings or do you not Get them out safely?
Speaker 1:Can I ask you one thing you pointed out in your book that I thought was profound. I'm like how did I not see this before? You talked about temperature changes and you talked about frequency related to mercury. So talk about those quickly for the listener so they have a sense of oh yeah, of course that would be impactful.
Speaker 2:Yep. So very interesting. If you think about if you have a jar of jam at your house that has a metal lid on it and you can't get the metal lid off, what do you do? You go put it under hot water. Metal lid on it and you can't get the metal lid off, what do you do? You go put it under hot water why? Because heat expands metal. So then it expands and it comes off. It loosens the metal, the metal lid on that jar. So when you have a metal filling, with temp, with heat it expands the metal. With cold it shrinks the metal. So it has this expansion contraction going on inside of the tooth at all times. What does this do? Well, it actually cracks the tooth.
Speaker 2:So I started telling people about the mercury fillings years before. I mean, why was I removing mercury fillings and got sick? You know why were they coming out? Well, because they crack your teeth. They're really actually bad for your teeth themselves. So that's why I was removing them long before I knew that mercury was the problem, because they actually are really really bad for your teeth. They just crack your teeth. So that's reason alone to get the filling out, just to preserve your tooth and save your tooth.
Speaker 2:Frequency is another piece that's super interesting. And this isn't just the metal fillings, it's also metal implants. This is the place that really it was found, because that's another source of metal in the body is metal dental implants. So this one's an interesting one. This information came out of research in the orthopedic world. So hips, shoulders, knees, I mean, how many metal parts are we putting in people's bodies every single day? Thousands of them, right.
Speaker 2:And in the orthopedic world, what they found is that our world has changed. We are now surrounded by frequencies. So that's Wi-Fi, cellular frequencies, all of those kinds of things. Well, frequencies are simply a wave, and the one that people understand the best is a microwave. Right, you put a metal pan in a microwave, and what does it do? It starts to spark. If you've never done this accidentally, don't try it.
Speaker 2:It starts to spark. It can start your microwave on fire because those microwaves, those frequency of electrons passing through the air, they pass through the metal and they heat the metal up. That's why you can't put a you know aluminum foil wrapped, you know baking a potato in the microwave, because it won't get through the metal. It heats up the metal, but it won't get through it. The same thing happens with metals in your mouth and other frequencies called Wi-Fi cellular. They are all frequencies of electrons moving through the air like this and when they pass through the metals they heat them up.
Speaker 2:So now, because we have so much Wi-Fi, so much everything they're finding in orthopedics that that heating of the metal is literally burning or kind of killing off the bone surrounding these metal implanted parts and pieces. So they're seeing higher rates of failures because of these frequencies and we simply can't get away from it. We opened a new office on our campus and I told my husband. I said I don't want Wi-Fi in here and he said pull out your phone right now. I want you to go onto Wi-Fi right now and tell me how many Wi-Fi networks pop up.
Speaker 2:He's like it doesn't matter if we have our own Wi-Fi router. He said, you're literally getting 50 different routers right here as it is.
Speaker 2:So, there was no way other than simply doing Faraday cages around our entire building and blocking off all EMFs. You know I do some of those things in my bedroom, but you know in other places. But we're just surrounded by it on a daily basis. So it's heating up the metals, which then destroys the bone. So in our practice we don't do titanium dental implants Like 1% of the time. Maybe we do ceramic dental implants because they don't conduct electricity and they don't heat up and there's a lot of. There's actually been an increase in dental implants that have failed and people think they blame it on gum disease. They blame it on you're just not brushing your teeth and what do I? Blame it on Frequencies, yeah, it's melting the bone.
Speaker 1:No, it makes so much sense. I'd never thought of it. Like mercury, is what we use in thermometers and it's super sensitive to temperature, so a hot drink a cold drink, like duh, like. How did I not put that together before? Yeah, but that's such an important point to make. If somebody has those, you're whittling away at the integrity of your tooth. Okay, so I interrupted you. Your first big one was mercury fillings or mercury infillings. What's the second one?
Speaker 2:Second one's a real biggie. It's hidden infections, and this is the one that leads to so much inflammation in the body, and I mean there's research that shows that. So we're gonna talk about two sources. One is root canals and the other is areas where you've had teeth removed previously and a lot of people will say, well, I've never had a tooth out. I'll say, well, do you have your wisdom teeth still? Oh, no, I got those out. Yep, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:So a large majority of people have had wisdom teeth out and these infections are hidden and the problem with that is you don't really know that anything's going on. And there is research, crazy research showing things like infection in the mouth, whether it be gum infection, root canals or where your teeth were removed. Those infections will kill you, like 78% of clots that killed people either from a heart attack or a stroke, had mouth only bugs in them. Yeah, it's just. It's enormous the amount of things. I have yet to find a person with cancer or has had or has cancer that doesn't have an infected root canal or an infection in the jawbone where a tooth was removed. I've not found one yet.
Speaker 1:Let that sink in for a second there to the listeners.
Speaker 2:I've not found one yet. There's zero. In fact, I was told this by another practitioner years ago and she said if you can find one, I'll pay a thousand bucks. So I've been looking hard Like I want my thousand bucks Right Dang.
Speaker 2:And I've yet to find one. So let's talk about why. What is the connection here? You know, and it's it's kind of interesting because I have three brothers who are also. I have two brothers that are orthodontists and another brother who's an oral surgeon, and they are on other dental forums that are not the forums that I'm on. Well, now I've made my way onto their forums but they ridicule me greatly my brothers don't, the other people on the forums but they tell me they're like oh, you're on our forum again today. Guess what I heard this time. But it was a forum that had a bunch of endodontists people that do root canals and the guy was complaining and saying how are we supposed to make money anymore Because all these crazy people on the internet are telling people that root canals can lead to cancer. So this was on this forum, like I have arrived.
Speaker 1:Right Congratulations.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have now arrived, anyway. So let's talk about this. It's all about the anatomy of a tooth. So inside of a tooth there's a main canal. This is called the root canal. Have you heard the word root canal before? The root canal, the canal inside of the root, it's like a six lane superhighway, okay, it's where all the nutrients come in and out. It's where all the nerves come in and out of the tooth. From that superhighway there's little exits that go off into all the other areas of the tooth, all the way up and down the tooth. That's why when you tap on your tooth you can feel it, because there's a nerve channel, a little nerve extending that goes all the way out to the outside of that tooth through something called a dentinal tubule.
Speaker 2:Every dentist knows about this. We were taught at year one in dental school. There's a mile of these little tiny tubules, these little tiny roads going off of that main canal. When they do a root canal, they clean the main superhighway out, they clean out the nerve, they clean out the blood vessels, disinfect it with bleach that's actually the disinfectant of choice. Disinfect it with bleach and then fill it up with a material called gutta percha. It's kind of this rubbery stuff. It's tree sap from a tree in Malaysia. So they fill it up with this rubbery stuff. That's what a root canal is.
