LET'S JUST GET OUR FACTS STRAIGHT, CUZ I'M NO DUMMY...

I don't know if it would be a comedy, or a sad drama-if I was to make a movie about my dental escapades. I had a appointment made long ago (well, in December) to go get some work done at a dental office that I just signed on to with some insurance that I purchased, which was supposed to pay enough for me to afford the procedures. As it turned out, the dentist recommended everything that was not covered by insurance, and essentially, I'd be working on the slow and long-term plan where my issues would finally be resolved sometime before my 75th birthday, I'd be broke over it all, and the dentist would be that much richer. It was just another "no surprise," and that was my final U.S. option. I already have my passport in the works, appointment made at American Biological Dentistry in Mexico, where they care about your health entirely, as well as your budget, and they use the best biocompatible materials such as zirconium oxide. I got my reminder call from the dentist here, and I told her that I wanted to get my teeth repaired with the "not now, but right now" plan, not the "I want my teeth to look great when I'm in my coffin" plan. I told her I would call when I got back from Mexico. She said, "Okay, we'll look forward to it..." 10 minutes later, she calls me back to explain to me all the dangers involved with my plan in Mexico. First off, said started with this generalized, blanket statement, which was a penalty with me right off the bat: "Those dentists in Mexico use inferior materials that are going to break right away, and you'll have to do it all over again..." Number one, I can't count the number of people who have told me that story countless time, but we are talking about U.S. dentistry, not Mexico. 2nd, and more important, "those dentists?" You mean, every single dentist collectively, they ALL use poor materials, and you know this, how? I don't think that is a statement that is even possible to make unless she did a study on EVERY dentist in Mexico, and she could tell me their names and what they use. Then maybe, she could generalize the whole country as one in reference to the dentistry materials used. Maybe even some case studies of the patients who had to replace their fillings prematurely. Then she said, "Maybe if you were going to Europe or something, I would say yeah, go ahead!" Really? I am trying to accomplish something that is out of my "affordability" reach. If If could go to Sweden, Switzerland, or Singapore-only 3 out of 36 countries with great dental care-I guess I would probably have enough money to just book my appointment with your office, now wouldn't I? Again, no logic. She fails to see that I can either take the 20 year plan with their office (or solicit the help of family and friends, and don't you know you are always looking for a family member to help out with dental bills! I just want to punch her their teeth out when they suggest that) or, I could: Do extensive research, as I have done over the last 2 years, about safe dentists to go to in Mexico, which is-oh yeah, a hop, skip, and a jump away from OC, and have the same work done, same materials-or better, definitely the choices are the same. The prices are lower because you are not paying for the U.S. overhead costs of the office, the dentist does pass malpractice insurance costs onto you, they don't have to deal with insurance costs, and you don't have to pay for their student loans. You can get a bad dentist in the U.S., Mexico, or anywhere in the world. It is up to the consumer to be educated and aware. I don't even want to go back to my U.S. dentist after hearing such ignorant comments. Though I appreciate their concern, I KNOW the concern is more about how many dollars they will be losing from me, not the welfare of my teeth. If they were, they would work with me without the shyster finance companies that all the dentists use, or perform what it covered by insurance. I give kudos to Mexico for taking advantage of a good opportunity when they see it, and helping out the poor middle class of America (and Canada, etc.) for that matter! Touche'! Tocar! Whatever!

My Open Letter to the Dental Association and Unscrupulous Dentists

Dear American Dental Association, as well as some dentists who only care about money:

The reason I am writing this letter is to let go of my feelings of being victimized for so many years of my life simply because you failed as moral human beings by allowing such a highly toxic poison-mercury-to be placed in my mouth, knowing the dangers involved. I realize that it doesn’t matter if I am a man, woman, or child, if there is money to be made, especially on the desperation needs of the poor, you will deny the dangers no matter what. It doesn’t matter how much you deny the toxicity and try to downplay the facts, you dentists do this while you are standing right in front of a warning sign posted on your office wall which states that at the minimum, the mercury fillings cause cancer and birth defects. I make a point of asking every dentist I have been to about the safety or danger of amalgam fillings, and I get this same scenario every time. The truth is that you prey upon the poor. Everyone needs dental care, and when a low-income person comes to the dentist, you make most of your money on the repeated need to fill teeth using mercury amalgam. Most people don’t even know the dangers, and if they learn, it’s usually too late. This brings me to my personal situation.

