[00:00:18.540] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Good morning, and welcome to Green Tea Conversations, the radio show that delves into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine to bring you the experts who share their progressive ideas and the latest information and insights needed so you can lead your best life. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle, publisher of the Twin Cities edition of Natural Awakenings magazine, and I am honored to bring these experts to you. Today on our show, we are welcoming Dr. Holly Thompson of Natural Smiles Dental Care in Shoreview. Dr. Thompson is passionate about biological approaches to oral surgery and has advanced training in Zirconia dental implant placement. Welcome to our show, Dr. Thompson.

[00:01:00.310] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Thank you for having me. I am so happy to be here today.

[00:01:04.690] - Candi Broeffle, Host

And is it okay if I call you Holly? Or do you prefer Dr. Thompson?

[00:01:09.580] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

You can call me Holly. That's just fine.

[00:01:13.310] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So before we get started, I always like to ask people about themselves and kind of what brought them into the line of work that they're doing. So if you could give us maybe kind of a little bit of autobiography of yourself, kind of what brought you into biological dentistry, holistic biological dentistry, and just share with us why it's so important to you to be doing the work that you're doing.

[00:01:38.290] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Well, I started out in traditional dentistry, like everyone does. That's what they're teaching in the dental schools. And I went into dentistry because I really wanted to truly help people and look at helping not only their teeth, but having them feel better. I mean, anytime you make someone that walks through your door feel better, you feel good. And I had been practicing traditional dentistry for about 10 - 11 years, and I was getting really disenarmored with the whole thing. You're fixing teeth, you're kind of doing this bandaid work is what I felt I was doing and not making the people in the patients feel better. They were always coming back with post-stop pain. Even if you did the filling well, and it was always surprising, it wouldn't even be a big filling, and they would still come back with pain. You would check the bite. That's a common issue with teeth that have fillings, and that would still be fine. And they still had pain. And I did many years of root canals, and that was another thing that really frustrated me. It's not a cheap procedure. People are investing in it because they are being told that that's the best thing for them to treat.

[00:02:49.380] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

A tooth that has died or the cavity got so big, it got into the nerve, and they were coming back with more pain. Or in general, you just saw their overall health decline. And these were patients I was able to see over the course of years. And you weren't seeing them get better. You were seeing them get sicker. And it became really frustrating seeing that as well as root canals just failing. These are a couple thousand, sometimes more. If it fails the first time, then they go to a specialist and they have to pay more money, thousands of dollars, and they weren't working. And I was kind of at this breaking point where I'm either going to stay in dentistry or I'm going to choose a new career. I got that disenarmored with it and I don't understand how the world works. But I had natural smiles approached me. I had just moved back from Portland, Oregon. I practiced out there for a few years and my first assistant out of dental school was working as a hygienist now for Dr. Madeline Pearson at Natural Smiles. And she was telling me, we're practicing dentistry different than how it's been practiced, it's called biological dentistry.

[00:04:02.770] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And I was really intrigued by it. And they were looking for someone to come in and do the surgery aspect of dentistry, removing, you know, sick teeth, root canal teeth, and placing biologically friendly implants. And I had done a lot of surgeries out in Portland, so I had a lot of experience, so it was a good fit. And so I decided to join kind of toe-half in the biggest convincing I need was I was doing a lot of root canals. So I was still not totally on board with root canals or bad, but that was something I had to agree to. Like when you come to this practice, we are no longer doing root canals. And I started to take biological dentistry courses that I didn't even knew existed. And I started going to these and there's plenty of them out there and I immediately knew I was on the right path, like, oh my gosh, this is what I've wanted. Finally, I have science and research and studies that traditional dentists and courses are not being exposed to. And they've been doing it differently in Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland for decades. We have the track record and the research and the real patient testimonials happening out there and we have people in the US like

[00:05:19.000] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Dr. Judson Wall out in Utah, dr. Kelly Blodgett out in Portland, Dr. Barkley Bastion out in Maui. They've been doing this for 10 - 20 years now and I started to work with them, collaborate, train with them, and I never looked back. It's just completely revitalized not only my career, but my life. I'm a lot happier cause I think that most of us can attest to if we're not happy at work or with our career, we all need a sense of purpose, we're not going to be happy. And I was really struggling for the latter years of doing traditional dentistry and I spend most of my spare time now going to these courses because I love it. I truly have found my purpose and my passion and I'm just excited to be able to get that out to people now.

