Hi ginnie,

Thanks for posting this .... your explanation of the chronic infection is very accurate.

You know of my background and that I am in the dental profession for over 30 yrs which means I have dealt with thousands of dental patients. I am always disheartened when a patient has been misinformed about a procedure because I believe it is unethical for dentists to misguide their patients who they know are trusting their word. Telling a patient that the root canal treatment is going to "cure" their infected tooth is totally false. As I have explained here numerous times and you have concurred, the procedure is done to "retain" an infected tooth.... not cure it. I wish there was a miracle procedure that could cure the infection..... but there just isn't one.

There are a lot of people walking around with medical conditions that are inflammatory related..... many of them have one or two things in common, root canaled teeth and/or periodontal disease. The body cannot and will not tolerate constant inflammation and infection.... the body will get sick.

It took many years for the dental profession to outwardly admit the systemic health risks associated with periodontal disease. The push came from the medical profession repetitively stating in their journals to "inform the patient" of this life threatening disease. Once the dental profession realized they had the backing of the medical profession and could profit off of this information, they started to be more pro active in informing their patients about the disease. The down side with informing patients about root canal therapy is that this procedure happens to already be the most profitable one and since it can be done several times on one tooth.... the money to be earned is unbelievable. Most dentists are also leery of informing their patients about the health risks of root canal treatment because many of their patients have already been "sold" on having them in the past. So how does a dentist now go back on his original sales pitch and tell a patient this can make them sick??

Due to the increase in public awareness regarding dental implants ...as well as the profits to be made with doing the implants, it is only a matter of time before all dentists start to share some of the information with their patients about the systemic health risks associated with "retaining" infected teeth. I personally know of some and there are others out there, who are attempting to work this into their practices now.... but it will be very slow and the information will be a bit misconstrued or indecisive as the dentists are afraid to tell the patient too much for fear of legal repercussions pertaining to past treatment which may already have negatively impacted their patients health.

It's a huge undertaking to now try and make good on something that has been so bad, especially when there is no way to remedy the damage that has already been done. I am hopeful that we can turn this around and that I will see this done in my lifetime!

Ginnie.... thanks for all of your thoughtful posts here. I know you are in a whirlwind of your own with selling and moving..... but you're always willing to come here and give us a little piece of yourself. Thanks so much for all that you do.........

Bryanna