Root canal work and arthritis: I had fillings in my... - NRAS

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Root canal work and arthritis

salsaboy profile image
40 Replies

I had fillings in my back teeth many years ago and i became increasingly concerned about the mercury in the fillings and the association with cancer so i had all back teeth out in one go, it took 7 hours for the bleeding to stop so there should have been a good enough flushing to clear the area out.

I read that the bacteria is so small and the antibiotics too large to reach the many minute vessels that feed the teeth ( something like 20 miles somewhere i read).

It has been reported that women who have deep root canal work are highly prone to breast cancer on the same side.

My wife is one such person who has experienced this.

Anyway the arthritis in my knees has gotten worse gradually over the years and the extractions have not made any difference but i has happy to give it a try but although i have had some mercury replaced i still have a couple left to go. when they are replaced the i will have a definitive answer.

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dtech profile image
dtech

There has been NO definitive clinical studies that mercury in amalgam fillings or root canal treatment causes any health problems to people. Unless they have allergy problems. To say that they can cause cancer, arthritis etc is just ridiculous. Sorry to be abrupt but it's true. Makes me angry that unscrupulous people are still purporting this ridiculous theory.

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992 in reply to dtech

Lots of studies on the subject. It's like with smoking. It took a long time to admit how in fact dangerous it is. Here is some usful reading. It is not without reason that amalgam fillings are very rarely used. Mercury is quite a poisen for our bodies.

naturalhealth365.com/amalga...

dtech profile image
dtech in reply to Simba1992

Rubbish. Try finding clinical studies carried out by dental or medical teaching hospitals

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992 in reply to dtech

Tells you something though that amalgam no longer used(?) Much cheaper and everything? And hard to dispute the poisonous effect of mercury? There were some links to pubmed studies in the link. Did you have a look?

in reply to Simba1992

Hi, Simba1992, I worked as a GP's secretary for 17 different GP's in the 1970's and 1980's. We had 20,000 patients. There was a sudden increase in the number of cases of stomach cancers in the late 1970's, (one of the cases being my own father-in-law,) and when I asked why, I was told that until 1953, common over the counter medications like indigestion remedies and babies' teething preparations, all contained mercury. It was apparently banned from all British medicines, at that time. I was told the incidence of stomach cancer 25 years on, was down to ingestion of mercury, in the early 1950's. In countries like Mexico, they still put mercury in medicines and it is advised by the Health Authorities not to buy them or take them. I've got old amalgam fillings in my teeth, but if I ever needed them renewed, I would ask for the non mercury fillings.

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992 in reply to

The thing is that there is an increasing amount of pollution surrounding us today and it would be really stupid not to try cleaning up what can be cleaned. The dangers of mercury are well known and we can limit its effect on us at least with not getting amalgam fillings. 😊👍🏻

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992 in reply to dtech

So amalgam is phased out in UK because of health and pollution problems?! This is the latest on Medscape.

medscape.com/viewarticle/87...

Neonkittie17 profile image
Neonkittie17 in reply to dtech

I'm with you .. I had a woman rant on at me on here a couple of years ago when I asked about a root canal and Rituximab. Basically she wanted me to remove my teeth which had had root canals. She was a sensationalist and scared many people.

dtech profile image
dtech

No amalgam isn’t being phased out in the UK. Unless I’ve missed something. Tell you what pick a dental hospital, I’ll email one of the restorative consultants and ask. I visit and talk to most of them in my career.

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992 in reply to dtech

You probably did miss the link I posted. It cannot state it more clearly.

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy in reply to dtech

I went to my then dentist and had him remove the teeth but he is no longer practising having retired.

dtech profile image
dtech

It won’t let me log in or register an account. But I don’t want to get into an online war😉 life’s too short. You believe what you believe, I’ll stick to over forty years as a dental professional working with teaching hospitals world wide and clinical studies and trials🙂

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy in reply to dtech

What really opened my eyes was a video that a holistic dentist was showing during an open evening that he held of the vapour being emitted from a tooth that had a an amalgam filling.

That caused me to remember as a child the dentist we as a family used had terrible 'shakes'.

Now that may well be totally unrelated but my wife had breast cancer on the same side as the one amalgam filling in her teeth.

All coincidences perhaps but then again i am against various innoculations like the flu jab, the recipe has changed lately to remove mercury or so i believe but it is enough evidence along with my own grandson who had a reaction after his innoculations causing him to have mild autism when there is non in either side of the family.

As you say "You believe what you believe" but i do not trust the pharmaceutical industry one iota thus you will not get me having Statins or drugs for high blood pressure or many of the other list of drugs. I will be my own healer.

My opinions but knowing that the modern drug industries wormed their way into the medical professions governing bodies in order to influence decisions and so i was told at the hospital during their training and they do not cover 'alternative' medicine or the role that vitamins and minerals play in keeping the body healthy.