[00:06:09.480] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Yes, I'm really excited to be talking to you today because there's so much that we're going to get into. But you also just came back from Switzerland for some training that you had out there as well. And I know that we're going to talk about that a little bit later, but before we do that, let's get into a little bit about the root canals. So, as somebody of a little bit more of an advanced stage, I have had several root canals myself, and I know lots of people who've had them right. And we're kind of convinced by traditional doctors or dentists that is the way to go, because we don't want to lose that space. We don't want to have an empty space where the tooth is. We're being told that it degrades the jawbone, it degrades so much of what's happening, but they're not really talking to you about your overall health. And nowadays we are more educated and no more about how integrated everything is. So how much our mouth and our dentistry is connected to all other aspects of our body and our overall health. So let's start talking about that a bit.

[00:07:23.460] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So when we talk about, like, traditional root canals, what is it besides them failing or besides them not working? And then people end up having to get them removed anyway, or get a tooth removed anyway. What are some of the problems that people run into who have had root canals?

[00:07:43.540] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Well, I can say that the facts, the data, the research, I can confidently sit here on a podcast and publicly say 100% of root canal teeth are full of bacteria and they are not free of inflammation. If you send any of these out for a biopsy, they will all come back with some bacteria and inflammation around them. So I want to get that out. I think that's really telling and people need to understand that. I think it was a very noble effort for dentists. I mean, I get it. We try to save teeth. It's like we don't want to lose teeth. We need teeth to chew and function and cosmetically, too, it was a noble effort, but we've been doing them now since I read somewhere in 1976, we did 1 million root canals in the US. Since then, we do around 25 million a year.

[00:08:38.440] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Wow.

[00:08:38.820] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Chronic diseases are at an all-time high right now and we need to start understanding why these chronic diseases are happening. And I believe that root canals are a huge contributing factor to that. And I think when you break down what a root canal tooth is, you are removing all vitality and life. It is a dead tooth, which is a dead organ. And I think a really good analogy to think about is teeth have pores just like skin. We call them tubules. And bacteria are up to in our mouth are the size of up to 1. Those tubules are usually the size of 3 nm. So a bacteria, I kind of think of it like a cat trying to chase a mouse through a mouse hole. So the mice are the bacteria that can get into that mouse hole, right? They're 1 mouse hole. That tubule is 3 nm. So bacteria getting inside of that root and the things in our body that fight bacteria are called macrophages and that's like the cat and they are up to 50 size, so they can't even get into that tubule or the mouse pole to clear out the bacteria and kill them.

[00:10:13.420] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So what happens is people with a strong immune system will fight that for a certain amount of time and not might not notice anything wrong, but those mice continue to grow and proliferate and reproduce and same with the bacteria. And that gets so big that eventually all of the byproducts released by bacteria creates inflammation and releases toxins.

[00:10:43.240] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So we're going to have to go into a break now, but when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation. I just want to thank you for being able to explain that in a way that so visually I can see it in my head. And so I think you're taking something very complicated for us and breaking it down and I appreciate that. So when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation and learn more about how the root canals, how it is affecting our general overall health.

[00:11:11.980] - Candi Broeffle, Host

To learn more about the work Dr. Thompson and the team at Natural Smiles Dentalcare does, visit NaturalSmilesDental.com. To make an appointment, call 651-483-9800. Again, that number is 651-483-9800. To read the online version of Natural Awakenings magazine, visit GreenTeaConversations.com. You can find a podcast of this show on AM950 Radio on Apple and Google podcasts and anywhere you get your podcast. You're listening to Green Tea conversations on AM950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. And we will be breaking welcome back to Green Tea Conversations. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're visiting with Dr. Holly Thompson of Natural Smiles Dental Care in Shoreview. So, just before the break, we were starting to talk about root canals and kind of what happens with the root canal.

