Anyone know a 'holistic' dentist?

Emma216

Dont know if its the correct term.Im looking to get my mercury fillings removed and im looking for a dentist who can do this,preferably in the cork area?

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Any dentist can do this and place white fillings, however sometimes if the fillings are very large you might be better with crowns or inlays, costs will vary depending on the tooth and the dentist.

Big_G

So...tempted...to...say...something.

Ah what's the use.

Orthoman

Come on Big "G", you know you want to.:)

Big_G

Don't mind if I do.

Holism in dentistry is nonsense. The term as it is used by quacks is meant to convey the sense that some things have yet to be explained by conventional dental science. Holism actually means that a system is more than the sum of its parts. So the quacks don't even use the term properly, they claim to treat the body as a whole, of which the mouth is only a part. They claim that procedures in dentistry have an effect in other parts of the body, such as the placement of amalgam. This may be true, but is unproven by science at this point. If they subscribed to holism in its truest sense, they wouldn't be able to treat the effects of amalgam on a system, because the system by its very nature is unfathomable and therefore any effect that amalgam may have on the system is unquantifiable. The quacks would ask the question 'can you prove that fairies don't exist? Well then they must." Can you prove that amalgam doesn't have a health risk? Well then it must. Utter garbage.

Holism by its nature is an unscientific term. Science seeks to explain, whereas holism relies on some sort of philosophical blind faith.

Orthoman

Well done, I bet that feels a bit better.

Anyone care to bring up "biological" dentists again?:rolleyes:

btkm8unsl0w5r4

And I though this was a holistic dentist

Emma216

Hmmmmmm seems this topic has touched a few raw nerves haha.Only noticed after i posted that every second thread is about mercury fillings!
BAy the way im not asking as im terrified of what will happen if i keep my mercury fillings,im actually suffering from an acute condition,where ive tried everything and this was my last option.

day dreamer

Hi Emma

Get the fillings replaced if you want but there is little or no evidence to suggest that it will help your condition, whatever it may be.

I can understand that if you are suffering at the moment any possible solution can look attractive but only if it is the last resort and all coventional approaches have failed. You may create more problems than it will fix and will certainly cost a fair bit too. I hope the clinician advising this course of treatment has told you of the problems that can occur when replacing amalgam fillings with white ones

foret

"You may create more problems than it will fix and will certainly cost a fair bit too"


I think this is a very valid point. Caveat emptore.

ballsymchugh

i regularly partake in holisitic dentistry. i mix some echinacea with some duck's tears and aniseed extract for my anaesthetic. i find that it doesn't work too well though, but i also find that fools and their money are easily parted.

Calibos

Emma, Ya seem like you're probably into the alternative therapy lark, Holistic this, Wellness that, energy meridians, wisdom of the ancients etc. So you most probably use some Homeopathic remedies. I am sure you have researched Homeopathy and how it 'works'. We're talking about ones health after all. It behooves one to do the research and not rely on what your cousins friends sister who is a Reiki healer (Use the Force Luke) said anecdotally.

Anyway, in Homeopathy like 'cures' like. So a tiny quantity of a compound that causes some illness actually cures it . Kinda not at all like vaccines. The amazing thing is, is that the less of the compound you put in the remedy the stronger the potency!! Once you dilute it to 30c (while shaking it up,down,left,right,in,out a load of times) which is the dilution of one part per.....more atoms then there are in the entire universe) well you end up with a very potent remedy.

Now, what does this have to do with your fillings? Mercury causes madness. So the tiny tiny tiny quantity of mercury leaching out of your fillings (must be at least a few atoms a day!!!) is actually a very powerful and free homeopathic remedy for madness!! Its working on you right now!! Pretty soon you will be cured of the mad idea that mercury fillings are causing whatever ails you!!

carrickmilo

I got my mercury fillings removed in Germany, each tooth being isolated with a dental dam and suction the whole time the mercury was being removed.

What freaked me out was that it went in the toxic waste bin.

On the topic of holistic; I know there are a lot of dubious health care options out there (hopi ear candling for example) but what many dentists who say they work in a holistic way are saying is that the dentition has an effect beyond the mouth, it's just not political to say so because medicine is compartmentalised.
One effect is sleep apnea where the mandible is too far back causing the airway to narrow, these people can die in their sleep from heart failure

btkm8unsl0w5r4

carrickmilo wrote: »

What freaked me out was that it went in the toxic waste bin.

Dont worry about that, the gloves and needles used in your mouth go in their also.

carrickmilo

Justice Thousands Slug wrote: »

Dont worry about that, the gloves and needles used in your mouth go in their also.

Didn't explain fully. The mercury was suctioned off into a separate container marked 'Sondermull'. The gloves etc. went into the normal bin with the biohazard symbol.

