Latest Notes
October 2001
(Revised Dec. 2001)
I believe teeth are important and that you should take care of them and keep them as long as you can, but when the dentist says root canal, better do some homework and research. Not everyone seems to have a bad experience, but if you do, what would you rather have your teeth or your health? I wish a many a time I could have gone back and gotten rid of that tooth to begin with, saved myself a lot of suffering, mental and physical anguish and expense. There was no quality of life when I had that tooth. I had had braces, had all my teeth and I didn't want to lose that tooth, but I never realized what I would be going through in saving it and losing my health and then losing the tooth to regain my health.
Since I first wrote about my root canal story on the internet, I have done lots of research and learned many things I did not know at that time. My tooth not only harbored bacteria, but toxins and probably candida. The root canal tooth had a big amalgam filling in it, and there is lots of information about that on the internet as well. That filling was drilled out several times and the tooth that first broke behind the root canal was filled in with amalgam. When I went to have my teeth cleaned a few months ago, I told the hygienist that I had a ridge develop where the root canal had been. She pulled out the panoramic x-ray and on it you can see the outline of the root canal tooth that was pulled in 1994.
We moved earlier this year and while moving I found calendars from 1991-1994 which contained doctor's appointments that I had. I feel like there were appointments that I did not write down, also there were times when I called the doctors office and prescriptions were called in when I did not see a doctor. There were times I had blood work done for which I do not have all the dates. I took allergy shots which I do not have the dates of those, but took them weekly, they did no good. Dates for some of those appointments are at the bottom of the page. There were times I would pass by the dentist office and just stop in without an appointment and asked repeatedly for him to just pull the tooth. By the way, I was told by a friend who was in his office not long after my tooth was pulled, that his receptionist told her that there had to be something to it, because she had seen me and there was too much difference in me!! After I went home from having the tooth pulled I made a trip back to the dentist office with the article about Dr. Meinig's book. So after that date the dentist was made aware of this book, whether he had knowledge of it before or not. The dentist told me that I was going to miss that tooth, guess what, he was wrong!!!! How could I miss a tooth that made me that sick??? I never replaced it. I made a phone call and talked to the librarian and told her a little about my story and asked if they could get the book for the library and they did.
Some of the doctors that I went to are no longer in practice, so probably no way of finding out what I went for each time. I got to the point I did not know what kind of doctor to go to next, I had so much wrong with me. I was tested for lupus, my thyroid was tested, all blood test for whatever they tested always came back "within normal range" if I could be that sick and the tests were always within normal range, something was bad wrong with their tests. I was even tested for things for which I didn't even have symptoms, and then the next doctor would want to know why I was tested, what symptoms did I have of the disease, and I had none!!!!
If my ear started bothering me in Nov. of 1990, and I didn't go to a doctor until April 1991, don't think that is typical of a hypochondriac. If an abscessed tooth is suppose to hurt really bad and mine didn't, and I have had other molars abscess that I believe I cracked while clinching my teeth, because of the root canal, I didn't clench before and I haven't clenched since, none of them hurt, but I could tell from the way my body reacted what was going on. Not everyone does the same.
Some additional symptoms I had that I had not written about earlier are: the skin on my hands got very thin like an elderly person, you could see right through them. The skin thicken back some, but did not get back as thick as it was at one time. My knuckles started changing in shape. I had clear bubble looking places all over my tongue. Sweet foods would taste bitter, nothing tasted like it should, after the tooth was pulled, my taste got back more like it used to be. I had these blue thread looking things where ever I had mucus, didn't ever find out what that was, I wondered if maybe it was some kind of parasite. The fluid that came from my ear would crystallize on my face, urine would crystallize. Sometimes I would wake up from sleep gasping for air, like I had quit breathing, sometimes I got to the point like I would have to remember to breath. The mucus in my nose was so thick and so sticky that I could not get it out. You could see the outline of the sinuses on each side of my nose, the skin was red, the skin started getting hard but after the tooth was pulled the skin got back soft, all of the redness didn't disappear, but got better.