[00:12:27.940] - Candi Broeffle, Host

And you had explained a couple of things to us and it made me think of a couple of questions. So the first one is, I guess I've never thought of a tooth as being an organ. And so when you talk about that, I don't know why I haven't, but we don't really learn that teeth are organs. And so tell us more about that. What happens when a root canal is done to the organ that is our tooth?

[00:12:57.110] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So a tooth has nerves and a blood vessel inside the canals of the root and that is basically what constitutes an organ. An organ has a nerve supply and nerve bundles and blood vessels. And when we go in and we do a root canal, we are completely removing all of that, filling it with a synthetic rubber material called gutta-percha, which is orange, which seems like a weird color to even put in our body. And we're also just cutting off basically all blood supply. There's no reason to have any blood go to that tooth because it doesn't have any part of it living. So a tooth that has had a root canal, that has been in the body for more than three to five years is kind of what I've seen in my pract, because I remove these every day, and not just a few, a lot. They come out with the roots black, and we can't see that in our jaws. But when you think of like, say someone had frostbite on their toe, there was no blood supply to that area, it got cut off. What happens to prolonged frostbite? It turns black, that toe turns black, and that scares people.

[00:14:13.170] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

What do we do? If we saw a black toe, we would be rushing to the emergency rooms to get cut out because we don't want that bacteria and gangrene to spread. Anything that's black, that's an organ is gangrene. And these have been proven time and time again. When you send these for biopsies, it comes back in the biopsy report as gangrene. Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. And I refer to root canals as the silent killer, because with patients, when I remove these, they're so excited to see these roots, and when they see the black, it scares them. And they're just like, I wish I would have come here sooner. Like, I can't believe I was walking around with that. And not just one, but some people have 20 root canals in their body. So it's very scary. It's a very serious thing. And the evidence and the research is out there and supports it. And I am a firm believer everyone needs to have root canal teeth removed.

[00:15:15.970] - Candi Broeffle, Host

The other thing that you talked about was the inflammation that's left in the mouth. And I guess when we think about inflammation, we think about sore jaws having kind of puffy red jaw or tissue around it, around the tooth itself. But why is that such a problem to have? Besides the obvious having that pain in that jaw area, what else happens to our body with that inflammation around that root canal?

[00:15:44.890] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So, you know, a strong immune system will fight that bacteria for a while that's proliferating around and growing around this root canal tooth, but those mice will continue to grow inside of that mouse hole, which is the bacteria, no matter how strong your immune system is. So it eventually will succumb. And what that happens is when we have constant germ and bacteria that causes our body to want to fight that. When I refer to chronic inflammation, it's our body using all of our resources constantly, every day, trying to fight and keep these bacteria at bay. And what that does when our body is in chronic inflammation it activates our immune system because it's just like, we got to keep going, we got to keep fighting it. And when that immune system is overly activated, that's going to lead to autoimmune disease. So we have seen so many correlations, and studies have shown this people with root canals are more prone to ALS, MS, diabetes, Crohn's disease. 20 years ago, ALS wasn't very common. Now we're seeing I want to say we're seeing 6000- 8000 new cases in the U.S. a year. Whereas 20 years ago, you remember when Lou Gehrig died, he was kind of the abnormal.

[00:17:10.860] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Not many people had had that. But in the last 20 years, we have been performing millions more root canals than we did before. So even with a study they did in Switzerland, that's very profound. They tested people that had root canal teeth and they found that 96% of breast cancer patients had root canal teeth.

[00:17:35.660] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Wow.

[00:17:36.660] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

35% of patients that had no root canals had breast cancer. So people that have root canals are more prone to breast cancer. That's just one cancer that they studied. Whereas only 35% of people that had no root canals in this study had breast cancer. So we're just seeing these high correlations. And I am having some oncologists in the area refer patients to me to remove teeth that lie on these. We can talk about meridians. I know that's a bit foreign concept, but there are teeth that are associated directly with organs and systems, and oncologists are referring patients to me to remove certain teeth that are lying on these meridians. That where they are having cancer.