Look up ESSIAC TEA as one of many 'cures' for cancer.

i could go on but we are on different sides of the fence, however is was lovely to hear you side.

Thank you.

Downtime profile image
Downtime in reply to salsaboy

Well I’m with you on the flu jab I hate to think what they put in them and I wont ever have them, but to say root canals or even amalgam fillings cause cancer is ridiculous, I’m sorry.

Gosh I’m amazed you had your back teeth out. I lost a back tooth as it cracked and couldn’t be saved and i have really missed it. Consequently I’ve recently had a root canal on the other side ( with white filling) as I’d do anything to save a tooth. Losing teeth affects your bite, makes chewing difficult and cosmetically alters the jaw.

You obviously have some quite strong beliefs regarding health and the medical profession and I wish you well.

Neonkittie17 profile image
Neonkittie17 in reply to Downtime

I won't have a flu jab either. My sister in law's mother (healthy and fit) collapsed in he way home after her jab and then started with symptoms of things which escalated into major concerns. I won't elaborate as I don't want to put people off who have the jab. You believe what you believe. As long as we feel happy with our decision.

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy in reply to Downtime

I think that you have to look at the medical profession in real light.

Modern medicine is not designed to 'cure'. Not now or never has it been.

Modern medicine is a business and the business is to make money for the Rothchilds and their cohorts.

If modern medicine cured ills then the cash cows would dry up and they would have to look elsewhere for incomes.

That is why they will take a natural drug or method of curing and try to make a synthetic version so that they can patent it, downgrade the effectiveness of it and charge the health industries exorbitant sums as well as the paying public who buy over-the-counter drugs when allowed.

Wake up. We live in a money orientated society. No one does anything unless there is a financial gain. Well a few do it out of ignorance but with good intentions and i commend them.

Surely people must realise that if there was a natural cure , which there is, for cancer readily available, which it is not, then it would be made available but to make it cheaply and put it out on the market and available for free to patients the whole 'Cancer business', which world-wide must be the 2nd biggest industry in the world would dry up and millions would be out on the streets.

All of the collectors and fund raisers would not be needed neither would the high paid bosses with expensive cars and out of pocket exp and lovely offices.

Unfortunate for the runners who run for good causes! i'm afraid.

It is not only cancer but other conditions like MS and vitamin D related deficiencies.

Have you never noticed how with the increasing use of sun creams there a proportional rise in skin cancers?

I worked with a chap some 50 years ago and he had a lovely tan, how? Vinegar and olive oil. Starting in early spring he gradually exposed his skin to the sun. The cost was negligible. The smell not so.

Look up the history of ESSIAC TEA which almost passed legislation in Canada over a 100 years ago as being allowed to be openly sold as a 'CURE' for cancer except the drug barons torpedoed the motion in Parliament making it illegal because THEY could not make any money from it.

Sorry i must stop.

I wish you well.

dtech profile image
dtech

If you can send me a link to any clinical trials or information I’ll gladly take a look though.

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992 in reply to dtech

Medscape only states what the European Parliament has decided. This is what the link is about not research that evidently has led to the decision on phasing out amalgam also in UK. I am not on a mission to prove anything. So you could just have a look at the news Medscape is forwarding.😊

dtech profile image
dtech in reply to Simba1992

I can’t get into the site! It won’t let me register😂

dtech profile image
dtech in reply to dtech

And you may have noticed we are leaving the EEC. So won’t be bound by the European Parliament decisions😉😂

dtech profile image
dtech in reply to Simba1992

See below from NHS choices website.

No mention of them being fasted out.

Fillings and crowns available on the NHS can be made of several different materials.

Ask your dentist what material they recommend, as some will be more suitable than others.

Fillings

Fillings are used to repair a cavity in your tooth caused by decay. The most common type of filling is dental amalgam, made from a mixture of mercury and different metals. Dental amalgam fillings are often used on your back teeth as they are hard-wearing.

Your dentist will offer you the type of filling most appropriate for your clinical (medical) needs. This may include a tooth-coloured (white) filling. For example, if you need a filling for one of your front teeth, your dentist may suggest a tooth-coloured filling, but the use of tooth-coloured fillings on back teeth is considered purely cosmetic.

Fillings on the NHS can be made of:

amalgam (silver-coloured) – a mixture of metals including mercury, silver, tin, and copper

composite (tooth-coloured) – powdered glass and ceramic added to a resin base; they're not as hard-wearing as amalgam fillings

glass ionomer (tooth-coloured) – powdered glass, which reacts chemically with your tooth and bonds to it, but it is weak so is only used on baby (first) teeth or around the sides of teeth

helixhelix profile image
helixhelix

You had all you back teeth out? Or just the fillings? I hope it was the latter as having teeth out strikes me as a rather drastic step when swapping fillings is perfectly feasible. My mother was a dentist which has influenced my views of course - but taking teeth out is an absolute last resort to me as so many other problems follow due to the structural changes to your jaw.

