Thursday, March 30, 2006

3. More about Mercury and Me

As I was reading through the history of dentistry and the problems with mercury throughout the last two centuries (in the book by Dr. Myron Wentz), I began to make connections with my own dental history. I was very surprised to be relating to some of the symptoms of mercury poisoning and I mentally started to correlate my dental visits with the MS symptoms I'd been experiencing over the years. Here's my line of thinking:

I was diagnosed with MS around 1978/9 after a long period of strange symptoms. After I'd seen a neurologist, gone to Hamilton for an EEG scan and Toronto for a brain scan - in the large tube, ctually, my family doctor told me that I "probably" had MS. She told me there was nothing she could really do and gave me some sort of medication which gave me a killer headache, I thought I was dying, so I flushed them.

In 1976 I had graduated from highschool and during my last year there, I visited the dentist regularly, gradually getting somewhere between 15 and 20 mercury amalgam fillings (grr). Dr. Wentz mentioned in his book that sometimes mercury poisoning doesn't show up for a year or two or even more. The older your fillings are, the more dangerous they can be.

Since I still needed help and the doctors confessed they could do nothing, I turned to God - he made me, I supposed he could fix me. And this is how I managed to live a fairly normal life. I didn't have many bouts with symptoms over the next 10 or so years (we had no dental plan - turned out to be a blessing in disguise, eh?).

But in 1990 we moved to Nova Scotia because my husband got a job at NSCAD. NOW we had a dental plan! To make a long story short, around 1996 I had the whole bottom left side of my teeth refilled. The dentist ground out the old mercury amalgams and refilled with white plastic. Dr. Wentz writes that there is a constant release of mercury from all mercury amalgams during the best of times, but during amalgam removal a person is exposed to 1000 times the poisonous mercury vapour - yikes!

THE BIG CONNECTION

It was ALSO in 1996 that I began to have very serious bouts with MS symptoms. Some stayed, some only lasted a couple weeks. I'll list some of them here:

• numbness (creeping into my body seemingly from the toes up over a period of months and years)
• extreme skin sensitivity (to the point of pain) when in the shower
• inability to walk properly - loss of balance
• inability to talk properly because the right side of my face had gone numb (short term)
• inability to write by hand - even typing and moving the mouse on my computer were a challenge (short term)
• recurring headaches, and one major one that brought me to my knees groping for non existent medicine in my bathroom (short term)
• almost complete blindness in one eye (short term)
• severe hearing loss in one ear (short term)
• loss of bladder control (varying in degrees over the years)
• an extreme case of vertigo, where every micro movement made me want to throw up - and I did (short term)

And then there are the some of the minor symptoms that I learned to live with: (these were all mentioned as a result of mercury poisoning)

• ringing in the ears
• muscle tremors and weakness
• cramping
• joint pain
• digestive problems
• recurring headaches (though less severe since proper nutritional supplements)
• low energy levels (though less severe since proper nutritional supplements)
• bleeding gums when I floss
• itchy nose
• blurred vision (though less severe since proper nutritional supplements)
• skin problems (though less severe since proper nutritional supplements)
• occasional mental confusion (gradually getting worse over the years)
• genital discharge (every day of the month, year in year out)
• lack of concentration (gradually getting worse over the years)
• insomnia
• depression (for a few days monthly)
• dizziness (getting out of bed especially)

My! that list is a little embarrassing, but I write this is for purposes of being able to notice the improvements which I expect to see in the future.

Next time I'm going to quote a bit directly from the book, "A Mouthful of Poison".

By the way, I have a link on the left side bar under the heading "BOOKS TO READ" that will link you to a site where you can order this book. It was published in 2004 and I haven't seen it anywhere else - but I have purchased many of them through that site to give away.

Remember there's hope for a healthier and happier life!

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