[00:18:28.510] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Yeah. So let's talk about that a bit. Let's talk about the meridians. This is kind of a concept that we're hearing more and more of lately than we ever did when I was young about how connected our entire system is. Right. When I was young, people didn't talk too much about your teeth and how it's connected to heart disease and different types, different things that are happening in your body. But we're hearing that more. But when you talk about it, it really helps to clarify because you're talking about the meridians in the body. And so for anybody who is familiar with acupuncture or Reiki or different types of energy medicine, we talk about the meridians. But let's talk about the meridians and the mouth.

[00:19:16.980] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

When I first joined Natural Smiles, they gave me this chart, the different teeth and the different organs, specifically in systems they're connected to. And I thought it was the craziest thing. I looked at that and I'm like, you guys are you're weird?

[00:19:31.090] - Candi Broeffle, Host

You're really woohoo. Yeah, you're totally woowoo.

[00:19:34.240] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And again, you're talking to someone that was I had never done acupuncture. I had never done anything holistic up to that point. I think anyone that has had acupuncture, you have felt those energy channels that run through our body. I mean, I've had a few points of acupuncture where I'm just like, oh my gosh, we are a current. We have these energy points and they have actually done like radioactive dyes to prove that these meridian channels exist in us. So there's a whole diagram and system proving these meridian points. And I think a really cool thing that I wanted to talk about, that I recently learned that I'm super excited to implement in my practice is I have a lot of patients that are like they're learning root canals are bad. They say it's never felt quite right. But now they come into my office, I can actually inject that particular tooth area with ProCane, which is like a novocaine, and they can feel within seconds up to 8 hours. It may take 8 hours, but they'll feel the system and the body part that's connected to that tooth improve and they'll feel that difference for 24 hours.

[00:20:52.690] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And when I'm excited about where I've had other colleagues do this, they're like they come back and they're like, I'm convinced, all right, let's do it. Because it's a temporary we can get into the science. I'm happy to explain that, but I think that that's going to be a really helpful adjunctive diagnostic tool for patients that are kind of on the fence to prove to them that these meridians and these teeth, these organs and systems are connected to teeth. And for them to physically feel the difference, I think that will be really helpful because at the end of the day, patients have to believe in what I'm doing and they have to 100% be on board with it. I'm not there to force anyone to do anything. I just want them to have the knowledge and the tools available to them to make the best decision for them.

[00:21:45.850] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So we have about a minute and a half. So I want to start getting into this and then when we come back from the break, we'll finish up as well. So give us an example of how that might work. Like, give us an example of patient who might have a symptom or a problem that they're facing and how that might be affected by what tooth.

[00:22:09.280] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So I think the big thing and we can get more into it after the break because it's a little complex, but at the end of the day, what ProCane does is it puts the body, it breaks when ProCane breaks down into the tissue and into the body, it breaks down into components very similar to acetylcholine. And acetylcholine is what gets people into parasympathetic mode. That's something I want to talk in-depth about. But basically, parasympathetic mode is rest, digest, heal. Whereas most of us are running in sympathetic mode, especially if we're stressed sick inflamed we're in fight and flight mode. So it basically forces the body to heal and get in this resting state. And it forces the brain to kind of temporarily focus on the part of the body associated with this tooth, and you see people just completely get relieved of a lot of symptoms associated. So I know it's kind of a complex thing. I know that's probably confusing some people, but that's the best way to describe it before a break.

[00:23:19.450] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Well, we will come back, and we'll continue to talk about this and learn more about how this is all interconnected.

[00:23:26.700] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Okay?

[00:23:27.420] - Candi Broeffle, Host

To learn more about the work dr. Thompson and the team at Natural Smiles Dental Care does, visit NaturalSmilesDental.com. To read the online version of Natural Awakenings magazine, visit GreenTeaConversations.com. You can find a podcast of this show on AM950 Radio, on Apple and Google podcasts and anywhere you get your podcast. You're listening to Green Tea conversations on AM950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. And we will be right back. Welcome back to Green Tea Conversations, where we delve into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine and talk to the professionals who share their expertise on natural health with you. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle and today we're talking with Dr. Holly Thompson of Natural Smiles Dental Care in Shoreview. So just before the break, you were starting to tell us about a new treatment or a new option that you have for people who are coming in, who have root canals that you can do to kind of help them feel what it's like or what it could be like without the root canal. And it's by injecting ProCane. And you were starting to tell us more about that and as far as kind of the science behind it.

