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In this episode Holistic Dentist Dr. Marvin is here live from La Jolla talking all about doing what’s good for your health, we are different, people fly into our dentistry from all over the world because we are different, but to us, if focusing specifically on your overall health makes us different, then so be it, because it is that important to us that we look at every issue in a holistic way. No two symptoms are exactly the same and understand how your unique body works is the key to finding the right approach for you; the right approach to address your root cause. So with that, lets get going on this week’s episode of Let’s Talk Dentistry!
— Transcript Below —
Good morning. Welcome, and thank you for joining me. This is Dr. Marvin Pantangco here live in La Jolla. This show is called Let’s Talk Dentistry, where we talk about your teeth, but we talk about a whole lot more, because holistic or natural dentistry, the office that I own and belong to provides a different approach to dentistry. It’s a more natural approach. If you are on the side of ‘I want to prevent problems. I have symptoms. I need to get to the root cause of it, and I need to get rid of it for good and not just supress the symptoms.’ If you belive in common sense, if you believe in logic and know that you don’t want to put anything toxic in your body, then you need to go to a dentist that believes that toxicity is a brute cause of a lot of problems, and we need to minimize our exposure to them. That’s what the center for natural dentistry does; it’s located here in San Diego. People come worldwide just to come see us, because we understand the basic philosophy that what you should do to your mouth should be good for your body. That’s the bottom line. That’s the reason we do what we do. A lot of people don’t like what we have to say. Other dentists, other doctors think that what we do is weird. They think it’s quackery. I’m going to tell you it’s just common sense. I think what they do is weird. I think what they do doesn’t make sense. They don’t have good explainations. They say, “Oh, it’s what we’ve done in the past,” or they like to fight and resist you. That’s different. I am Dr. Marvin Pantangco. You’re listening to Let’s Talk Dentistry. This is an open call in show; it’s a half hour show. If you need to call in, it’s 866-KPRAISE. 866-577-2473. I am opening up to your questions. Stay tuned to the end of the show. I’m going to give you the telephone number to our clinic, so that if you are listening, and you have a valid concern, and you want to know specifically for you what the problems are, the root cause and how it’s effecting your overall health, then stay tuned to then end of the show, when I’ll give the telephone number and I’ll give you a special promotion so that you can get healthy.
Dr. Marvin: Hello, this is Dr. Marvin, how can I help you?
Caller: Hello doctor, how are you today?
Dr. Marvin: I’m doing great, thanks for calling.
Caller: I’ve heard you talk in the past about implants and I had a procedure done some time ago. Tell me if you would approve of this in your office. I had a cracked molar, number 18. All my wisdom teeth had been removed years ago. The doctor told me that he could try to bond it together, but couldn’t promise that it wouldn’t crack again. He recommended pulling number 18 out, which he did. He waited about three months for it to heal and when I came back to see him, he said he could do an implant, but that there was a chance my body could reject it. He ended up grinding down my number 19 tooth to put a crown on it. Connected to 19 is a fake tooth, which does not go into the gum, but it sits in place where 18 used to be. I’ve never heard you mention this procedure. Do you recommend that?
Dr. Marvin: Everything is on a case by case basis, but for you I would absolutely not do that. Here’s the reason why: Number one, they never really got to the root cause of why tooth 18 cracked. Tooth 18 cracked for a reason. You have excessive forces biting down in that area. In the mouth there is a class 3 lever system. Your jaw joint is where it connects, and then all the forces are closest to the joint, and that’s furthest in the back, where your wisdom teeth where your wisdom teeth and the second molars are. If it cracked, then your forces are too high in that area. You need to get your jaw aligned and then your bite balanced, so that many teeth hit when you bite down. When you have more teeth hitting, the forces are distributed more evenly. There are many reasons why your jaw can misalign, but I’m not going to go over that. That’s number one.
Number two is, I’m glad your dentist recognized that you could reject an implant, because mainstream dentistry loves dental implants, just like they love root canals. Most dentists don’t understand how individuals can reject something, just like you’re allergic to a food like gluten or peanuts. They don’t understand that, so I’m glad that your dentist was aware of that. Your tooth number 19 is the largest tooth in the mouth. That’s the tooth right in front of it. It comes in when you’re about six years old. Did you have any problems on tooth number 19? Did you have an old filling, or did you have any cracks?