Speaker 2:The problem is all that mile of little tiny side roads going off. They're too small to clean and they're too small to fill. So dead tissue, dead blood vessel tissue and nerve tissue stays out in those little tiny channels. No matter what, no matter how well, no matter how meticulously well a root canal is done, there's going to be dead tissue in that tooth. So I liken this to let's say, somebody has been told they need their gallbladder out. Well, what if they took your gallbladder out, cleaned it up, you know, soaked it in bleach, filled it? Would it work? No, because it's no longer connected to a blood supply, which means you can't get immune cells there, which means you can have no blood flow. The body will reject it and bacteria will find it, and that's what's happened to these teeth Bacteria finds this dead tissue inside of the tooth. So now is where the problem arises, because your body has to deal with that, your immune system has to deal with that. Your immune system has to deal with that. That low grade, chronic inflammatory burden infection on the body. 24, seven, never ends, never stops, never goes away. So now your body's immune system is distracted and tired and worn out and it can't deal with the other stuff that's going on.
Speaker 2:So I'm not saying that a root canal causes cancer. What I'm saying is that a root canal causes cancer. What I'm saying is that a root canal diminishes your ability to deal with everything else that your body naturally knows how to deal with. It just can't do it anymore because it's worn out. Not only that, but the infection. It's like a piston. Every single time you bite on that tooth you're forcing that infection, that bacteria, into the bloodstream and around the body everywhere.
Speaker 2:They've now isolated it out of hearts. They've isolated it out of kidneys. They've isolated it out of colon cancer lesions, out of everywhere. These are bugs that are mouth bugs. Why are they there? Because they got sent all over the body at the ends of these failed root canals. And here's the kicker you can't feel it because the nerves. So you've lost your early warning system. You have no idea that it's reinfected until you get what's called a cone beam CT scan. This is a specialized dental x-ray where I can see everything in three dimensions. I can literally flip you upside down, turn you inside out and see what's going on on those root canals. And oh my gosh, you cannot believe what I find on a daily basis on these.
Speaker 2:I just saw 12 patients two days ago. Actually, was that just yesterday, yesterday? Apparently, yesterday was a long day, it was two days ago. There was one woman in particular it was just actually blew me away. She'd had three massive sinus surgeries I mean massive had just whittled away all of the turbinates in her nose, cleaned out everything in sight and no matter what, after she had the surgery, within about three months infections would come back to it, back to the ENT, and the ENT was like I literally don't know what else to do for you, like I cannot take anything else out of your nose unless I just take your nose off your face.
Speaker 2:Like I don't know what else I'm going to do and you can do another antibiotic. She'd been on like 15 at this point. You know it killed her gut because of it and so finally she was like well, I heard this lady talk about like maybe a root canal came into the office, took a cone beam CT scan. She has a massive abscess on the end of an upper molar tooth.
Speaker 2:It's it had broken through the bottom of her sinus, because anytime you have infection like that, building it needs a release valve and the bone on the bottom of the sinus is kind of like an eggshell. It's actually fairly thin. So it's either that bone or it's either come out the cheek side, which is a lot harder bone, so it's going to actually break through the bottom of the sinus first. So this tooth had been refilling her sinus after every single sinus surgery and the ENT had never looked at the tooth to say could this infection be because of her tooth? It was just crazy to me so that coming out and her sinus infections will go away. It's just there's so many direct correlates with failed root canals every single day.
Speaker 1:Man, I can imagine why you get fired up about it.
Speaker 1:The reality that so few people ask about your dental health when they ask about your symptoms, it's just you shouldn't be surprised by it. But yeah, that seems to be the way it goes in healthcare, and I watched the documentary Root Cause, which I think you and I talked about before, and it does such a great job of laying this out if the listener wants to go check it out before. And it's, it does such a great job of laying this out if the listener wants to go check it out. But one of the points they made was there's no such thing as an uninfected root canal like they all have it and, to your point, there's. There's no other discipline in the entire world of what you could call health care, where we leave dead tissue in the body and just put something in there that can't the immune system can't get to and think there's no consequence to that so we can save the tooth. And man, what a world. Anything else you want to say about root canals that we didn't cover?
Speaker 2:It just leads to inflammation and infection and then the body has to defend itself from it. So I had a patient who also had sky high cholesterol. She was doing everything she knew to get it down. Nothing worked. Finally her doctor said, thankfully, you know what? Maybe it's her teeth, I don't know there's crazy talk about. Maybe teeth can be related, let's see. So she came in, had three root canal teeth removed. I saw her three months later because she brought her husband in for work and she said I've got to tell you the end of my story. She said I got those three teeth out.
Speaker 2:I went back in a month later and got my blood tested, my cholesterol. A month later and got my blood tested, my cholesterol had dropped 90 points and I had done nothing except get those teeth out. So cholesterol is your body's insulator. It's your body saying something's not right here, and so I'm going to create more of it to insulate you more from it. So it's so important that we pay attention to the symptoms, because the symptoms are where the answers lie, instead of taking a drug that will lower your cholesterol that's now turned off the symptom and left things just to get worse and worse and worse. So it's important, the most important thing is to go get that cone beam CT scan and determine are those root canals healthy for you and is it time just to get them removed? Because people will always ask well, what do I do instead? So we remove and replace them with ceramic dental implants or a bridge or nothing.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people it's the very back tooth and they say I'm really fine without it, I really don't need it. Great, let's get it out and just take it out. But also people will say well, what do you do instead? That's usually the biggest question I get what are you doing instead? And the answer is it depends on if the tooth is still alive.
Speaker 2:So if you still have a real sensitive tooth, a deep cavity, but you can feel that tooth still, what we do is we remove the cavity all the way to the deepest part but leave the nerve alone so we don't uncover it. Don't get into that root canal area. Ozone right there to kill all the bugs and then we fill over top of it and keep the tooth alive. So if you've been told you need a root canal, go get a second opinion. Go see if you can find somebody who does. It's called biomimetic dentistry. Basically, it's using ozone and fillings to save teeth and keep them alive Once they're already dead. If you've got a big, old fat cheek and it's swollen and it's already dead, replace and remove and replace the tooth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great perspective and amazing stories. I'm sure you've got hundreds of them, but okay, what was the third category you were going to give us?
Speaker 2:Airway. So, this is all about air and people think, well, why would a dentist talk to me about my sleeping or breathing or anything else? Because airway is largely structural.