[00:25:02.380] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So let's continue on with that part of the conversation.

[00:25:06.860] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So when I inject ProCane, next to the tooth that has the root canal, when it is in the tissue, the gum tissue around that root canal tooth, it breaks down into components very similar to what's called acetylcholine. And if we look think back on our science courses, acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that activates the parasympathetic mode. And in parasympathetic mode, that's rest, digest, heal. Sympathetic is fight flight, and it's a stressor. So the only way we can feel better and heal is when our body is in that restful state, in that parasympathetic mode. And so when that neurotransmitter, when it's mimicking acetylcholine, putting us in the parasympathetic, the result has been shown. It forces our brain to temporarily focus on the part of the body that's related to that tooth. And it basically disengages the tooth from the rest of the body. So no longer that tooth is no longer in interference causing issues with that body part. We refer in biological dentistry to metals and root canals as interferences in our body. And it's cool because as soon as I inject the ProCane, I see the patient's pupils constrict. And that's what happens when we are in sympathetic.

[00:26:49.240] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

We have large pupils because that allowed us to see 20% more of our peripheral for prey and areas in imminent danger. So when I see their pupils constrict, I know we're in that parasympathetic mode. I'm like, cool. It's good to be able to visually see that and then that's the cool part is within seconds, it can take up to 8 hours. The body part associated with that tooth that I injected the ProCane next to improves. And real-life examples of that the one that comes to mind because I know a lot of people. It's a very devastating thing when you can't get pregnant and you really want to get pregnant. And I had a female patient that had struggled to get pregnant for over a decade with her husband. They had been every medical doctor run every test, and everyone is telling them, we don't get it. Tough luck. We don't know why everything should be working. Well, the meridian of the two upper front teeth on women is connected directly to the reproductive system. And she had two root canals there, and I removed those, replaced them with the non-metal zirconia implants. So we removed that chronic state of infection and inflammation and getting her out of that sympathetic mode because her body is always fighting that infection.

[00:28:28.990] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And within a month, she was pregnant.

[00:28:32.220] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Wow.

[00:28:33.070] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And I remove a lot of front teeth on people because it's usually a point of trauma. People get bumped in the face and their tooth dies and they need a root canal. And with women especially, I have seen them, women with very clear complexions coming in and you remove these teeth and they all of a sudden break out an acne, but their body's detoxing and getting rid of that, and then they get clear skin again, or their periods that are usually very painful and heavy really improve. You know, it's less heavy. It's a lot less pain associated with it. So those are the types of feedback feedback I get from female patients, especially with front teeth. You know, with men and women in general, upper pre-molars and lower molars are tied to our neck, shoulder and elbow region. So when you inject them with ProCane, people that have constant pain here, they go home and they come back. Or if I've removed a root canal, they'll be like, I feel like a 20 year old again. I had no idea that my tooth being removed that had a root canal would make my elbow pain go away.

[00:29:44.680] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

I had a woman that had an upper first premolar and that's tied directly to her big toe. And she had this root canal done when she was 18. And she had pain in her big toe ever since, which she thought was weird. Why was I so young? And I had pain in my big toe? And the second that tooth released of that root canoe, when I took it out, she's like, I kid you not. The pain in my big toe is gone. The second I could feel that tooth release, I no longer had pain in the big toe. So it's these things that I'm constantly seeing every day, practicing this way. And this is what I always dreamed about as a kid and a dental student, like, oh my gosh, I'm helping give me chills right now. That's just been so cool to see. Like, okay, these are connected. I've never regretted taking out any root canal tooth and I have not had one patient be like, I wish we had that back in. It's just really rewarding and I see it every day. And I'm working on getting more and more testimonials out because I think that's what people need to hear and see.

[00:30:50.140] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

But at the very least, come in and get a ProCane injection and see for yourself where things report in 24 hours, where are things feeling better and improving.