I have suffered all my life from one ailment after another, despite my highly health-conscious diet and exercise routines. I was always referred to as the “sensitive one” or just treated like a hypochondriac. Let’s start with a list the well-known symptoms associated with mercury poisoning, things that I have personally experienced. Since I have personally experienced what follows, there is not a single soul who could convince me that the mouth full of mercury that I currently have is not the source of my suffering. When I go through list after list of what mercury poison causes, it just makes my heart sink to realize I have suffered from almost everything on the list.

·         Chronic fatigue syndrome – I was diagnosed with mild Narcolepsy at age 18 at UCLA…chronic fatigue?

·         Food allergies – diagnosed with celiac disease in 2007 – I never was able to get over 98 pounds until I was diagnosed and changed my diet.

·         Irritable bowel syndrome – diagnosed at around age 28.

·         Lupus – my current doctor suspected Lupus a year ago, but Lupus is very hard to diagnose.

·         Post-nasal drip, allergies, constant congestion, recurring bronchitis, and daily coughing whether I smoked or not; more recently, pneumonia; and, the newest one is the raging ear infection with loss of hearing in one ear for the past month.

·         Rapid deterioration of eyesight and eye infections as a child when I would wake up with my eyes glued shut. Also, ongoing irritation, redness, itching, burning, and light sensitivity.

·         Constant dry mouth with a sour, unpleasant metal taste in my mouth.

·         I think the worst of all – mental fatigue, loss of memory, learning disability, and general brain fog all the time.

·         A diagnosis of fatty liver disease, which is more exclusive to those with diabetes, the obese or heavy alcoholics.

·         A diagnosis of osteopenia, that of a 65-year-old woman and I was only 38 years old.

·         A diagnosis of ulnar neuropathy stemming from my left ulnar nerve to my right shoulder blade.

·         Cervical neck disk deterioration which, often, the pain could not be relieved by the chiropractor.

·         A visit to the emergency room last year for intense and ongoing pain, possible gallbladder problems that just couldn’t be diagnosed with an ultrasound alone.

·         Urgency to urinate frequently, frequent bladder infections, and kidney pain.

·         Another one that causes much anguish – the rashes – strange rashes that appear suddenly, usually associated with stress, on my face. This has grown to areas like my back at times, on my scalp, on my chest, and on several occasions, I have had a severe case of MRSA from out of nowhere.

·         As far as memory loss, there have been numerous times that I forget my own phone number, never remember the names of those I work with, sometimes I even forget my boss’s name. I forget math formulas 5 seconds after I just did them. Words get fumbled in my mouth as I am trying to get them out into a complete sentence. I can’t find the right words to tell people what I mean.

·         ADHD – I was diagnosed at around age 35, along with fragmented thinking, and the doctor thought I was blind and gave me her glasses to finish the evaluation.

·         Acid reflux appeared on the scene just recently, making it virtually impossible for me to complete my yoga classes.

·         Just recently, I found a link that explains how one acquires celiac disease; first through candida albicans, which I was diagnosed with-after probably suffering with it most of my life-at age 42. After taking a heavy dose of high level antibiotics for a spider bite, it felt like I was sitting on a campfire due to a flaming yeast infection. Candida is caused by constant use of antibiotics, and birth control pills, which was a pattern for me as well. The candida is theorized to cause small holes in the intestines, causing leaky gut, which then causes a myriad of problems when things leak into your bloodstream when they should NOT.

