| A Serious Post That Isn't Emo WHUT |
[29 Aug 2007|10:36am] |
Since 2005 I have been experiencing teeth woes. From birth until '05 I remember having no problems with my teeth whatsoever. I'd go to the dentist and they'd say "no cavities" and I would be like "Sweet." I think this is due to two things:
* I never got in the habit of eating sugary cereals or snacks
* I'm really quite healthy overall, in that my body seems to be able to recover quickly from illnesses
I vaguely remember the last time I went to the hospital and had a doctor prescribe something-- I think it was when I had stomach flu in like 2002 or something. I get a cold maybe about once a year, depending on how stressed I get, and it's usually so mild that I just go to school anyway (annoying people by sneezing and sniffling, though). The last time I went to a clinic was when I first came to college, and had some kind of mysterious sickness that made me very tired and made my throat hurt. I thought I might have strep, but they tested and said I didn't, and it went away in about four days.
Anyway, the point is that I'm pretty happy with my body, except for my teeth. In 2005, I went to the doctor because my way-back molar was hurting something fierce. The dentist took X-rays and told me I had a cavity there which needed a root canal, and on top of that I had 13 tiny cavities that needed to be filled-- between my teeth, that could (he said, looking at me significantly) have been prevented by flossing.
As you can imagine this was really quite frightening to me, who'd never had a cavity before in my life. (Other sidenote: I think the cavities came from me going to Japan and eating a lot of Mentos, because the dentist also took out some X-rays from 2002/2003 and said I had no cavities there. So lesson bloody learned.) I got them all filled, which was extremely expensive, and took two or three sessions of going to the dentist. Now I have random glints of metal in my smile. I could get porcelain or ceramic ones, of course, but to me, it's the principle of the thing that bothers me. I want to have a totally natural set of teeth. Anyway, I don't drink sodas, I floss every evening and brush twice a day, which has helped, but that's just the beginning of the story.
( How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Find A Way To Fix My Teeth )
For those of you who want the short version:
I'm going to try eating tons of greens starting today until I finish all the non-organic food in the house, and then I'll begin a raw diet for a month. I have a scheduled dentist appointment in December so I'll be able to see how it goes. I'm also buoyed by the fact that my dad's never gone to the dentist, ever, and his teeth are straight and white. Even though his oral hygeine routine consists of cleaning his teeth with a small wooden stick with a frayed end (it's an Ethiopian thing), he's never complained about teeth hurting. Using this experience, my guess is that my dad has passed on some of his awesome teeth genes to me (I naturally have really straight white teeth also), since it's only recently I've experienced cavity problems. I'm also guessing that since he uses a stick rather than a toothbrush, which he throws away after each use, and doesn't eat sweets anyway due to his diabetes, his teeth have basically never been in a situation where they were EXTREMELY susceptible to sugar or harmful bacteria. He does, however, drink soda and beer, yet his teeth are fine, hence my suspicion about awesome teeth genes.
My hypothesis, based on my family history/personal history, is that once I cut out all the refined sugars in my life, my teeth are going to not have things actively attacking them. Next I'll use a baking soda rinse, which should kill bacteria that cause cavities. Then adding in the greens and raw foods, which contain generally awesome minerals, along with mineral supplements, will help coat over or fill in any cavities that I may still have lurking despite my flossing/brushing routine. If I keep really strictly to the plan, I should see a notable difference when I go to the dentist for a checkup at the end of December, which is four months away. I'll tell him what I'm doing, also, and hopefully he won't dismiss it out of hand. Though he very well might, since it does sound like a very new-age-non-traditional way of dealing with the body's problems, and usually sciency people don't take well to this kind of thing as it's hard to really prove.
( More crap )
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