Speaker 2:It's largely structural. It's largely structural and in our world today most of us have a very small mouth. So if I meet anybody and they have had braces or they've had their wisdom teeth out, then their jaw did not grow adequately Because if you look at schools 300 years ago, they had straight teeth and they all had all 32 teeth. They did not take their wisdom teeth out.
Speaker 1:Why.
Speaker 2:Well, the first bone affected by malnutrition is the top jaw. So are we malnourished today? Yes exactly Because our food does not have the nutrients in it that it once did.
Speaker 2:So, our food supply has drastically changed. So we might be getting, you know, food, but it's not food with nutrients. So we are malnourished and the first jaw or first bone affected the top jaw. We get crooked teeth. We all end up with braces and we all end up taking out four teeth because they don't fit in our mouths anymore.
Speaker 2:Well, if the teeth don't fit in your mouth, neither does all the tissue. That means the tongue, the soft palate, the uvula. All of that also has to fit inside of that mouth, and if it's small it doesn't fit. So I liken this to like having a big, long, extended cab pickup truck and a teeny tiny garage. So you got this big old pickup truck in this teeny tiny garage and so the back end of the truck spills out into the driveway. Well, the driveway is the airway. That's where air passes from your nose and mouth down to your lungs. So now you got the back end of the pickup truck out there, so it's blocking off what's supposed to be flowing past. And it's not that the pickup truck is wrong. Like your tongue's not too big, it just can't fit in the teeny tiny mouth that you have. So one of the very worst things I call the ambient generation. It's this entire generation of people who had four teeth taken out for braces.
Speaker 2:It was the easy way out. They went oh, your teeth are crooked, great, let's just take a few of them out, that way that there's enough room for all of the rest to fit. Well, you take teeth out, and what you've done is now permanently made the mouth too small because, you have to pull all the teeth together to close all the spaces.
Speaker 2:So they pull all the teeth together and now there's no room for anything. So we have an entire generation of people, like 60 to 80% of people nowadays. I mean, it's so high, it's unbelievable. They can't fall asleep, they can't stay asleep. They wake up at 1 am like wide awake, toss and turn for another hour or two. They are just not feeling refreshed when they wake up. They may feel like they slept, but they wake up and they're like why do I feel like I just got run over by a truck, literally? Why do I feel like I just got run over by a truck, like literally? Why do I feel like this every single morning? It's about oxygen. You got that back end of the pickup truck hanging out into that where the oxygen is supposed to pass. You simply can't get enough oxygen. So what does your body do? These are the cool things, because this is the stuff we look for. Your body clenches the teeth. Why? Clenching the teeth tightens up all the muscles in the airway.
Speaker 2:So this is why people clench their teeth at night, wake up sometimes with headaches and sore things here. Or I see it very often as worn teeth right here in the front, because when you clench your teeth it tightens up the muscles and when you bring your bottom jaw forward, like this, teeth tip to tip, it brings the tongue forward and it makes more space for air to pass. So anytime I see worn teeth right here in the front I'm like oh, you don't. You don't sleep very well, do you? People like Whoa, how did you know that?
Speaker 1:You from my teeth. What are we talking about?
Speaker 2:Exactly Because I see what your teeth. I see the accommodations of the adaptations your body's making to get more oxygen. It's bringing that bottom jaw forward, wearing your teeth. So the problem with this is when the body goes through sleep cycles. It goes through light sleep, deep sleep, rem sleep and then back up to light sleep, deep sleep, rem sleep. Rem sleep is defined by paralysis. No muscles can move. I've heard it hypothesized. Maybe it's so. We don't act out our dreams, you know. So we're not running around and whatever. So there's literal paralysis in REM sleep. If you engage a muscle, you're popped out of REM sleep immediately. Guess what? Clenching your teeth is Engaging a muscle. Guess what? Bringing your bottom jaw forward is Engaging a muscle.
Speaker 2:So if you are having to do these accommodations to breathe, you're never getting into that deepest level of restorative sleep. You might feel like you slept, but you feel like trash in the morning. You never really got the oxygen you needed and oxygen fuels the energy production at every single cell of your body. So if you do not have oxygen, you do not have energy period. So we detect this on these cone beam CT scans. I can see what is hanging out into your airway. Is there room for you to get air and if not, we make the mouth bigger again. We expand. In adults and in kids we try to get ahead of the game. In kids we go, oh whoa, you don't have enough room. All right, let's start directing your growth. Let's make enough space in your mouth. We train the tongue to come up and forward. We have lasers that can shrink all the tissue in the back of the throat. Basically, we get you breathing and living again. So that's the big piece that nobody knows is related to dentistry.
Speaker 1:Man, no, I've been fortunate to meet some dentists who do. But you're right, you're such a unicorn in that industry and it makes so much sense why we have so much of a sleep problem. But talk to the people who maybe, like myself, who, at the rite of passage we go through through as teenagers now was just to have your wisdom teeth taken out. So in that scenario, is it still palate expansion? Is there any wisdom ever to having the wisdom teeth taken out, or is it always a disservice?
Speaker 2:It's always based on the space. So still, we have, you know, kids. We tell them to get their wisdom teeth out because if the teeth don't have space to come in they are potentially going to create issues in the future. And the longer the tooth's in the mouth, the harder the bone is, the further the roots go down to the nerve. And then if you have a problem let's say you're 40 and now you've got a real big infection around that wisdom tooth it's much more dangerous and risky to take a wisdom tooth out of 40 because the roots are longer, the bone is more dense, higher chance of nerve damage. So that's why we say get it out when you're 18, 15, you know, because the nerve is less dense, the roots aren't long, it's not going to damage your nerves. So we have to anticipate is this going to create an issue in the rest of your life?
Speaker 2:Is there space in here. Is this going to create an issue? If it's going to create an issue, we're going to get them out. Preferably, I'm going to see you know for teeth in there. Let's expand, let's make more space, let's get your tongue doing what it needs to do so that when you're 18, you got plenty of room for all those teeth. That's my preference.
Speaker 1:Okay, gotcha. So if somebody's had them taken out, there's possibly still expansion that you do just because it taking them out shrunk the mouth and there's other benefits to having obviously better sleep and deeper air or deeper oxygenation while you sleep.
Speaker 2:And also a lot of those areas where the teeth were taken out don't heal properly. There's a ligament surrounding every tooth, called the periodontal ligament, and it doesn't come out naturally with the tooth. So the tooth comes out, it doesn't just come out, and when we're removing wisdom tooth we don't go back in and dig it out because there's like nerves down there and their sinuses up there, like they're way back there. So usually the ligaments left behind. When that happens, for about 10 days the body doesn't know that a tooth's gone yet because there's still the ligament there, until the ligament necrosis and dies and it's like, oh wait, trouble, juice gone, okay, but by those 10 days time the gum tissue has grown over and down into where that bone should have grown.