·         When I broke the bones in my foot in a car accident 3 years ago, for some ungodly reason, the bones just would not heal, cast after cast after cast.

·         When I got an EKG a couple years ago, the doctor took forever to return to the exam room. I glanced at the EKG readout, and it had a warning on it of an irregular heartbeat. The doctor finally returned, asked me if I was experiencing any chest pain, and then simply said, “Don’t eat eggs, your cholesterol is high.” I eat a diet of mainly low fat poultry, vegetables, and whole grains that don’t contain gluten. It is highly unlikely that I have high cholesterol, but very likely that something is throwing off my lab readings.

·         Intolerance to high and low temperatures. My hands and feet turn blue and I shiver in the slightest cold weather, and the heat is absolutely unbearable for me. It feels like I am going to self-combust. I get a butterfly rash all over my body and intense sunburn now as an older adult.

·         My skin becomes unbearably itchy for no apparent reason on different parts of my body. I will scratch sometimes until I bruise while I am sleeping.

·         I have horrible recurring nightmares many nights, when I can finally fall asleep. This is a complete change to the times I just can’t wake up. Then there are the night sweats that wake me because my sheets are drenched in sweat.

·         Over the last couple of years, I started getting debilitating, painful menstrual cramps that left me writhing on the floor. The only alternative I could find was getting Depo-Provera shots to make my period go away.

·         Muscle pain plagues me. My shoulder muscles don’t know how to be pain-free anymore, though I am trying hard to retrain them.

·         A super-sensitivity to noises-especially children yelling, swings squeaking, dogs barking, radios too loud, talking is too loud, noise is painful to me.

·         How about constant anxiety, fears, isolation, panic attacks, loss of self-confidence, loss of words, feeling overwhelmed, and daily feeling of life being an endless, joyless, struggle?

·         My teeth – where do I begin? I have 4 large mercury amalgam fillings that are leaking and the teeth are broken and 4 slightly smaller filling that I long to be removed, but it is going to cost me thousands of dollars, and I have to leave the country to do this. I probably also have cavitations and infections deep in my jaw from root canals that had to be done after amalgam filling ruined those teeth, and they fell victim, and on two side of my lower mouth, there are no teeth because it went one step further.

I pray that nothing stands in my way to go and have my mercury fillings removed in about a month. I just got my passport, and I am worried that I won’t have enough money; worried that I won’t be able to find someone to go with me, however many trips it takes; I am fearful of the pain involved; and, most of all, I am scared to death of the toxicity that will be unleashed in my body after removing the fillings. I am already taking many supplements to detoxify my liver before I go, as well as beefing up my immune system.

It worries me that my son has a couple of amalgam fillings in his mouth as well. He suffers from mood disorders, ADHD, depression, anxiety, lack of initiative; I suspect bipolar disorder, angry outbursts, and sadness, lack of self-esteem, poor memory, and OCD behaviors. He is only 18.

My question is: is there no conscious to such mass human suffering? The needless suffering? Isn’t it better to have a choice to just lose all your teeth instead of being slowly poisoned? It would have been nice to have a choice. Thank God for the dentists who have decided to stop putting mercury in mouths, and for those who go so far as to remove them. This is a silent holocaust that is going on. I wouldn’t be surprised if mercury amalgam is what caused my grandmother to die with Alzheimer’s, as well as my step-father who is suffering from it as we speak.

I will tell as many people who are willing to listen about what I have experienced, as well as what I have learned through extensive researching on this subject. Ultimately, after I have them removed, I will serve as a living proof experiment if my health improves as a result. Hopefully, it is not too late.

My final words are, “To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” To those of you who knowingly profited from the suffering of countless people as a result of mercury poisoning, I believe you will have your day when you experience an equal suffering for your actions – it is called karma. I do not wish bad karma on anyone, I just know that it exists, it has to. I also hope that mercury poison will stop hurting people, whether it is through dental amalgam fillings, coal burning plants, contaminated fish, vaccinations, or whatever the source. I have a hope that we haven’t destroyed everything on our Earth.

