Question: I've read that Dr. George Meinig and others believe it's better to have a tooth extracted than to have its root canal treated because of the impossibility of completely sterilizing and removing the residual toxins from the root canal system ... and I read a good interview with Dr. Robert Marshall in Acres, USA in which he says gutta percha has some toxic compounds in it (I thought it was supposed to be all natural plant material when they used it in my earlier RCs), I'd be very interested in your thoughts on "roots canals" from a natural health perspective.
Answer: I have great respect for Dr. Meinig, yet I agree with Weston Price, on whom Meinig relied heavily, that about 25% of the population can handle the ill effects from a toxic endodontically treated tooth satisfactorily BUT ... he wrote many decades ago & it's probably 5% of the population now.
No, I usually didn't try to explain dentinal tubule toxicosis to my dental clients, only those I felt would likely understand &/or appreciate it & ALL of them, once informed, chose to keep the tooth and have the root canal treated rather than have the tooth removed, even 'tho dental implants are now predictably successful, especially for reasonably healthy folks.
My opinion: eliminating or inactivating as much as possible of the toxic residue of the fluids & formerly-living material in the root canal system & in the dentinal tubules is more important than what the canal is sealed with & what it's sealed with is more important than what it's filled with. So, yes, laser energy, properly applied, is a good idea. During my last decade of dental practice, we used ultrasonic energy to drive a series of three toxic chemicals as far into the tubules as possible to "sterilize" the system, then sealed the gutta percha fill material with a non-soluble epoxy-like material.
Gutta percha? I'm told it was a natural rubber from some South Pacific islands prior to WWII & US access to those islands was blocked during the war, so synthetic gutta percha was created & the last I heard the composition of the material has never been disclosed.
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