Caller: There was a filling in there from the late 1970’s, yes.
Dr. Marvin: OK, they may have removed more of the tooth than necessary. If you’re going to need the filling replaced, maybe it’s OK to do a crown, but usually dentists do crowns and remove too much of the tooth unnecessarily. It’s just because they don’t know any alternatives. It’s not like they’re trying to be destructive. The bridge that you are mentioning (it’s a bridge because there is more than one unit on the tooth) is called a two-unit cantilever, or a cantilever bridge. If you know the physics of that and you know the forces behind it are bad, then when you bite down, the forces are going to be bigger on the hanging, fake tooth. The cement holding 19 together is going to fail. It’s like a teeter totter. When you push down on 18 it will pull up the front side of 19. It will break the seal, and if a dentist does not monitor that properly, then you can get decay under 19 and now you have a problem on your vital, your live tooth. Then they may recommend a root canal at that point. It doesn’t work. In a vacuum it works, but in real live it doesn’t work. If you never bit anything on that side, you’d probably be OK, but if you’re using it to chew with, which is the purpose of having this bridge, it is a bad idea.
Caller: I agree with you; I thought about that. I said, “Gee, there’s no foundation to number 18 now, because there’s nothing under it. It’s just being anchored by the crown on 19.” Up to this point, I haven’t had a problem. It hasn’t come out like you said it could. That hasn’t happened, and I’ve been able to eat and do everything like it was a normal tooth up to this point. Have you ever done this procedure at any point in your career?
Dr. Marvin: In the front of the mouth, very possible. In the back of the mouth you have biting forces that go up and down on the tooth. It’s amazing. God created our teeth with a specific design. In the back of the mouth we have multiple roots. Why do we have multiple roots? Because we need more surface area, and we need forces that can resist the up and down forces. In the front of the mouth it’s different. The front teeth in your mouth are meant for shearing. That’s why we call them incisors; they’re for cutting. They’re supposed to bite into food, but not supposed to chew food. The forces in the front are more lateral forces, where they tip the teeth, not go up and down. In the front of the mouth the forces are a lot different, because they’re further away from the jaw joint. It’s basic physics at this point. It’s actually OK to do this type of bridge for a front tooth.
Some people have missing lateral incisors, those are really small teeth and they’re right next to things. I would do a cantilever bridge in the front of the mouth, but in the back it’s very dangerous. I like to do things that are predictable. What you have is not so predictable, so I wouldn’t do it. the mechanics just don’t work in real life. When you bite down and chew, you don’t just chew straight up and down. When you get any dental work done and you bite down at the end of the visit, they adjust it so that it’s not too tall. When you bite down, they say tap your teeth together, but those aren’t the only forces. When you chew, it’s actually in an oval pattern. Your jaw goes a little bit to the side, then comes up the other way. It’s these lateral forces, or forces that come from different directions, that actually effect the dentistry. These are the problems when the dentistry fails. When my dentistry fails, I take responsibility, because I tried to engineer it so that it doesn’t fail.
On a model in a vacuum, when they place it in your mouth, it makes sense. It could work. In the long run, I wouldn’t risk that and I wouldn’t risk removing more tooth structure.
Caller: One last thing, then I’ll let you go. You mentioned that the cement could fail and this could come out. If that were to happen, could they just recement it? This procedure was done in 2004 and so far I’ve had no problems. Could they recement it if that were to happen?
Dr. Marvin: It depends on the cement and depends on how much tooth. If the cement comes out, you could have a cavity underneath it that caused it to come out. If there’s a bigger gap between the crown and the tooth, you may have to recement it and fill out the decay. If you’re removing more decay, that means you have to remove more tooth, so the crown may not fit as well. Another problem that just came to mind is that if you bite down on that tooth, because there’s more forces tipping it from the back, the whole tooth itself could start to tip. It could start tipping backwards and create a space between 19 and 20. When you get space in there, then you have another problem, because now you get food caught in there and can start having gum problems. It’s like orthodontics. It’s unwanted orthodontics, because your teeth actually move due to the forces.