You talk about arthritis in your knee, which suggests you have osteoarthritis? Which is a miserable thing to have, especially as limited treatments for it. But I can't quite see how removing your fillings/teeth would influence and improve mechanical damage that you already have?

dtech profile image
dtech in reply to helixhelix

Scary isn’t it 🙄

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy in reply to dtech

It is indeed. 100 years ago you could buy opium and derivatives from a chemist without subscription but the drug companies could not make money that way so they pressured the government to bring in restrictions.

In Afghanistan we lost lots of military lives that has cost our country untold billions of £££trying to prevent farmers from making a living growing opium poppies. 5 miles from where i live the farmer grows fields of opium poppies for medical use.

Go figure!

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy in reply to helixhelix

I had fillings on side teeth removed but the back teeth i had removed completely because just removing the fillings would not have given me the same effect.

If the root is removed only, the body does not like dead tissue which a tooth without a root is so it will often react and i did not what that to happen as some of the side effect cause mental issues especially if there is mercury there.

Please be aware i am not medically qualified in any way so i only use my own logic and reason from what i read.

Incidentally my wife uses sweeteners instead of sugar believing it will help her to lose weight but logic tells me that the sweeteners have the same craving effect as sugar without calories but they both excite hunger pangs causing the body to crave more of the same.

She is walking up a one way street but her Dr disagrees with my logic. Time will tell which one of us is right

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992

So your back teeth were root canaled, and this is the reason why you had them removed. I would have done the same. Lots of research on root canalled teeth and arthritis connection. I am not happy to have them but since they are calm I don't want to take the stress.

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy

Yes i do have arthritis of the knees and worn-away cartilages and i was advised back in 1992 to have new knees which i refused so i am still walking, just but running and squash and long hikes are now out of the question.

I believe joint replacements last 12 - 15 years and are not always successful so believe in perhaps in 50% of the cases so as i am only 77 with another 43 years to live i will continue to find a cure including having long distance healing sessions - 'Quantum touch' along minerals vitamins and other products.

Where there is life there is hope. I know i am crazy but that is me.

The three joint specialists that i have spoken to are just surgeons and have no idea what other way to treat joints that are in need of repair if there is a sure fire way to avoid surgery then they would be out of work. Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Incidentally on a different track if you heat a body that has cancer up to 42 degrees or more you will kill cancer that was verified by a cancer specialist.

Whether this is the case with all cancer i do not know but i regularly use a FAR treatment devise just to be on the safe side

ellemmay profile image
ellemmay in reply to salsaboy

"just surgeons"? give me strength ...

AgedCrone profile image
AgedCrone

Why on earth have all those teeth out...& you still have RA?

I had all my fillings replaced with white fillings ....for vanity..when I was younger ........having them all extracted never occurred to me!

In UK I would reckon a high % of people still have Mercury fillings,but the women don't have breast cancer!

I think you must have been reading some really strange information!

Cherub198889 profile image
Cherub198889

I read this post and I ignored it because it made my brain scream "comparing apple & oranges"

Root canals do not cause disease if done by a competent professional like an endodontist....BUT..........root canals done by your bus driver or dentist can and will cause disease. Infact a dentist pretending to be an endodontist can cause you to develop Reactive Arthritis that can mimic Ra....how do I know this?...because it happened to me.

Simba1992 profile image
Simba1992 in reply to Cherub198889

Not so straightforward, many studies pointing in fact to a connexion here just one of them.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/121...

Cherub198889 profile image
Cherub198889 in reply to Simba1992

Yes, this is what happened to me too. The reason why I had enclosed diseased focci was because my dentist neglected to remove all infected focci....so the remaining focci went gangrene & entered my blood stream causing inflammatory arthritis. This is considered rare (or so I'm told) because most victims of an incompetent dentist will develop brain abscesses and die. I've been told I was "lucky" that no abscesses developed into my brain. My RA diagnosis thus has changed to reactive arthritis 8 months after an extraction.

MrsE44 profile image
MrsE44 in reply to Cherub198889

How do you know it was due to root canal work?

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy in reply to MrsE44

I don't know for sure but i was not happy to have mercury in my body especially after seeing the video of the vapour coming off the mercury fillings. lets face it Mercury is an extreme poison to the human body.

salsaboy profile image
salsaboy in reply to salsaboy

This article has just been passed to me from elsewhere:-

Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2002 Jul-Aug;20(4):555-7.

16-year remission of rheumatoid arthritis after unusually vigorous treatment of closed dental foci.

Breebaart AC1, Bijlsma JW, van Eden W.

