Happy Thanksgiving!

All of us here at Dr. Verigin’s office wish our US readers a very happy Thanksgiving. Whether you observe the day by gathering with family and friends, or in service to others; participating in religious services or activities of remembrance and reflection, we hope it is a wonderful and blessed day for you.

We’ll be taking some time off from blogging over the extended holiday.

Regular posting will resume on December 2.

4 Tips for Dealing with Holiday Stress

A repost from last year as the holiday season gets underway:

 

We all feel stress in our daily lives. Indeed, it’s a part of being human, and some of it is good for us. It can motivate us and help us get things done, and helps protect us in times of danger. But excess stress has a negative effect on us – body, mind and spirit.

Many of us deal with such overload each holiday season. There’s simply so much more going on – people to visit, events to attend, preparations to make – that when coupled with our usual stressors, it’s surprising when one doesn’t feel at least a bit more stressed than usual.

Fortunately, there are ways of managing stress. Although these tips apply to all times of the year, they can be especially helpful during the festive season.

Breathe
Deep breathing has an incredibly soothing effect, supplying extra oxygen and creating a sense of calm, focus and re-centering. Most of the time, we tend to breathe shallowly, using our lungs rather than our diaphragms. When you feel the tension rising, mentally step back and take a few deep breaths through your nose (not your mouth). It really works. Try to breathe this way – from your gut rather than your chest – on a regular basis.

Eat Well
Our holiday celebrations tend to center on food. Lots of us look forward to the sweets and other seasonal foods that may not be the best for us nutritionally but give us pleasure. It’s important not to let such foods replace more nutritionally wholesome foods. Instead, treat these foods as a complement to a regular, balanced diet. Also, many holiday meals are heavy in starches and refined carbohydrates, with foods like mashed potatoes, stuffing, breads, jellies and the like. Balance these foods with lower-glycemic whole grains, legumes and vegetables, and drink plenty of water. If you choose to use alcohol, drink in moderation.

Make Time for Yourself
At this time of year, we often get so involved with giving to and doing things for others, we forget to do things for ourselves. Set aside some time every day for yourself to do the things that most give you pleasure – a time-out from the hectic holiday pace. It’s a beautiful paradox that when we are “selfish” enough to take time for ourselves, we become better able to take care of others.

Keep Balanced Expectations
Perhaps the biggest holiday stressor comes from the very natural desire for our celebrations to match those depicted on TV, in movies or on greeting cards. But one of the reasons those depictions can move us is that they’re idealized images, not real ones. If we expect our celebrations to mirror them, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Making sure you have realistic expectations for the holidays is probably the number one thing you can do to reduce the stress and increase the joys to be found in the simple pleasures of gathering with friends and family to share the rituals and traditions of your holiday celebrations.

 

From Biosis 7, November 2005

Read more articles like this one.

 

What to Do for a Toothache

Eggybird/Flickr

You have a toothache. What do you do?

1. Take a painkiller.
2. Put a cold compress on your cheek.
3. Apply vanilla extract to the painful tooth and surrounding gums
4. Apply clove oil around the painful area.
5. See a dentist about it.
6. Do nothing and hope the pain goes away.

While the first three options may offer some temporary relief from the pain, none of them cures the toothache. Even if you apply natural antimicrobials such as clove oil or garlic to prevent or eliminate any infection, you still may not get to the crux of the problem. For there are many reasons a tooth may hurt, beyond infection, such as decay, breakage, an improperly placed restoration and the force of clenching or grinding. (For more on reasons why your teeth might hurt, see Dr. Verigin’s article in Biosis 22.)

Thus, while you may do any number of things to cope with the pain, the wisest thing you can do is make an appointment to have a dentist examine the painful area. If the tooth is damaged or decayed, he or she can repair it. If a restoration is causing the trouble, the dentist can adjust it. If bruxism is the problem, he or she can provide a splint to absorb the pressure and, as needed, other therapy or treatment to help break the habit. And if infection is an issue, the dentist can provide antibiotics to eliminate it completely.

In other words, a dentist can identify and address the cause of the pain so you don’t have to keep struggling with or attempting to suppress it. And better to pay a couple hundred dollars now than letting the problem fester and paying thousands down the road for root canal therapy, complex restorations or other, more extensive dental work to repair the damage…or worse, in the case of infection, risking death, as a recent news item from the UK illustrates:

A dad-of-five died after ignoring his dentist’s advice to seek medical help for a tooth infection.

Ian Albert Durkin, of Lees New Road, Holts, would probably still be alive today had he heeded the warning.

An inquest into his death heard that Ian, who was 42, refused to go to hospital despite being in excruciating pain.

His partner of 11 years Adele Riley told the court: “He was crying out in pain but you couldn’t persuade him to go to the doctor or hospital. He tried to put up with it. He was stubborn like that.”

His distraught family are now urging others to learn from his fatal mistakes.

“The fact that he could still be alive today if it wasn’t for his stubbornness is heartbreaking,” said Adele. “If other people see this and take heed hopefully his death will not be in vain.”