Speaker 2:So you got this dead ligament with tissue that's not bone. That dead zone creates all sorts of inflammation in the body. In fact there's research that showed that it sends up all these they're called cytokines All these cytokine flares telling the body trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. This is a huge source of inflammation in the body and we talk about how that relates to chronic disease. Huge source of inflammation in the body and we talk about how that relates to chronic disease. Huge source of inflammation in these dead zones in the jawbone. Again, we find them on Combium CT scans and when we find them we have to go in, clean out that dead stuff and fill them up with stem cells.
Speaker 2:I have the craziest stories with these. A woman who had horrible eczema could not get rid of it. Cleaned out these wisdom teeth areas. Horrible eczema could not get rid of it. Cleaned out these wisdom teeth areas eczema 95% gone within a month. Wow, gone because it just dropped her inflammatory burden, just boom like that. Another lady who literally been bedridden she'd had to move back in with her mother and was working from her bed couldn't even hardly work Got these cleaned out. The next morning her mom found her up doing the dishes. She said what are you doing. She's like I feel better than I felt in a decade. So it's just this huge inflammatory burden and a lot of people say, well, I really haven't felt good since. I was like in college and I said, well, when did you get your wisdom teeth out? College?
Speaker 1:Yep, light bulb just went on in that moment. Right there, is that called a cavitation. Do I have that correctly? That's called a cavitation.
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of the old word. There's like a big long term for it. Now I like to call them areas in the job that didn't heal correctly.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a longer term. Yeah, very technical. Yeah, exactly, it just didn't heal.
Speaker 2:A place in your job that didn't heal. You know there is like a fancier term even than that, but I just like to call it it's an area that didn't heal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, got a pocket of infection that is potentially explained. So many of your symptoms, okay, yeah, okay. So I've got a few other questions, but you so you said 60 to 80% of health issues tend to stem from the mouth. What? What, in your estimation, is the other 20 to 40%?
Speaker 2:It's a great question, a lot of things you deal with and it's, it's okay, we've got to get the huge burden off, so we've got to get the infection out that's spreading. We have to get your airway open so you can actually get air. Then we work with somebody, exactly like you, who says, okay, now let's do the hard work of getting everything out of the body, continuing to work there, let's start adding good things to the body. Let's start eating the right fuel, eating the right things to give the body what it needs to actually get through those healing processes. So it's honestly the pieces, and no, sometimes we didn't talk about this, but there's actually a huge connection with the. Each tooth connects to an organ system and so, for example, hormonal issues are connected to wisdom teeth.
Speaker 2:There's a direct line between hormones under the entire endocrine system and wisdom teeth. So we'll often see chronic fatigue. We'll have to see, you know, some of these other hormonal issues and fertility. We'll go and look at these wisdom teeth areas and say, okay, is there that you know dead zone in that spot? We get the dead zone cleaned up, but it doesn't.
Speaker 2:it doesn't balance the hormones automatically, does that make sense so then we send to somebody who says, okay, now let's figure out. Okay, we've gotten the burden or the root, root root taken care of, now let's work on fixing it. And a lot of times we're not the first place people arrive at because nobody thinks I think my dentist is the one who should fix my chronic disease.
Speaker 1:You know, we're like.
Speaker 2:we're like the 10th place that people arrive because they've done everything else Right. And they still can't get there. And then somebody says, maybe it's your teeth. And then they come and see us and we clear up. You know the major burden and thankfully they've already done all the work before they've gotten there, but they still have to keep then working to heal the body once that root cause is gone. So there's still work to do, but the work works if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does no, and I so resonate with the. I'm usually 10th on the list of things people will come to and often I can identify root causes pretty quickly, like one talk to a dentist. Let's figure out if there's anything going on in your mouth. Are you killing yourself with toxic thinking? Are you poisoning yourself with your food and water? Like there's obvious flashing lights and it's shocking. Most dentists or dentists, most doctors, don't answer or ask those questions, like we don't even think to look for root causes. It's just there's a whole host of symptoms. We can play symptom whack-a-mole indefinitely and I love it that you're. It's not surprising, I guess, talking to you, you eventually became a naturopath as well. You're like okay, let me fix the root, the first problem, and then I'm going to go fix all the others. I have the toolkit to fix the rest of it. What a great skillset to have in one person. Anything else you want to mention about what we've covered so far?
Speaker 2:Nope, just hopefully this inspires people to go and find somebody who can help provide this kind of care for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, you brought up fluoride earlier, so let's, let's. That's a touchy one these days, because a lot of states and municipalities are starting to ban it. Florida, I'm proud to say, has banned it from our municipal water system. So what are your?
Speaker 2:thoughts. Utah was first, which is my state. Florida was second, which is yours All right.
Speaker 1:So we've got. We've got two winning states here. So give us your perspective on fluoride, obviously from a dentist perspective, but just fluoride in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So fluoride, the concept of it is awesome and you know, honestly I am always of the positive intent mindset, like I don't really think anybody's out there to kill any of us. You know, I really don't. Maybe there is, but I just don't go there. You know, it's just not worth thinking that way. I usually figure out that we're trying our best, we're all doing our best with the information that we've been given and we just need to keep learning. That's really the case with fluoride.
Speaker 2:So originally they found that these pockets of pockets of people that were drinking well water, that had higher levels of fluoride, had more resistant teeth, they had stronger teeth. They also had splotchy teeth, like brown and white splotches on their teeth, but they didn't get cavities. So they looked at this and they said, oh, this is great, let's figure out how to completely eradicate tooth decay, let's put fluoride in toothpaste, let's put fluoride in water, let's put it everywhere so that we can get rid of cavities. So, again, positive intent. You know we're trying to really fix something because I mean, people die from cavities, you know from abscessed teeth, and you know it's, it's something, and there's just a huge inconvenience and cost and everything else. I mean it would be fabulous to never have another cavity. So this was the concept. This was the idea, but there's some big flaws that have really come to light as of late. The first flaw is did it work? Has anyone gotten a cavity since 1930?
Speaker 1:I think so yes.
Speaker 2:So it didn't necessarily meet the intended goal, right. It didn't eradicate tooth decay, but the flip side is it did do a lot of other things that it actually wasn't intended to do. Because fluoride will strengthen teeth, no question It'll strengthen teeth, but fluoride doesn't just stay put, especially when taken systemically, which is what happens when we drink it in our water.
Speaker 2:It doesn't just stay on your teeth. So what does fluoride do? Well, fluoride interferes with iodine, and iodine is what activates thyroid hormone. So in the seventies, fluoride was actually given to patients that had hyperthyroidism. Their thyroids were too active because they knew that fluoride decreased thyroid function.