[00:31:00.570] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Wow. And so how do people go about just call the office and make an appointment to come in and do that?

[00:31:08.590] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

I would see them more as like a limited exam. We wouldn't have to do a comprehensive exam, but figuring out where they have the root canal tooth, which may require an X-ray, or if they have X-rays they can send over from an office, then I can inject them with ProCane. We're still working on the cost of what the ProCane will be, so I'm still going to work on that, but at the very least, it'll be minimal. I'm not there to make money off of this. It's more to just for patients to understand and pay for the cost of the materials, really to understand what is happening.

[00:31:43.290] - Candi Broeffle, Host

And how it can benefit them. I mean, that is incredible. And when we were talking about this before, you had shared about the upper molar, upper pre-molar and bottom molars. And it is funny, my husband has had a brook canal done, at least one done, and he's had pain in his shoulder and neck for years now, years now. I'd have to think if it's actually about the same time because it's been a long time since he's had the root canal done. But we're learning so much more about how and it seems kind of silly that we don't know how integrated our entire body is, right. Our entire system is it's so complex. It's complex, yet it's simple. It should be simple to us to understand that this is all interconnected. And so when we start looking at all these different things, I start thinking about how many people out there are suffering or have been suffering from one health malady or another, who it may be the root canal that's actually causing that problem. And so what they really should do is give your office a call and say, hey, can I come in and talk to you about this?

[00:33:04.990] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Can I come in and have a consult and a checkup to see how this might be affecting?

[00:33:11.660] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And I think another big indicator for people to move forward with having these to move forward with having. These teeth removed is a lot of dental offices. They're getting better at it. Don't have the 3D imaging. So a lot of things can get missed on these. What you're used to seeing in a dental office of a two-dimensional X-ray, it misses a lot of root canals that are failing. So now that we have a 3D scan, which is called a cone beam, or it's also referred to as a CBCT, you're seeing huge abscesses and infections around these roots that you look at two dimensional Xray that was just taken, it's not showing up on there. And so we are seeing the success rates of root canals on an X-ray go just plummet, not because endodontists or dentists are all of a sudden doing worse root canals. We have the imaging to see that. And so when patients see that, that alone for a lot of people are like, I want to get this out. I don't want that infection. So that's another thing I may do with patients. Like, you don't necessarily have to get the ProCane injection, but that's just I just want to offer tools to people for them to believe in what they're having done and at least have an educated decision for them.

[00:34:40.060] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And ProCane is just an adjunctive thing. But I also think so many people are convinced by the 3D scan alone.

[00:34:50.060] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So we have to go into a break again, but when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation and also talk about some dental implants too, and the difference with what we want to get into with that. To learn more about the work dr. Thompson and the team at Natural Smiles Dental Care does, visit NaturalSmilesDental.com. To make an appointment, call 651-483-9800. Again, that number is 651-483-9800. To read the online version of Natural Awakenings magazine, visit NaturalTwinCities.com. You can find a podcast of this show on AM950 Radio, on Apple and Google Podcasts. And anywhere you get your podcast. You're listening to Green Tea Conversations, where we delve into the pages of Natural Awakenings magazine and talk to the professionals who share their expertise on natural health with you. I'm your host, Candi Broeffle. And today we're talking with Dr. Holly Thompson with Natural Smiles Dental Care in Shoreview. So, just before the break, we have been talking about all the different aspects of root canal. And one of the things that we've been talking about a lot is the parasympathetic and the sympathetic mode that we are in. So people who have the root canals still in their mouth are kind of in a perpetual state of sympathetic.

[00:36:46.560] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So I know that you have a protocol that you ask people to do before they come in and even have this removed. So let's talk about that a bit.