What disturbed me is that the word 'Sondermull' can also be used to refer to nuclear waste.

Big_G

carrickmilo wrote: »

I got my mercury fillings removed in Germany, each tooth being isolated with a dental dam and suction the whole time the mercury was being removed.

What freaked me out was that it went in the toxic waste bin.

On the topic of holistic; I know there are a lot of dubious health care options out there (hopi ear candling for example) but what many dentists who say they work in a holistic way are saying is that the dentition has an effect beyond the mouth, it's just not political to say so because medicine is compartmentalised.
One effect is sleep apnea where the mandible is too far back causing the airway to narrow, these people can die in their sleep from heart failure

You have necroposted in this thread without even reading what has been posted in it.

The problem isn't that holistic practitioners claim to decompartmentalise medicine (the misuse of the term holism notwithstanding - see my post above), it is that it uses diagoses and treatments that have no evidence base and make unscientific assumptions in the design and execution of treatment plans. The problem with this, of course, is that there is neither proof that these treatments work nor don't work (actually there is considerable evidence that they don't work, at least not as effectively as conventional treatments - that's why they're conventional). For me, I like to see proof of an effect beyond placebo (which can be very powerful, but in most people is less than stellar which is why most clinical trials use a placebo to test against, to show that a treatment is at least more effective than placebo). What holistic practitioners seem to do is prey on the vulnerable, weak, undiagnosed, undiagnosable and sell them great sounding, pseudoscientific 'cures' to diseases that may or may not exist outside the person's mind or if they do exist have not been adequately explained by evidence based medicine.

I've heard the toxic waste bull**** argument before, of course it has to be disposed of as toxic waste when it's disposed of in such high concentrations as are removed in quack dental clinics, its an environmental hazard to dispose of 1000's of amalgam fillings in one place or into the water supply where they can breach maximum safe concentrations.

Let me just say that I am exposed to 100s of times the mercury levels than anybody posting in this forum apart from the other dentists and I've never had any ill health effects that can be explained by mercury exposure, as proven in the literature.

Jimoslimos

Big_G wrote: »

Let me just say that I am exposed to 100s of times the mercury levels than anybody posting in this forum apart from the other dentists and I've never had any ill health effects that can be explained by mercury exposure, as proven in the literature.

Tut tut....quoting anecdotal evidence;)

But seriously any form of medicine / health care with the words "holistic" or "alternative" would in my view be nothing more than money-grabbing scams directed at the weak. Conventional dentistry (or "dentistry" to you and me:rolleyes:) suffers from this because the pain involved can be so great that people will do and believe anything to alleviate it......enter placebo discussion!

In my view, the worst kind of lies peddled by alternative therapists are not the sh1t like healing crystals and the like, its the half-truths and misleading science.
Hence

• Mercury is bad
• Mercury accumulates in the body
• Amalgam contains mercury
• Amalgram (like everything) will shed a negligible mass

So you can see all the sentences individually above have scientific truth behind them - but in the hands of a quack they can claim fillings are damaging and the science backs them up.

My own experience of this would be working in an opticians, we often had people who would claim to have read or been told by a "friend" that wearing glasses would deteriorate their eyesight further. Again half-truths - wearing glasses relaxes the muscles in the eye so you don't need to strain as much to see, that's the purpose of specs, geddit? right, so when you remove the glasses your eye muscles are still relaxed and everything seems blurrier than before you put them on - give it a few hours and your eyes will adjust / revert back to their usual pre-specs state.

carrickmilo

Big_G wrote: »

You have necroposted in this thread without even reading what has been posted in it.

The OP asked about removing mercury on August 4th. I entered the discussion a little over a month later, so it's hardly necroposting.
I'm bringing my relevant experience to the issue and if you don't like what I say at least agree to disagree. Nobody has a monopoly on knowledge.

Check out Winston Price and Pottenger's cats

I'm not defending most wacky holistic treatments - all I'm saying is that the oral cavity has a bigger impact on overall health than most drill and fill dentist realise

Oral Surgeon

carrickmilo wrote: »

Big_G wrote: »

You have necroposted in this thread without even reading what has been posted in it.

The OP asked about removing mercury on August 4th. I entered the discussion a little over a month later, so it's hardly necroposting.
I'm bringing my relevant experience to the issue and if you don't like what I say at least agree to disagree. Nobody has a monopoly on knowledge.

Check out Winston Price and Pottenger's cats

I'm not defending most wacky holistic treatments - all I'm saying is that the oral cavity has a bigger impact on overall health than most drill and fill dentist realise

You tell him carrickmilo, I know for a fact that Big G does indeed have side effects of amalgam exposure, mad as a hatter- don't listen to him.
OS

btkm8unsl0w5r4

carrickmilo wrote: »

Big_G wrote: »

Check out Winston Price and Pottenger's cats

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holisticdent.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_infection_theory#Criticism.2C_research.2C_detraction.2C_and_decline

Big_G

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Tut tut....quoting anecdotal evidence;)

Yes, true, but there's about a billion hits on pubmed for mercury exposure in dentists and most of them compare dentists to the general population and most of them show dentists having a significantly higher exposure of mercury. Not very many of them show dentists having a significantly higher incidence of any disease vs the general population. And none of good quality.