Speaker 1:I did not know that. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:So now we're dosing it to every single person that drinks the water. So how many people do you know that have thyroid issues? And low thyroid function and how much of this could be related to fluoride usage.
Speaker 2:And enormous portion of it, so that's one problem Fluoride changes the structure of bones because it actually makes teeth and bones stronger and more brittle. Well, that's a problem when you get to bones. So it changes the density and the structure of bones. So we've seen an increase in bone fractures due to fluoridation. The third thing it does is it affects brain health. There was a brand new study in January of this year that showed literally equal. If you increase fluoride this much, you decreased IQ in children this much and it was specifically male children. So very, very neurotoxic, changing the way the brain is developing and working when you're using fluoride. So let's put all these two things together. Okay, it strengthens teeth. Did it eradicate tooth decay? No, it leads to all these other systemic health problems. So was it worth it?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, especially when there's another answer, and the answer is that teeth themselves are made of something called hydroxyapatite. It's the complex that you see when you smile. That's mineral complex. Cavities aren't a deficiency of fluoride, right? They're a deficiency of minerals. So instead of adding fluoride, which was never there and which will not stay put, let's just add minerals, because guess what? Your body can use more minerals everywhere, not just your teeth. So there is no side effect, no harm whatsoever, in just adding minerals back. So you need to be using hydroxyapatite tooth care products, toothpaste, mouthwash, tooth powder, all of the above to just put back what was lost, to prevent or rebuild tooth decay, and it won't hurt you in any other way.
Speaker 1:Well, you set me up beautifully for my next question, because you've talked frequently about the idea of healing teeth and healing gums. I was excited to see. So we tend to think of those as not being able to be healed. But talk to me about the. You know you mentioned the minerals. What can people do who have gums or teeth that they want to see healed? Is it as simple as hydroxyapatite and getting more minerals, or are there other things that you would suggest?
Speaker 2:Those are the biggies Hydroxyapatite from I call it minerals from the outside, minerals from the inside. So hydroxyapatite on the outside and then on the inside we use vitamin D3 and K2. Vitamin D3 grabs the minerals, vitamin K2 puts them in the cell. So you can add a lot of minerals, but if you don't actually accompany it with those vitamins, you end up just calcifying a lot of things like getting more tartar or kidney stones or gallstones, instead of putting the minerals where you need them in your teeth. So you need vitamin D3,2. And then we have what's called a tooth and bone formula, but basically it's a mineral complex. So minerals in and minerals out, and that's the best thing to do. For gums, I actually have a really amazing mouthwash just literally was released two days ago. I have an amazing mouthwash, but this one's a gum specific one, and what it does you know.
Speaker 2:A lot of people talk about the microbiome in the gut, right, the gut microbiome. Well, the mouth was part of the gut. It's the first part of the digestive tract and I like to think of it as different rooms in the house. So there's a room up here in the mouth that has certain bugs. There's a room in the stomach that has certain bugs. There's a room in the small intestine that has certain bugs job, and they're in that room for a reason. Well, we don't want to disrupt any of those bugs by trying to treat, you know, one of the other rooms. So traditional mouthwash is high in alcohol. Well, alcohol is going to kill every bug. If you're using Listerine, guess what you're doing? You're upsetting the microbiome in your mouth and in your stomach because it's going down there and it's got bugs down there too.
Speaker 2:So no alcohol containing mouthwashes, for sure, for sure, for sure. So I have a new mouthwash that has colloidal silver. That's used for the antimicrobial exactly, and what it does is it kills bad bugs, encourages good bugs. But I've added to this formula a prebiotic that's specifically formulated to do exactly that Encourage good microbial growth while killing bad bugs, bad bugs that damage your gums and your teeth. So we have this was developed.
Speaker 2:This prebiotic was developed by a woman who's a dentist and a PhD. She has a research scientist and she's tested, independently, lab tested, this mouthwash and she said this is literally the gold standard. Like this does everything you want for mouth health. So if you have gum problems, if you have tooth problems, this is going to help both. It's going to help rebuild your teeth and rebuild your gums with this prebiotic, the colloidal silver, hydroxyapatite, and it has some other herbals in there as well, and it just basically takes care of the mouth and keeps it well. That's really my purpose and my whole goal is just I don't want to see people once they're already so sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want people to stay well and never have to get sick to begin with. So, from a dental standpoint as well, you don't ever have to get another cavity, you don't ever have to have gum disease. You know, I tell people that all the time, like my goal for you is you never get another cavity. And they're like, oh, like that could happen. I said, no, it can happen. We're going to get you absorbing minerals like you should and taking care of the gum you know the gums like you should, and you're never going to have another cavity. It's absolutely possible.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, I'm excited to get your new mouthwash I've been using. I started using your other one. It's awesome, but now that you have a new one, I'm already. I have a foam bar. Well, I got to get this new one.
Speaker 2:So this one's even. Yeah, okay Well, you mentioned in your book and the book's a few years old, so I wanted to get an update. You mentioned there's a promising therapy for gums using stem cells and fibrin as a way to heal them. Did that mature and become what you thought it might be, or is that a Not completely? And I believe it's because usually when using that, people still aren't getting to root cause. So for gum recession it often relates to that airway piece that I talked about.
Speaker 2:If you're not getting enough air, you're squeezing your teeth, you're rocking the teeth and the flex zone I like to like. If you ever went to SeaWorld, there's like a splash zone, you know where there's a rock that comes out.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a flex zone on the tooth too. When you're grinding or squeezing that tooth, it flexes the tooth. The gum sits right at the flex zone, so it moves down to find a solid, non-flexing part of the tooth. So we get gum recession because of airway problems, because of bite issues. So we can tack on some stem cells and things on the gums, but if we haven't addressed the reason that the recession is there to begin with, then whatever we've added is just going to recede again.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:The reason that it happened to begin with. So those are the places I'm really focusing is let's fix all these root cause pieces. Then we can create protocol for rebuilding once we fix that.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it Well. Fabulous update. Thank you for bringing me up to speed and I like your logic on that one. Okay, so I guess if I'm, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the listener here, so maybe put your best bedside manner or I guess, in your case, the chair side manner and and maybe talk to a couple of emotional issues I imagine people are maybe having related to the conversation.
Speaker 1:So first, last time you and I talked, I mentioned I did a consultation with a man who had a ridiculous number of fillings and root canals and he was convinced of everything we're talking about today, but he was also convinced he couldn't do anything for his health until he saved $50,000 to get his teeth fixed. So talk to the listener maybe about the expense or sticker shock sometimes of dental work. And what do you say to someone hearing this who's seeing the problem clearly and they're perhaps feeling a little overwhelmed thinking about I don't know if I can ever afford this or what is it going to take and disrupt my life? Help them through that emotional part of the journey.