The inquest, at Oldham Magistrates’ Court, heard that Ian, a team leader at Remploy, developed a toothache which led to a bad tooth falling out on March 24. He didn’t visit his dentist until three days later and was told he needed treatment. Over the next few days he developed a sore throat, several mouth ulcers and was feeling generally unwell. He also discovered a red spot on his hand.

By April 3 his condition had worsened and he returned to the dentist, who advised that he should go to hospital given the state of his swollen hand and mouth. But Ian returned to home and went to bed, turning to alcohol for comfort. Adele checked on him twice that afternoon before discovering him dead in bed at 10pm.

The post-mortem examination revealed the presence of the bacteria haemolytic streptococcus, which can cause infections of the skin, in the mouth and sore throats.

This story somewhat recalls the US case from a couple years ago, where a 12 year old boy died from an abscessed tooth after he was unable to get dental care due to economic hardship. Bacteria from the infection spread to his brain. Two surgeries, six weeks in the hospital and over a quarter of a million dollars spent could not save him where a hundred dollars for extraction and antibiotics could have.

Of course, not every untreated oral infection will progress in this way, and one of the reasons such occurrences jump out at us is due to their relative rarity. Still, they pound home an important point: Tooth pain is not just a nuisance. It’s serious business.

So if you have a tooth that’s hurting, contact a dentist. If you have dental insurance, it will likely cover at least part of the cost. If you don’t have insurance, there are other financing options you can pursue, from in-office payment plans to consumer credit plans (e.g., CareCredit) specifically designed to cover dental and medical costs.

If money is an issue, be up front about it. If you get public assistance of some kind but can’t find a dentist who will accept it, ask about other payment options. If you live near a city with a dental school, you can get low-cost services at their clinic.

For more information on finding a dental school clinic or other source of reduced-cost services, see the NIDCR’s website or contact your state dental association about available assistance programs where you live.

Just don’t do nothing.

 

Teeth Grinding Linked to Sleep Apnea & Other News of Note

Teeth Grinding Linked to Sleep Apnea (Reuters)

There is a high prevalence of nocturnal teeth grinding, or bruxism, in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), particularly in Caucasians. New research presented at CHEST 2009, the 75th annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), found that nearly 1 in 4 patients with OSA suffers from nighttime teeth grinding; this seems to be especially more prevalent in men and in Caucasians compared with other ethnic groups…More…

Junk-Food Binge Alters Gut Microbes in Less Than a Day (Washington University Record)

Switching from a low-fat, plant-based diet to one high in fat and sugar alters the collection of microbes living in the gut in less than a day, with obesity-linked microbes suddenly thriving, according to new School of Medicine research.

The study was based on transplants of human intestinal microbes into germ-free mice.

Over time, mice that received the transplants, or humanized mice, on the junk-food diet became obese. Their weight gain was in lock step with dramatic shifts in the types of intestinal bacteria present compared to mice on a low-fat diet…More…

Consumption of Cerain Fish Linked to Poor Cognitive Performance in Kids (DNA)

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Granada has revealed that kids who eat fish more than 3 times per week show worse performance in the general cognitive, executive and perceptual-manipulative areas.

Those with higher levels of exposure to mercury show a generalised delay in cognitive, memory and verbal areas. Mercury is a contaminant found especially in oily fish and canned fish and to a lesser extent in white fish…More…

Emotions Increase or Decrease Pain (PhysOrg)

Getting a flu shot this fall? Canadians scientists have found that focusing on a pretty image could alleviate the sting of that vaccine. According to a new Université de Montréal study, published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), negative and positive emotions have a direct impact on pain.

“Emotions – or mood – can alter how we react to pain since they’re interlinked,” says lead author Mathieu Roy, who completed the study as a Université de Montréal PhD student and is now a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. “Our tests revealed when pain is perceived by our brain and how that pain can be amplified when combined with negative emotions”… More…

Brief Training in Meditation May Help Manage Pain, Study Shows (ScienceDaily)

A new study examining the perception of pain and the effects of various mental training techniques has found that relatively short and simple mindfulness meditation training can have a significant positive effect on pain management.

Though pain research during the past decade has shown that extensive meditation training can have a positive effect in reducing a person’s awareness and sensitivity to pain, the effort, time commitment, and financial obligations required has made the treatment not practical for many patients. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte shows that a single hour of training spread out over a three day period can produce the same kind of analgesic effect.

The research appears in an article by UNC Charlotte psychologists Fadel Zeidan, Nakia S. Gordon, Junaid Merchant and Paula Goolkasian, in the current issue of The Journal of Pain…More…

Biosis 27: Tips to Quit Grinding Your Teeth, Finding Gratitude & More

 

The new issue of our quarterly newsletter Biosis is available online now. Check it out now to learn more about:

• Why you might clench and grind your teeth – and what to do about it
• Finding stability in unstable times through tradition and gratitude
• Women’s health and informed consent

Read Biosis 27 now.

 

The Safer Removal of Mercury Fillings

 

Why You Need to Read Beyond the Headline

Another week, another hmmm-inducing headline to add to our collection (see items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6), this time courtesy of a media release posted on Medical News Today:

 

 

Amid the on-going controversy over the safety of mercury-containing dental fillings, a University of Saskatchewan research team has shed new light on how the chemical forms of mercury at the surface of fillings change over time.