Esel

carrickmilo wrote: »

The OP asked about removing mercury on August 4th 2010. I entered the discussion a little over a year and one month later, so ..... ...

FYP there.

sineadni

just been told have to get root canal work,any good holistic type dentists out there,any good recommendations!thanks

Oral Surgeon

sineadni wrote: »

just been told have to get root canal work,any good holistic type dentists out there,any good recommendations!thanks

Try an endodontist instead….

davo10

sineadni wrote: »

just been told have to get root canal work,any good holistic type dentists out there,any good recommendations!thanks

I've been a dentist for 20 years and I still don't know the difference between a "holistic" dentist and a dentist except the ones claiming to be the former seem to charge a lot more. I met a dentist who advertises this approach, at a course on posterior composites a few years back and I asked him how his "approach" would differ from that being taught by the guy speaking at the course, he just smiled and said it didn't, he used the same materials and same methods, the "holistic" term was just a good way to advertise his clinic and set it apart a little from the other clinics in the town. He also said he did a nice line in "detoxifying" solutions, I asked if they worked and he said they must do as no one ever came back to say they felt worse after taking them. I looked up medline and googled for studies on the "ketone" busters but I couldn't find any peer reviewed studies.

Nice selling point but at the end of the day the root canal treatment will be the same and you will have a white filling, but you will have paid more. Seems a good deal to me.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Well Davo at least he knows its a smoke and mirrors thing. Holism and bogus alternative treatment are the new mass. People do get benefit like from mass or confession because these practitioners listen to them, pay attention to their worries, offer non judgemental advice, don't dismiss them and preform rituals that, while not offering any real benefits, feed into the atmosphere of healing. Its a fascinating effect.

Oral Surgeon

davo10 wrote: »

I've been a dentist for 20 years and I still don't know the difference between a "holistic" dentist and a dentist except the ones claiming to be the former seem to charge a lot more. I met a dentist who advertises this approach, at a course on posterior composites a few years back and I asked him how his "approach" would differ from that being taught by the guy speaking at the course, he just smiled and said it didn't, he used the same materials and same methods, the "holistic" term was just a good way to advertise his clinic and set it apart a little from the other clinics in the town. He also said he did a nice line in "detoxifying" solutions, I asked if they worked and he said they must do as no one ever came back to say they felt worse after taking them. I looked up medline and googled for studies on the "ketone" busters but I couldn't find any peer reviewed studies.

Nice selling point but at the end of the day the root canal treatment will be the same and you will have a white filling, but you will have paid more. Seems a good deal to me.

A holistic dentist in the west of Ireland is being investigated for selling/advising MMS treatment for autism.....

Big_G

Gotta love necroposts for making me want to rant. And then me realizing I've already had a good rant in this thread about this topic. And then being disappointed that I can't think of anything to add to my original rant.

sandra maguire

Hi, I was getting braces when I started getting joint pain. Brace pple said my fillings were “leaking”.

i got them removed with holistic dentist in Kilkenny after looking up Dublin ones after phoning around.

He was amazing, used dental dam, fluids, breaks, did one quadrant at a time.

Then I did mercury detox things on my own (chorella, Vit C, garlic etc).

within 3 weeks all joint moving pain gone.

i really liked the guy and have gone to him ever since. His name is Bill Mc Collum. He also gave me a great documentary dvd on Root Canals “root cause”.

he’s retiring soon and just does one or a few days a week. I’m not sure if he’s taking on new pple but he said the Dublin guy Hefferon is good too.

(though I’ve heard mixed things on him).

the Mayo crowd are meant to be good but v expensive. (Ishkoe ?)

I saw Bill recently for teeth injury that dentists said I needed root canals for, (which I’ll never do) and found him incredibly helpful for all the questions I had on leaving them in situ (with no pain ), extractions or zirconium implants.

I’m not interested in debating the merits of holistic dentistry, each to their own and for me personally current western dentistry is appalling at informed concert and appallingly toxic.

I’d be very ashamed to have that occupation.

if this has been useful for anyone who can make their way past all the posts of derision and denigration that would be cool.

capnsparkles

As a matter of interest what joint was causing pain.

NSAman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121566445#Comment_121566445

The Big toe!

Had all the amalgam taken out and replaced by white filings. Does that make me holistic? It put a hole in my wallet, but when I smile it’s Hollyyyywood.