Speaker 2:So two pieces. Number one you don't have to do everything all at once, and I often will tell people like they'll say well, I have to save $50,000 because I have to be able to replace the teeth that I take out. You know, if there's failed root canals, I have to be able to replace them. I said that's not true. I, what I want you to do is I want you to get into a holding pattern where nothing's getting worse. So I don't want anything going downhill. Maybe you can't replace everything right now, maybe you can't get to perfect right now, but I don't want you going backward anymore.
Speaker 2:So what does that mean? That means you're going to start with infection. You're going to just start there and you've got to get infection out, because until you get infection out of the body, the body's going to constantly be inflamed, you're going to have constantly depressed immune function and on and on and on everything we've talked about today. So get infection out, period. If there is one mercury filling that's breaking your tooth and chronically leaking and leading to issues, start there. So it's all about meeting people where they are. If they can't do it all, then do one thing, just start with one thing. But a lot of this goes to overwhelm as well, and I talk to my team all the time and say, listen, somebody that's confused cannot make a decision. It's literal, proven.
Speaker 2:This is like psychological thing, like if you have confusion, you can't make a decision because you can't be both of those things at the same time decisive and confused. So we have to simplify it down, and that's where I'm always saying, especially when I'm meeting with patients, and saying, listen, step number one is this I told you everything because we needed to think of it all in the context of everything. But I don't need you to do this all at once. I need you to do step number one, and this is the most important step, and this is what I would like you to start with right now. So that's really what I would encourage you to do is go ask the dentist where do I start? I can only do one thing and be really upfront with them. This helps us as a dentist, because sometimes we feel like we're shooting in the dark, like I don't know if the person sitting across from me has the financial means to take care of $50,000 with a dentistry or if they have enough money to do $500 of dentistry. You know, I don't know, and so I can't really tailor that plan unless that information is shared. So if you, as a patient, if you have financial limitations, it's not something to be embarrassed of. It's something that's actually very useful for us, because if you come in and you say I have $1,500 to spend, I say great, let's figure out the very the most effective place for you to start. That's going to give you the most for those dollars. And let's start there, because even a little bit is going to get you closer to well. So that's, when it comes to a dental perspective, when it comes to a wellness perspective, just to health in general. That's actually what my new book is all about, because what I've done is I've looked at all of the different options for medicine and wellness and help and everything in the whole world.
Speaker 2:And when I was sick myself, I was so overwhelmed but I couldn't make a decision, I couldn't emotionally move forward because I didn't know. Everybody was telling me you've got to eat like this, you've got to move like this, you've got to take this supplement. These are all one size fits all things and that's not true. So I studied all these different methodologies and what I came up with was is what I call a symptoms assessment. So you plug your symptoms into this assessment and at the end it tells you which place to start Cause, really like if you were to cut your finger and you put a bandaid on your finger, the bandaid doesn't do the healing right. Your body does the healing. So our job is simply to give your body what it needs to do its job. And all medicine, every single thing out there is just simply a band-aid. It's just there to support your job, your body and doing its healing. So our job is to give ourselves what they need. But how do we know that? Yeah, how do we interpret those symptoms? And that's what the assessment is.
Speaker 2:That I've created inside of this is where do you start? Which cell needs help first? So let's say you plug in, I'm bloated, I've got digestive discomfort, I'm just like, really ornery, I can't, I'm stuck, I can't seem to move forward in my job. Like you plug in these symptoms and it pops up. You are in a spring season and it's your liver and gallbladder that need help first. You go, okay, liver and gallbladder. So what do they need? All right, they need supplies, support, security and signals. Those are the four things that I have in my cell. Well, formula, okay, what do they need? Supplies? Wise, they need greens. All right, you're going to start eating a green smoothie every morning. Okay, they need support. You're going to start dry brushing every, every day to just help your liver detox and dump stuff. So it's just a way to get your first step.
Speaker 1:Well done, what a cool tool. I am eager to get your book and kind of digest that, because that's a lot of what I try to do for people is. I take the overwhelming mass of options and try to just call it down like we don't fix everything today. Let's just where's the flashing red light. Sometimes it's dentistry, other times it's other other things and once you kind of you, give them the path and to your point, you you map out a journey and walk it out over time, so much easier to feel grounded as you go through a healing journey. You're not expecting it, that's good. Better be fixed in two weeks or I'm. It doesn't work like healing takes time, so so well done.
Speaker 2:But not only does healing take time, we also need a motivation, and I believe you need to have a first step that's actually going to make some change. Yeah, that, I believe, is really important too. And so you have to have a large enough first step, not necessarily in effort, but in impact. You need a large enough first step that you go. I feel that, okay, I'm going to keep doing this, you know. And so getting down to the cell that's giving, like putting, like you said, putting up the most red flags, figuring that out, that's really important, because you can throw a lot of stuff at a lot of stuff, but unless you see the change, you're not going to stick with it.
Speaker 2:I joke that I have a supplement graveyard in my house. You know you get a supplement and you take it for a little while and then you forget why you're taking it and then you think I don't think it's really doing anything, and then you put the half bottle over in the cupboard and then you know your supplement graveyard now grows. So that is a big, the most humongous waste of everything, right? Waste of expense, waste of hope, waste of everything. So the steps you need to take need to make a difference.
Speaker 2:So, that, again, is why the assessment is so important. It gets you to which cells need help first and what do they need first, so that you can see that there's a change.
Speaker 1:So much wisdom and I can tell that's well honed and well earned, because the coach I deal with the brass tacks of habit formation and behavior change and all the places where we make excuses or our motivation fluctuations, and it's unless you can have some way to address those there's your percentage of people you help goes way down. So I love it that you took the time to write that book. All right, Go out and get the book If you're listening to it ahead of the release. Then be patient like me.
Speaker 2:But otherwise we'll be on next week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, next week. We're almost there, all right. Second emotional puzzle I wanted you to just speak to a little bit is just talking people through the emotions of losing a tooth. And this became personal because somebody I might be married to wept when she realized that she needed to have a tooth pulled. It's not like, hey, life's moving forward and everything's getting better, it's just like a part of us has been lost or something, and so there's an emotional aversion or sense of loss sometimes that goes with that. So speak to the listener who's maybe just feeling the gut punch of. I don't think I can get myself to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's actually another little. This is where people really start to roll their eyes at me, but this is a very it's a truth. So teeth are crystals. They're crystal in structure. That's the way that they're made. If you look at the part you're looking at as a crystal, crystals actually hold emotions, so we often are storing emotions in our teeth.
Speaker 1:Wow, I hadn't thought of it as a teeth story.
