Biological Dentists

Biologic Compatibility

The most fundamental principle in a biologic approach to dental care is that each of us has a unique biologic response to the materials we find in our lives. You may respond one way to cedar pollen and I may respond another. Most of us do well with whole wheat bread, but some of us have a very bad reaction to it.

This biologic uniqueness applies to the jewelry we might wear as well as the materials that our dentist restores our teeth with. But there is a big difference between ear studs and biological dental work. If your ear lobe turns red, you can just take the stud out and replace it with something else, or leave it out altogether. The redness is obvious to you, and when you replace or remove it, you can tell if it gets better. If you were having the same problem with the materials that your dental work was made of, first, how would you know, and second, if you know that it is a problem, what are you going to do about it?

Fortunately for the jewelry industry and biological dentistry, most people tolerate both kinds of materials well, at least well enough that they do not recognize it as a problem. But some of us have real problems with reactivity to the materials in our lives. The biological approach to dental care came into being in large part to help people with this problem.

How can a biological dentist help? First and foremost biological dentists pay attention to your health and your history of health issues. If it looks like reactivity to materials might be a problem, we can test to find what materials you are probably allergic to and which ones you probably are not. Depending on your health status it might be appropriate to remove and replace all the materials you are allergic to. Sometimes it might be more appropriate to restore only the newly involved teeth with biologically safe materials.

I use Clifford Materials Reactivity Testing (http://www.ccrlab.com/) in Colorado Springs, CO. to help us determine your unique reactive profile. They test for 90 or so reactive compounds and report on over 9800 dental materials. Over the years of seeing their reports, I am fairly clear on which materials are most likely to cause reactivity. I simply do not use those materials in my practice. That includes anything with mercury, nickel, beryllium, and some other metals. My practice has been mercury-free for decades, and generally I have stopped using metals at all (with some exceptions).

The Root Canal Dilemma

Another area of concern for the biological dentist is root canal therapy. Most of the time root canals are performed so that you can live with a tooth that no longer has living tissue in it, i.e., a dead tooth. Dead teeth can harbor bacteria and toxins that can cause an infection, either chronic or acute. Infections cause a drain on one’s immune system and can cause problems far from their original site.

Traditional root canal therapy removes the bacteria in a gross way but leaves thousands of tiny micro-tubes in the root open. Some researchers and most biological dentists think that is a problem.

The problem can be solved by removing the tooth. But this approach causes other problems. If you don’t get it replaced, you lose chewing power, and your remaining teeth shift. If you do get it replaced it might mean having to use metal for an implant, or affecting adjacent teeth by placing a bridge.

An alternative approach is a more biologically sound root canal procedure. We use the EndoCal system. You can find more about it following this link. Alternative Root Canal.