[00:36:56.290] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So, again, we're living in a society where people are more stressed, more ill, more chronic illness than ever before. We are in a highly toxic environment. So worse than, like I said, ever before. So I have sick patients in sympathetic mode coming into me. They are coming in with pupils dilated, they're running on high emotional stress. I mean, just the way we have to work in America is highly stressful. We're constantly on our phones, having mobile phones with us, these smartphones, we're not using them very smart because if someone texts us, we think they expect to hear right back from us. So we feel guilty if we don't get back to them right away. We're sleeping with cell phones next to us turned on. We're constantly exposed to environmental with toxins and EMFs. We're just being overloaded. So dentistry has always had this reputation of it's painful. And I believe in today's society in America, it's only going to get a worse reputation if we don't understand that people are coming with us in an inflamed sympathetic mode now, more than other people, if they come in and they have a surgery, they're going to be in a lot of pain.

[00:38:09.460] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

If I just work with them while they're in that fight or flight sympathetic mode. So it does take time to get the body in a healing state. That is the only way we are going to heal. And when you have certain protocols of making sure we're upping certain vitamins and minerals to prepare their body, having them exposed to less EMF, being on your phone less for the month leading up. Have it on airplane mode anytime you can, and especially when you sleep. Making sure you're eating a non-inflammatory diet, avoiding gluten, highly inflamed foods like alcohol and highly processed, refined carbohydrates kind of things. If you're coming into me inflamed, it's going to get bad, because no matter what, I could be the best surgeon. And when I do surgery and remove a tooth, I am creating trauma. There's no way around it. I am inducing trauma onto the patient. And if they are in that sympathetic mode and then I do trauma, it's a cascade effect. It's just they're going to be poor healers. So ever since I've started testing people, especially for vitamin D, I won't even take do an implant on someone or do surgery on them unless if it's an emergency, if their vitamin D is below 60, because I know they're going to be poor healers.

[00:39:21.150] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So it's checking the vitamin D blood levels, it's getting them on a good supplementation, vitamin C, IV infusions, preparing them a couple of days before they come into the surgery and getting IV infusions of vitamin C, especially two days before and two days after, it has just been a game changer. The amount of postop pain and phone calls I get of people in pain have drastically declined. And I followed the Swiss dental BioHealth protocol. They've been doing this out in Switzerland. They have patients fly in from all over because they've been world-renowned for a while. So they have patients come in for the whole week to get dental work done, and they have them on this protocol. They have them connected to IVs before they're getting their teeth taken out or implants placed. They're following the protocol strictly, and if someone doesn't want to follow it, they're not going to be a patient. They're just not going to allow in Switzerland. They won't even work on a patient if they don't agree to remove all of their root and lt any titanium implants or any amalgams. They won't even take that patient on because they know that those are stressors and they're not going to be able to get people into parasympathetic mode.

[00:40:30.850] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

So they don't even take them on. And eventually I want to get to that point in my practice. And I do think that even when I finally get to that point, I'll have even further improvement in post-op pain because I could be working on a right side of the mouth, taking out a root canal tooth. But if they have a left-side root canal tooth, I haven't fully gotten them into parasympathetic and full healing because of that chronic inflammation which we talked about. So they're not going to have as good of healing as what would be possible. So that's my goal eventually. I just think that we just need to have more people getting on board with and understanding and having the real-life experiences.

[00:41:06.100] - Candi Broeffle, Host

So we've had other guests come on the show and we've talked about amalgam fillings and the dangers of that. And we don't have a ton of time. We have about six and a half minutes left. But I do want to kind of you had mentioned about titanium, about the titanium implants. So that has been something that has been very popular since implants have kind of started. So tell us about why in Switzerland are they removing the titanium implants?

[00:41:35.200] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Titanium, even in its purest form, it's not 100% titanium. So they all have some level of iron in them. What happens to iron? It rusts, especially when exposed to moisture. And we have saliva in the mouth, so we see rusting corrosion happening with these titanium implants. And they also all have traces of nickel. Well, I can tell you minimum, the average right now, 20% of Americans are allergic to nickel. They can't even have it in their ears. So we're putting that into their jawbones with something that rusts and corrodes and already induces an allergic reaction. Well, this is going to cause inflammation. This is a stressor. This is sympathetic. It's really fun to see. I take a lot of pictures and I post them on my social media of what the tissue looks like around a titanium implant compared to a zirconia implant. And zirconia and ceramic, those are interchangeable. Zirconia is a type of ceramic, so I think that should be clarified. But you see really bluish deflated tissue around these titanium implants and a lot of times inflammation and the way they would treat this the way they still do it. They go in and they try to polish the titanium.