Speaker 2:Okay, keep going. And like you know all of those feelings that none of us like to feel disappointment, you know all of that. But also that there's stored emotions in those teeth themselves that don't really, I mean. You know you detox emotions all the time. They don't go out nicely sometimes, you know. So there's a lot of things connected. As I discuss this with patients, I say when I was first doing dentistry I was trained that my whole job is to save teeth and we were a failure, that as a dentist we were a failure if we didn't save a tooth. And I look back on some of the things and we jokingly in the profession call it hero dontics, because we're doing something for a tooth and we know darn well it's not going to work, you know, but we feel like it's. We're going to be a hero for this person we're going to do. I mean, I distinctly remember this one woman and I just think back. I think there was no way that was going to be successful long-term I guarantee you that tooth is not in her head anymore.
Speaker 2:But I thought I was doing her a favor and doing every single thing I could possibly do.
Speaker 2:But now I've learned that all of those things I was doing were actually making people more ill because they were leading to Harvard infection, these hidden infections that I didn't even know about and I mean, I did hundreds of root canals myself before I learned this it was, this was hard pill to swallow as a practitioner.
Speaker 2:So now what I tell people is you know what? I used to do everything in my power to save your tooth. Now I do everything in my power to save your health, even if it means losing and replacing a tooth, because I can replace your teeth all day long, but I can't replace your health once it's gone. So that is really the bottom line, and for patients as well, is to say, okay, this is part of a bigger hole. This is going to give me basically a new lease on life and this is helping me get where I am going. It's going to take some time and I'm not going to be thrilled with the process for sure, but I'm going to get there and I'm going to have more motivation, more health, more energy along the way, so that every step is going to feel better than it does right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to let it metabolize. I'm worth the effort to do this, and my future is what's on the line here, and the impact I could have would be watered down by continuing to be infected and not at my best, and I love this concept of healthspan and lifespan.
Speaker 2:I talk a lot about this. Lifespan is the length of our life. Healthspan is the quality of our life. And currently right now, lifespan is hitting around 73 years on average in the US. It's decreasing and has decreased every two years in the last two years, so we're going in the wrong direction. Health span has also decreased. Right now, average health span is 61.9 years, meaning after that you will expect to have help being bathed uh, dressing getting out of a chair 61.9 years.
Speaker 1:Hello, so young Golly.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. What I'm saying is these kinds of things are the things that prolong your health span, because what I want to do is, if I'm going to live to a hundred, I want to be healthy until I'm 99.9.
Speaker 2:You know, that's what I want. I want my health span to be as long as my lifespan. This is the kind of thing. These sorts of chronic infections are the things that take away your health span and your lifespan. But your health span which to me is almost even more important because I'm not if I'm not alive, but your health span, which to me is almost even more important because I'm not if I'm not alive well, I'm not really that concerned with my quality of life, because I don't have life anymore While I'm alive. I want to be living my life. I want to be living well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I often tell people death is inevitable, but I don't think disease is. We don't have to go that way we, but we need to know what we don't know in order to shepherd our bodies through that and get to 99.9 and be like okay, I think this is it for me. Yeah, I had a good run. Right, all right, well, so various people I respect in this related to dentistry tell me to be very careful about who you listen to related to their advice. So obviously I think you'd echo that. So what are some of the questions the average person could ask, or what would they look for to know they've found a dentist who gets what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:So main things you're going to ask are what are your beliefs on fluoride? You?
Speaker 2:know it's going to be a real good indicator right off the bat. What's the philosophy? What are your thoughts on root canals? Do you have a cone beam CT scan machine in your office that that tells you again are they looking for root cause? What are your thoughts about metals in the mouth? So these are all questions you're just going to ask right off the bat and these are things that I have on my website that I tell people. These are the questions you want to ask. Fluoride root canals, metals, cone beam CT scan those are the biggies. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:And that'll give you a real good clue on what are. What's their philosophy of care? Okay, and if they answer with the what was the acronym you said for effective metal cleanup? That's not putting you at risk. That would be smart.
Speaker 2:Yep. Safe mercury amalgam removal technique is what that stands for yes, smart. It's through the I A, o, m T. They're an organization that you can look up again. There's a lot of dentists on that directory, so go check out their directory, iaomtorg, and my directory on my website as well, livingwellwithdrmichellecom, because those are dentists that have already shown that they are sharing in these philosophical beliefs.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love it. So when I get interviewed, I am often asked what do you eat for breakfast? Or give me your morning routine. So tell us, dr Jorgensen, what is your oral care routine.
Speaker 2:Yep. So what I do is I use all of my products. Why? Because they actually work. In fact, I am like patient number one, so I have used my tooth powder longer than anyone else because it was made in my kitchen. I'm currently using my new toothpaste. I am also patient zero actually patient zero for toothpaste. It should be out in the next month. All of these things. Mouthwash I currently am patient zero with the new mouthwash. I was the first one to get it. I use all of these things before I give them to you because I want to make sure they actually work. So hydroxyapatite tooth care products. I love an electric toothbrush because you can use it even when you're lazy right.
Speaker 2:Put an electric toothbrush because you can use it even when you're lazy right, put it in there and it's doing the work for you. You can see too many people their mouths get full of foam. This is why my products don't foam. Also because when your mouth gets full of foam, you think you're done, you think you're clean, even though you've only brushed like a third of your teeth. No, you have to brush them all, but so use toothbrush. I like an electric toothbrush. You're going to brush your teeth. You're going to tongue scrape. Why? Because tongue is where a lot of yeasts live.
Speaker 2:So if you have issues with yeast problems, which is often sinus infections, chronic sinus infections, sore tongues and yeast infections elsewhere in the body. Those are often related to tongue scraping. So I'm going to tongue scrape and then I'm going to mouthwash.
Speaker 1:And you have a copper tongue scraper. So tell people why you have a copper one.
Speaker 2:Because copper is antimicrobial. So when you're scraping you're scraping bugs off so they're going to stay living on that tongue scraper. So when you go and tongue scrape again tomorrow, you're going to basically reintroduce those bugs to your mouth that you just scraped off yesterday, unless you use one that's antimicrobial, that doesn't allow bugs to grow on it.
Speaker 1:Nice, okay. So, tongue scraper, use your toothpaste, tooth powder, electric toothbrush. Anything else you'd tell people that would be a non-negotiable, or? Don't miss this. Yeah, you know, you have a unique floss as well. I don't know if you want to mention that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's actually interesting. This is a little known fact. I don't floss. Ah, man, and half of the listeners rejoice, or most of them, yeah exactly, I actually don't floss, and the reason I don't floss is I don't have a lot of dental restorations.
