I had my cleaning today. My regular dentist was out so I saw his partner. He spent much more time poking around in the lower right quadrant and could find nothing wrong, no inflammation, draining, oozing. I've spent the last week super cleaning that area, using those little brushes that go between the teeth, rinsing with hydrogen peroxide, etc. The bad odor has definitely decreased I'm glad to say. Whether it's from the old root canal or something else, who knows? At this point I'm not willing to extract the tooth (as well as my 4 other rc'd teeth) because no denstist can give me any good reason to do so. I talked with the dentist and hygienist a bit about root canals and how safe are they. He told me there is no scientific proof that they cause all these diseases people say they do and the mouth is teeming with bacteria. He said I definitely don't want to go the implant route, that has more problems of its own. We're keeping a watch on the area and if the oder comes back stronger instead of diminishing as it is we'll do the next step.

I'm familiar with the work of Dr. Mercola and quite honestly, as I'm sure you know, his reputation isn't too great in the medical world, in fact most consider him a quack. Even the FDA has been after him for varioius things. All articles I can find about the dangers of root canals go back to the denist in the 1920's who took a woman's root canal and implanted in the back of a rabbit, the rabbit died. (Incidentally the woman also died a week later.) No current scientic data is out there to prove root canals are dangerous. If you were going to have open heart surgery would you use a doctor who is up to date with current surgical techniques or would you look for one who bases everything on studies from 100 years ago?