Their work, just published in the American Chemical Society journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, shows that the surface forms of mercury in older ’silver’ fillings (also known as amalgams) may be less toxic than previously thought.

Now, if you only read this far, you might be apt to think that this item is just confirming the conventional, ADA- and FDA-sanctioned “wisdom” regarding the “safety” of mercury fillings. But as the song says, “It ain’t necessarily so”:

‘The dental amalgam on the surface of an old tooth filling may have lost as much as 95 per cent of its mercury but what’s left is in a form that is unlikely to be toxic in the body,’ said U of S Canada Research Chair Graham George who led the study. (Emphasis added)

Well, isn’t it great that the remaining 5% of mercury isn’t so toxic? But where did the other 95% go?

Into the body, of course – via outgassing, erosion and in some cases breakage. It is ingested and absorbed. And some people become very sick as a result – typically those who are poor excretors of heavy metals or have an especially high body burden of toxins. Others, of course, are much more able to excrete mercury. This is why the fillings don’t make everyone sick, and this is why the conscientious holistic or biological dentist would never recommend that everyone have their mercury fillings removed, whether they’re showing signs of mercury-related illness or not.

Notably, the above media release does touch upon the issue of the remaining mercury:

But the team cautions that due to the significant mercury loss over time, human exposure to mercury lost from fillings is ’still of concern’ and that further research is needed to determine when, how and in what form mercury is lost from fillings.

We would like to see continued research in this area to further refine our understanding of why we see what we have seen clinically for years: people with chronic illnesses proven to be related to dental amalgam regaining health after proper pre-treatment, safe and methodical mercury removal and detox. Of course, there’s much we know already from research such as the pioneering work of Peter Störtebecker, Boyd Hayley and Hal Huggins. But there is always more to learn…

…including things like the importance of reading beyond headlines and the first few paragraphs of any news story.

 

Eminently Quotable: Boris Pasternak

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.

AP’s “Assault on Alternative Medicine”

Another week, another installment in the Associated Press’ ongoing series of articles on what they call “alternative medicine.” Despite being positioned as “news,” the series has appeared highly biased and ill-informed in a way that feeds the needs of Big Medicine. We’ve written about this before (see “The ‘Alternative’ Controversy”). There really seems no need to rehash it.

But we do want to point you towards some ways of making your own views known about what Mike Adams is calling the AP’s “assault on alternative medicine.” as Mike Adams calls it. In his latest editorial on the matter, he writes:

It’s quite clear that AP is following a specific agenda to destroy the reputation of natural medicine while boosting public perception of pharmaceuticals. And yet, in reality, it is Big Pharma that has delivered no cures. But the sick-care industry has delivered America into financial bankruptcy and helped our nation become the most diseased population in the history of human civilization. AP feels no need to report on that inconvenient truth. Rather, it sees its job as encouraging yet more pharmaceutical use in America while destroying the credibility of far safer and more effective natural therapies that could help turn around America’s health.

The Associated Press is sadly misinformed about natural medicine, and yet their stories are syndicated across thousands of newspapers and millions of web pages each day.

He includes the following contact information:

http://www.ap.org/pages/contact/contact.html

Their general email address is info@ap.org

Their main phone number is (212) 621-1500.

You can also find phone numbers for their various local bureaus at the web page link provided above.

If you choose to contact them about the series and get a response, do let us know in the comments.

 

How to Brush Your Teeth

The conventional wisdom says that you should brush your teeth after meals or at least twice a day to avoid tooth decay. But it doesn’t follow that so long as you brush regularly, you’ll get no cavities. A number of other factors work together to determine this – things such as dietary habits and genetic susceptibility. It’s also not just important that you brush. How you brush matters just as much.

For instance, if you don’t brush long enough or with the brush properly angled, you may leave some of the biofilm (plaque) intact. This lets it keep on colonizing and raising the risks of tooth decay. On the other hand, if you brush too aggressively, you can damage the gingival tissues (gums) to the point of exposing some of the tooth root, leaving the tooth “sensitive” – typically to sweet, hot or cold foods.

Another cause of sensitivity is erosion of or damage to the tooth enamel. This damage can come from excess intake of acidic foods and beverages – especially energy and sports drinks, and soda. In themselves, these can damage teeth (for more info, see this and this and this), but even more so if you brush shortly after consuming these high acid substances.

Similarly, sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) – a foaming agent commonly used in mass market toothpastes – can damage the soft tissues of the mouth (again, the gums), as can fluoride. The damage may further contribute to gum recession and sensitivity.

So how do you brush correctly?

• If eating or drinking highly acidic foods, wait at least a half hour after consumption before brushing your teeth.
• Use a soft-bristled brush.
• Use a toothpaste that is SLS-free, as well as fluoride-free.
• When you brush, do so for two minutes, or 30 seconds on each quadrant. Keeping the brush at a 45º angle to the gum line, brush towards the top of each tooth. Clean each tooth individually, overlapping as you move through your mouth. In front, where your dental arches narrow and curve, use the tip of your brush.