Speaker 2:I've actually never had a cavity, so I'm so I've never had cavity, but I don't have a lot of dental restorations and so my gums fit quite tightly to my teeth. I actually don't get my teeth cleaned very often. My team knows this. They're like okay, is this like you know your seven year plan here? What's going on? Hey, is this like your seven-year plan here? What's going on? Like I don't actually have anything to clean off my teeth.
Speaker 2:So if you have dental restorations, you're gonna need to floss, why? Or you're gonna need to use a water pick or something to get into there, because you have nooks and crannies that are hard to clean. If you don't have fillings on teeth, the gums fit quite tightly against the tooth and when you floss you actually are opening up more of a gap between the gum and the tooth and you may be introducing more problems than you're solving. So it's not a one-size-all-fits-solution, because if you have dental work, if you have fillings, crowns, whatever, you've got to get those cleaned. You've got to get around them. Things have already changed in your mouth. But if you don't have fillings on teeth, you may actually not need to floss them, because we want those gums to stay nice and tight against the tooth to protect the tooth. So yeah, you got the deep stuff today.
Speaker 1:No kidding, and tell people what's unique about your floss. It's black and it has a little bit different texture. What's special about the floss you do, mav?
Speaker 2:It's bamboo charcoal and what it does is it is woven, so as you floss down between the teeth it's going to grab bacteria and hold onto them and take them out. The charcoal actually is a binder, so when you use when you like, if you were to swallow a bottle of Drano and you were sent to the hospital, they were going to pump your stomach. They're going to fill it up with charcoal. Why? Because charcoal is a binder and in fact you may use it for detoxing. So charcoal is a great binder. So it's also going to grab to bacteria and any micro, anything that's like living in between the teeth and just hold it and take it out.
Speaker 2:But a trick when you're flossing, get enough floss that you can actually move down the floss while you're flossing so you don't use the exact same portion. Otherwise, what you're doing is you're cleaning the bugs out of one spot and moving them to the next spot because they're still on that floss. So you want a long enough piece of floss so that you're using the first end, moving it you know, moving along. Use the next piece, move it along, use the next piece so that you're not just reintroducing bugs from one part of the mouth to the other part of the mouth.
Speaker 1:Dang, I wouldn't have even thought of that. I'm so glad I asked. And then your, your toothbrushes that you sell are wooden. I'm like, of course, like, why would we put plastic in our mouth and just slowly whittle that away so we can have another source of plastic?
Speaker 2:exactly, and in the landfill and everywhere else. You know so yeah yep, so everything's biodegradable okay, cool.
Speaker 1:Anything else about your products that you want to mention? Obviously there are books there, but you have like video courses. You have yoga mats. You've got deodorant, you've got. So there are books there, but you have like video courses, you have yoga mats. You've got deodorant, you've got so many things. Are there other favorites you have or things you want to highlight about your product line?
Speaker 2:Really, it's all just things that I found a lack in the market for, things that I personally wanted, and everything that I formulate actually is formulated in my kitchen. People are like really, yep, literally is, I'm a cook and I'm a scientist, and so you put those two things together and you make stuff in your kitchen, so my family will come in. I'm like, hey, hey, hey, try this, try this. They're like, please, no, please, don't make me try. No, no, no, no, try it. This would taste good, I promise. So I make't find. So I decided to make them, and that's where my next mission is now happening and going. So I have an interesting story. I just shared this on social media yesterday for the first time.
Speaker 2:Five years ago, I was told that I had a personal mission and I would be starting in December of 2025. And in my church, a mission is a thing you like leave for 12 months, 18 months, you go serve, you go do all this, and so that's what I thought I'd be doing, and so I've been doing everything to mentor doctors, handpick my partner, doing all these things for five years four and a half years now, getting ready for this place, and finally have realized what this mission is going to be. I'm actually going to retrace Dr Weston Price's footsteps. If you're a nutrition, you know him.
Speaker 1:I totally know him. He was a dentist.
Speaker 2:Not a lot of people know this, but he has really shaped nutrition since he lived 85 years ago, went and did his research 85 years ago. He shaped the nutritional landscape. Since that time no one's really gone back and said this is what he learned then. What about now?
Speaker 2:Are those people still. Well, what has changed? What has changed? So I'm going to go back and retrace his steps and show us what is happening in those areas and bring it back and simplify it down to here's how we can stay well. So it might be that there's new products coming, that there's new things that we're going to be bringing, but they're all from the earth. This is from the elements of the earth. This is from the what the earth provides for us, just taking us back to the way our grandma's used to stay well. You know how did they stay well? And how can we bring that back? Because we're going the wrong way in the world today and we need to turn the boat around and go the opposite direction and actually learn how to stay well. So lots on the horizon. Please check out my social channels. So much free stuff on there. I just talk about cool things all the time.
Speaker 2:So, come on, I was just talking about how I was building this cob, dirt and clay pizza oven in my backyard and using cow manure as the plaster on it. I mean, you know, just like weird cool stuff all the time. So just come and follow along, because my whole purpose, my whole mission is to help you all live well, so that you can live your mission.
Speaker 1:Man well said. And when I was reading your book I got through the parts about the fillings and the root canals. And then you start talking about nutrition. I'm like, oh, she gets it. There's a whole section on Weston A Price and on how to make your foods digestible. I'm like, oh, like so many dentists, they just they put you in, like you just have to eat plants or there's there's so many different nutritional holes in the way they tell you to eat.
Speaker 1:I'm like, but to find you and to find we were in alignment on our nutrition philosophy and you understood holistic health and you were becoming a naturopath and you're looking at dentistry and you've got a boldness to call it out. I can, I can just feel the mission that oozes out of you and just I'm honored to know you. I'm honored to amplify your message and and and direct people to your products. We'll have even a coupon code in the show notes. You can get a discount on our products. So all right. Anything else you want to list, let the listener know as we start to wrap up. You obviously mentioned the Find a Dentist link. Maybe give them your social handles or your website one more time.
Speaker 2:Yep, livingwellwithdrmichellecom, and please go and purchase the book. It's not for me. Actually, all profits from the book are going to charity. We're going to be supporting regenerative agriculture, clean water initiatives all the things that are going to help us all live well. So this is not padding my pocketbook. What it's doing is it's helping us all to live well, better in the world, and it's telling booksellers and publishers that these are the kind of books we're all interested in. The more of this book that sells, the more of these kinds of books they will support. So go buy the book it should hopefully be out by the time this is coming out and then go back onto my site, livingwellbookcom, and get the assessment, the digital assessment that I've been talking about. Go get it for free, as well as your first steps guide. It's all just there to help you live well.
Speaker 1:Wow, all right. Well, you are a gem and a gift to humanity. Thank you so much. I don't know how many people's lives may have been saved just from this one episode, but, on behalf of the listener, thank you for taking the time. I so appreciate it and look forward to talking to you in the future.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