[00:42:50.380] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

What's that doing? That's releasing more titanium particles, creating this cascade effect of more toxicity, more allergy, more inflammation. They even take titanium brushes to clean titanium implants. So it's just, it's further releasing, you know, massive amounts of titanium, adding fuel to the fire. So we're just seeing more and more systemic autoimmune issues with these titanium implants for those reasons. And by far the best thing to do is to remove them and replace with Zirconia and then also supplement them with certain supplements to get their body healthy again. So you don't see inflammation around Zirconia implants. We just don't see it. The tissues happy and healthy, and that's why they don't do them in Switzerland or Germany. And the Europe has banned Amalgam, for instance, for decades, where we're still placing in the US. You even look at banned ingredients that are being put into products in Europe. That list is so much higher than the US. We allow so many things in the US. And that includes titanium and a lot of products. So we're seeing them in toothpaste, we're seeing them in makeup, we're seeing them in food. Well, this is further putting too much stress in the body.

[00:44:03.060] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

It's an overload of titanium in our body. So that's going to make us even more sensitive to titanium implants that are put in because we're seeing ridiculous amounts of titanium in everyday things we're using that's not being banned and being allowed in our commercial products. Right?

[00:44:20.070] - Candi Broeffle, Host

And don't even get us started on that.

[00:44:21.870] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

Don't even get me started, girl.

[00:44:23.960] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Don't even get us started, because why are we allowed to have all of that? Or why are they not protecting us against that? Okay, that's a whole other political show.

[00:44:33.360] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

It's a whole other podcast.

[00:44:35.200] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Yeah. So we're going to have you back and we're going to talk more about the Zirconian implants and the benefits of that versus any of the other types of implants in Amalgam. But we are coming up on the end of the show. So I just want to ask you, what would you like to leave our listeners with today?

[00:44:54.750] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

I think just know that unfortunately, a lot of things being told to us that are healthy, including blood work, you know, they have these normal ranges that aren't truly normal. You may think, oh, I went to the doctor and I had all my blood tests, came back really good. Those aren't good ranges for a lot of people. So I think just keeping an open mind and questioning and knowing that you have a right to be informed of every option and the pros and cons and to see the science behind it and the research, and that is just, I think, absolutely owed to you in not only our dental society, but our medical profession needs to be doing this too. And unfortunately, I just don't believe that, even though practitioners have the best intention. I mean, I was a traditional dentist and didn't know anything about this because it wasn't offered to my course in the traditional dental courses I was taking. So even though I meant well, I didn't know any better. And I do think practitioners mean well. They're just unfortunately having a lot of things blinding them or not being exposed to them either.

[00:46:00.540] - Dr. Holly Thompson, Guest

And once we look outside and see how others are doing it and have been doing it and been successful, we need to be open to that. So you really just need to, I think, listen to your gut. The gut's usually smarter than our brain on our head. That gut feeling. If something doesn't look or feel right, like, why would I put this ugly metal thing in my mouth? Or why would I have this orange plastic material in my tooth? That just doesn't seem natural. It probably isn't natural. Listen to that.

[00:46:27.310] - Candi Broeffle, Host

Yes, it really is. The reason I started this podcast to begin with is to really help people get information that they need, but then to remind them, nobody knows your body better than you. And we always have to trust our intuition, whatever your intuition is telling you, even if you're hearing from doctors and everybody else that you are in perfect health, if you are hearing something, if you are feeling something different, listen to that, because it is not an exact science. And you have to advocate for yourself and you have to advocate for your family. Well, Dr. Thompson, thank you so much for being with us today. It has really been a pleasure learning more about you and the work that you do. And I want to remind people that for those who want to learn more about the work that Dr. Thompson and the team at Naturalsmiles Dental Care does, visit NaturalSmilesDental.com.  And to make an appointment, call 651-483-9800. And again, that number is 651-483-9800. You've been listening to Green Tea Conversations on AM950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota, and I'm wishing for you a lovely day.