Author information

Abstract

This report describes a remission of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) of 16 years duration, apparently caused by the extraction of endodontically well-treated, healthy looking teeth. The only clue that the teeth were contributing to the disease pathogenesis in this case of RA was that the patient was able to reproducibly induce severe attacks of arthritis after prolonged, heavy pressure on some of his teeth treated with root canal fillings. After extraction, a small pus layer was found to cover the apices of the clinically healthy looking teeth. The rheumatoid factor (RF) became negative and the patient remained symptom free for the next 16 years. The possible connections between micro-organisms in closed dental foci under constant pressure and the chronicity and exacerbations of RA are discussed.

Cherub198889 profile image
Cherub198889 in reply to MrsE44

Because once the root canal was extracted I was able to walk and go back to work. I am now drugfree. I still have to have bloodwork drawn to make sure my inflammation is still normal. Apparently reactive arthritis can last up to a year.

MrsE44 profile image
MrsE44 in reply to Cherub198889

Interesting. My RA started 4 years ago, shortly after I had some root canal work done but I never thought of linking the two. When I mentioned to my dentist a few months back that I still felt some tenderness when I pressed my cheek above the tooth - it is an eye tooth and the roots went a long way up - he said it meant it probably had never healed properly. I thought it was odd to have an unhealed wound high up inside your face but as he is a very good dentist and I have no real problems with it I did not press him any further. Will do now though!!

Cherub198889 profile image
Cherub198889 in reply to MrsE44

I'm so sorry to hear this. I found out the hard way that my "Good Dentist" who I saw for 16 years thought it best to perform surgery that dentists aren't qualified to do. Root canals are surgery, and just because a dentist took a "crash" course on endodontics, does not mean the dentist is qualified. A dentist, may claim they know how to do root canals,...but an Endodontist is a root canal specialist. A dentist fills cavities. If your dentist is qualified to preform root canals, she would be called an Endodontist. ....so why do dentists who preform root canals do not have Endodontist after their name?...because they are not Endodontists, but they don't mind collecting the big endodontist paycheque.....and if their patient get's sick or dies in 5 or more years after they preform their "botched root canal treatment".... well they can blame someone else... at least they got a big paycheque ...grrr

How do I say this?... The reason why a root canal hasn't "healed properly' is because it was not done properly. It doesn't matter how long the roots are.

I was also horrified to learn that "retreated root canals" are now considered the "norm". The reason you have to payout of pocket to have a root canal redone, is because dental insurance only pays for it one time per tooth. There should be no need to pay for it twice. Just like if you have your left arm amputated. Your government health insurance wont pay for your left arm to be amputated twice.

Gosh, I'm sorry for the rant. I'm still trying to wrap my head around my "good dentist" of 16 years tried to and almost succeeded to kill me .

Please have your root canal redone by an endodontist or have it extracted. You wont be sorry. Gosh, I was carried by my husband to the Oral & Maxillofacial surgery table to have one of my root canals extracted. Guess what? I was drugged out of my mind after the extraction BUT I was able to "hop" off the table. I wanted to walk unassisted to the truck but my husband forced me to hold his hand to the truck.

My seropositive RA & my positive RF turned seronegative RA & my RF also turned negative. My final diagnosis is Reactive Arthritis. Root canals done by a dentist or a bus driver, can & will cause reactive arthritist that mimicks RA.

Hobbits profile image
Hobbits

I am currently in the process of removing all my silver fillings and replaced with white. These are silver fillings I have had since childhood. They are now so old, they are breaking down. So even the good ones left are being replaced.

I asked several times if the vapour is dangerous. My dentist said he’s been doing this for 30 years and he doesn’t have mercury’ poisioning from all the silver fillings and vapour he has been subjected to. He doesn’t wear any special mask that would hold out tiny murmurs vapour, he just wears the regular medical type mask, that I wear at work too. IDK I still think mercury vapour can be harmful...how can it not? But then how come all the dentist and hygienist who work everyday breathing the dental air are not all sick?

in reply to Hobbits

I know many dentists in the USA that will not use silver fillings becuse in their own words are "a health risk". I now live in Ecuador. No dentists here use silver fillings. You can get your silver fillings removed and replaced for $20 USD. My mother had all her silver fillings removed here. It's hard to get good information from the USA and UK. Everything is about money, not good health. Once you leave, you can see how it's just a commercial business.

I have a friend that was cured of stage 4 leukemia 15 years ago, here in Ecuador. She was in the USA when she got sick. The doctors told her to go home to Ecuador to die with her family. She went back to Ec. and started on a treatment of a root grown here in the amazon. She beat the cancer and is doing great! So why does the "modern" world say nothing about this? Why do people die from cancer everyday when there is a natural cure that even the poorest people can afford?

That is an easy question to answer when you want to see it.

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