So they could recement it, but the cement doesn’t wash out evenly. The cement basically tears away because of the forces of the tooth. A lot of things come in to play, like design, your bite, and all of that stuff. In my opinion it’s not a great option. In my opinion it would have been better just to leave it all alone, do an onlay on 19 and keep 18 missing.
One of the issues I have with dentistry is that they’re so focused on teeth and they really feel strongly that every single tooth should be replaced. In my opinion, it’s not necessary. I’m looking at health. You don’t need to have every single tooth in order to be healthy. There are millions of people out there with missing teeth and they’re still healthy. You don’t necessarily have to. It becomes more of an emotional attachment, or this feeling that you have to replace missing teeth. One of the questions that I always ask patients when I make a treatment plan is, “Would I replace this tooth if it were me?” If I wouldn’t, then I wouldn’t recommend it. Most dentists make a living based on replacing teeth and doing dentistry and all of that stuff, which is fine. I would not do it at the expense of having to replace every single tooth in your mouth all the time. It’s just not one size fits all.
Caller: Thank you.
Dr. Marvin: Thanks for the call; I appreciate it.
So you can see there’s a lot more involved. Not every dentist comes with the same education. Not every dentist has the same experience. We learn in dental school (I did go to an accredited dental school here in the United States). Not all dental schools teach the same things, but they teach the simple stuff. If you’ve got a hole, then you’ve got to fix it. If you have a broken tooth you can fix it. If you have bleeding gums, you can fix it. They can fix the obvious, but what they’re not really looking at is the mechanics, the engineering that gets involved. Not every dentist is the same, because of that.
If you are concerned about what works best for you, than really focus on the dentist that you go to. Really focus on whether this person has the experience. If you are holistic, and you like the preventive nature and the whole body approach, then you need to go to a dentist that believes in this type of dentistry.
If you have a call, it’s 866-KPRAISE. Every single show I talk about one patient that I had, because you can feel it. I was listening to a radio show when a caller called in to congratulate a talk show because the host was speaking his passion. That’s exactly what I do. I don’t care what other dentists think about me. All I care about is the patient that’s in front of me. I don’t care what kind of insurance they have, I don’t care what care they drive, what their parents did or what their childhood was. That’s all fine and dandy. It brought them to where they are today. What I care about is you, my patient, and doing what’s best overall for your health. I don’t want to do any harm. I have a lot of passion for what I do. You can hear it and you can actually feel it. That’s the difference in our dentistry. We spend one patient at a time. If you come to our office, you’re not going to find seven or eight people waiting. We don’t have 12 chairs. You don’t get a five minute exam with me.
The Center for Advanced Medicine is a great, great office. They refer me a lot of patients and I refer a lot of patients there. I had a great doctor, his name is Dr. Dave Nelson. He actually came to see me. My family goes to see him. He’s a wonderful guy, and if you’re ever thinking about trying to figure out what’s going wrong and getting to the root cause for your over all health, I highly recommend that you go see Dr. Nelson. He has a show right after this one, so I encourage you today to stay tuned and listen to what he has to to say. He came over, and he actually understands the whole body approach that we employ. When he comes in we’re all on the same page. These are the people who spend the necessary time to answer your questions and actually get to the root cause of the problem.
It completely makes sense. Our whole mouth and our whole body is connected. You need to understand this. You need to take responsibility in all of this because this is your health. These are your decisions. The days are gone where you’re just going to a practitioner and believing everything they say. You need to start questioning things and stop blaming what happened in the past or your past providers. You need to just focus clearly on your overall health. That’s the type of mentality that we have and The Center for Advanced Medicine has. So I encourage you each and every time you get anything done, understand who your provider is. Believe in your provider and believe in the treatment that they’re providing.
Hello, this is Dr. Marvin. You’re on Let’s Talk Dentistry. How can I help you?
Caller: Hi, this is Anne.
Dr. Marvin: Hi Anne, how are you?
Caller: OK, I think. I have an overbite and my jaw is off. How do they fix the jaw? Mine kind of goes to the left on the bottom. I have to force it to make the top teeth touch. I also think I have a couple of cavities, because something is bothering me. I’m going to tell you that a lot of dentists are teeth dentists. The next level of dentists are the ones that look at the whole mouth. When you look at the whole mouth, you have to look at the mechanics and engineering of how the mouth functions.