I find myself needing to get my thoughts on paper right away. I am having “one of those moments”, as once spoken by my friend, Elle. I, too, need to process these thoughts out as they are occurring. Okay. It’s pretty heavy. I spent about 3 years of my life as what they call a “homeless” person. The experience traumatized me to this very day. I believe I suffer from PTSD because of being homeless. My home is my castle. I am an earth sign, very grounded in home. When I do not have a home, I am lost and afraid. It is traumatic to face each and every day with a child just trying to figure out where you are going to have a roof over your head that night, and how you are going to make it happen. It is survival, and other people who have not experienced it do not understand. Of course, there are so many reasons why people become homeless, and those of us who were victims of circumstance get lost in the mix. Then, one has to remember that each and every person is ultimately responsible for themselves, and no one else. The kindness of others is one thing, but no one can expect others to help just because…(whatever reason), not even family. In fact, helping can often be a temporary crutch. After being in this situation, and not getting much help from anywhere and anyone but myself, and the resources that I submit myself to, regardless of how uncomfortable, I could not say any place cramped my style-I was homeless! I was grateful for anything and any place that took us in. I did anything that I had to do to get where I needed to be. Since getting to where I needed to be, and jumping through hoops of fire, I have encountered so many people in the same situation. I will tell you that each and every one of these people had so much undeserving pride that they would not take the advice that I would give them.  They only wanted a handout to stay at my home, taking advantage of the graciousness of me being a giver, and not helping themselves the way I helped myself. Many nights I cried my eyes out on a bus bench in the freezing cold, and hungry, not caring what anyone thought. Mostly, it was because I could not see the end in sight. I knew there was a long, hard fight ahead to get where I needed to be. I knew I needed to do this again one day and night after another. I guess I was triggered to the point where I am right now to be writing this because I just encountered yet one more person who just doesn’t get it. My heart always goes out to people in this situation, and I find myself taking care of them for at least one night. Then, they don’t want to leave. I then feel as if I never should have helped them at all, the way it was for me. I had only enlisted the help of this person to fix my car, not knowing their situation. When it became clear, and when I knew they were in no position to help me, I had to cut my ties immediately, because I know what their intentions are in their desperate situation. They want a home, and it can’t be mine. My home is my home, and I am in no position to be a caretaker, nor a social worker. I am a bleeding heart, but I have to draw the line, I have to have boundaries. I ignored this person’s constant pleas for 2 days, and I finally replied with the fact of the matter. That followed with a reply of, “I really feeling bad today.” That comment brings me to where I am right now, and how I feel. My first reaction was very emotional. I wanted to reply back with these words: “You feel bad today? Really? Well, you really need to absorb that feeling and get used to it. Why? Because you are going to feel that way tomorrow, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next day. In fact, you are barking up the wrong tree, and you don’t even realize it. You think you feel bad today? I felt bad for about 1000 days in a row, maybe more. You know what? That is what kicked my ass. That

 is why I have a home, a car, a job, and my son in my custody today. That is why I am in college and I am about to get my degree. Because I know no one else is going to do it for me. I know you feel bad. There is nothing I can do about that for you. I did all that I can do for you. You need to look for a long-term solution for yourself and make whatever changes that you need to make to change your life.” There is no way to tell someone that without breaking them more than they already are feeling broken. I know it can be done, because I did it. I can’t pity anyone, especially a full-grown man or woman. If there was a child involved, I would do whatever I could. But, for the record, I want to say so badly, “Don’t bark up this tree, just don’t.” I just had to get that out of me. Maybe it will prevent another recurring nightmare of being homeless. I just want to help, but I can’t help with something this big. It is so hard to deal with this situation, but I think I constantly have had to deal with it to make myself stronger, and maybe to help others help themselves. Thank you for listening.