First, we identify why your jaw is off. Why does it shift to the side? When it does bite down and your teeth come together, it it because your teeth are in the wrong position or is your jaw in the wrong position? Then how do we fix that? Can we foresee or predict which teeth are going to be problematic because of the issues you have? Not only that, what can happen with you overall, your whole mouth? What can happen to your whole body because your jaw is in the wrong position? We’re taking it to another level, not just looking at your mouth, but looking at your whole body. Most likely, when you bite down and your brain is trying to get your teeth to come together, your jaw and teeth are not in the right position.
Caller: I’ve been chewing on these teeth for 81 years.
Dr. Marvin: Well, you’re doing a lot better than most people.
Caller: So as old as I am, how are we going to fix my jaw? Wire it?
Dr. Marvin: No, that’s a good question. If you go to someone that is purely jaw focused, they’ll talk about surgery, blah, blah, blah. That’s not what you want to do.
Caller: No, I want the minimum.
Dr. Marvin: Yeah, minimal dentistry. You want to figure out if your jaw is going to get worse, if your teeth are going to get worse, and you need to know where your jaw is supposed to be. Have you ever heard of TMJ or TMD?
Caller: Yes
Dr. Marvin: It’s not really known what causes it. A lot of doctors like to make names for things and they say, “Oh, you have TMJ,” but they don’t know how to fix it and they don’t know why it’s created. One of the things that we do is imagine that the teeth are not there. Imagine taking all of your teeth out and just putting them on the table. Then position your jaw to where the body wants the jaw to be. It’s usually forward a little bit, because if you have an overbite then we have to figure out what potential problems are happening. We want to put the jaw back to its original position, where your body likes it. Then if you could hypothetically put your teeth back in your mouth where the jaw is supposed to be, that would be the ideal place to put it.
Caller: Well we can’t do that.
Dr. Marvin: No, that’s impossible. That’s why I teach parents with their kids early on in life what to do and what not to do. The first thing we would do if you were to come in is do an exam and evaluation. I’ll figure out where your jaw is supposed to be irrelevant to where your teeth are. Where your jaw wants to go and where your jaw actually goes when your teeth are together are two different positions. We need to help the jaw be in a more natural position. The short answer is that we help you with putting in a bite guard. It’s really called an orthotic. It’s kind of like an orthotic for your shoe. If you were walking around with one leg shorter than the other, you’d get an orthotic. This is an orthotic for your mouth. It helps your structure, helps your alignment, gets it straight, then you’ll feel a whole lot better. It’s very simple because we don’t do any surgery. It’s minimally invasive. We don’t cut down on your teeth. We don’t build crowns. We don’t do any of this radical stuff. In the end, it’s where your jaw is supposed to be and not where your teeth are.
Caller: I have teeth missing. You were saying you don’t have to replace them all. I have about 21 teeth in my whole head.
Dr. Marvin: That’s good! At 81 years old I would be happy to have 21 teeth, so congratulate yourself on that end. I would encourage you to schedule an exam and x-ray. Make sure you understand everything that’s going on inside your mouth. We look at your jaw and we can actually see which teeth are potentially the next problem because your body was trying to adapt.
I’m going to have to let you go. Thanks Anne, for the call. I appreciate both callers today. Time flies, and time flies in our office.
If you schedule an exam and x-rays with me or with Dr. Godes, it’s going to be the most informative dental exam you’ve ever had, even for an 81 year old. We’re going to give you everything. We’re going to give you the time, effort and ability to answer your questions and give you instructions and suggestions to let you know what is best for you as a person. We’re not looking only at the teeth and gums. We’re looking at the jaw and jaw bone, and looking at everything. We really want you to understand the big picture. If you want to schedule an appointment with me or Dr. Godes, now is as good a time as ever. I’m going to provide free x-rays, a $199 offer. If you’re one of the first three callers right now, I’ll give you free x-rays with your paid exam. The number is 760-536-1199. You really need to do this now. There’s no reason why you need to wait.
Thank you to both of our callers. This is Dr. Marvin with Let’s Talk Dentistry. Same time, same place. Stay tuned for the next show right after this. Wait five minutes. You’ve got Dr. Nelson on the show. 760-536-1199. I’ll see you next time, same place. I’m Dr. Marvin. I’m out, have a good one.