The pages that I wrote were not easy to write. I talk about it in hopes of helping others, of giving them some hope, (I do not want to give false hope) because never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought I'd feel like I do today. I feel like I survived to tell this story, to help other people, because only someone that has been through it would even begin to try to understand what others are going through. I wish I didn't understand, I wish I'd never gone through it, I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy. If you think it's hard for me to trust doctors and for me to trust dentists, you're right. I learned some hard lessons, the hard way, lessons I won't forget. I'm not saying there aren't good doctors and good dentists out there, but try being sick and going from doctor to doctor and have doctor bills mounting up and getting sicker all the time.
For the record my GYN told me he knew he hadn't got to the root of my problem and would send my records where ever I wanted to go, he also talked with UAB about my situation. The other 2 GYN's I went to, wish I never had, one that I went to was suppose to be good at helping women with problems that no one else had helped, cut a plug out of me, it came back non-specific edema, very painful, left scar tissue and the other one I saw (which was the last doctor I went to while I had the root canal) in Oct. 93. I went to 2 doctors after the root canal was pulled, one was the ENT to get the tube out of my ear, which was suppose to have could out on its own, but did not. The other appointment was to see about a dark, sunk in spot on the back of my arm, it was from a cortisone shot, it ate part of my muscle and it took several months for it to grow back. I did not see another doctor until August of 1999, had an accident and fell, did not want to go to the doctor then, found out because I hadn't been to a doctor in years I no longer had one. Went for what should have been my yearly exam in August of this year, 2001, first time since Oct. 93. So hypochondriac, nerves, my mind, I don't think so, like I used to tell my husband, it's in my head (root canal) but it's not in my mind.
Here is a partial list of my doctors appointments.
1991 April 23 - Family Doctor I waited from the time I got sick until April to go to the doctor.
1991 October 3 - Ear, Nose, Throat
1991 October 7 - Dentist - First appointment to get abscessed tooth seen about, when I called they did not think that I had an abscessed tooth, they said that I would know (because of the pain) which I did not have.
1991 October 11 - Dentist
1991 October 21 - Dentist
1991 November 5 - Dentist
1991 November 11 - Dentist
1991 November 20 - Dentist
1991 December 18 - GYN I do not believe this is the first GYN appointment that I had, because the problem had been going on for several months, while the tooth was abscessed, and continued to get worst after the root canal.
1991 December 24 - Family Doctor
1992 January 7 - GYN
1992 January 29 - Family Doctor
1992 March 11 - GYN
1992 April 27 - GYN
1992 May 19 - Dentist
1992 June 1 - Surgeon
1992 June 10 - Dentist
1992 June 30 - Family Doctor
1992 July 9 - Ear, Nose, Throat - Second ENT doctor
1992 July 16 - Surgeon
1992 July 20 - GYN
1992 July 21 - GYN
1992 August 13 - Surgeon
1992 August 20 - Surgeon
1992 August 24 - ENT
1992 November 9 - ENT
1992 November 19 - ENT
1992 November 23 - ENT
1992 December 1 - Dermatologist
1993 January 4 - Internal Medicine - Said that what I explained, abscessed tooth, then root canal, and illness "Not medically possible, no connection."
1993 January 15 - Lab Tests
1993 February 24 - ENT
1993 April 5 - Dentist
1993 May 12 - GYN - Second GYN
1993 May 17 - Lab Tests
1993 June 2 - Dentist
1993 June 23 - Surgeon
1993 July 26 - ENT-Allergy
1993 July 26 - Surgeon
1993 September 13 - Dentist
1993 September 24 - Dentist
1993 September 27 - ENT-Allergy
1993 October 4 - Third GYN doctor, finally diagnosed "vulvodynia," was told "no cure for it, you'll always have it, but we can treat it, then left the room, just like he were giving me good news, sounded as though he could have cared less. It was after this visit, that I really wanted to just die.
1994 January 12 - 10:00 - Dentist, root canal was extracted and I began regaining my health!
1994 January 19 - Surgeon, went to see about the dark, sunk in place in the back of my arm. A cortisone shot had eat up the fibers in the muscle. Took several months for it to grow back.
In Sept. of 1999 I came across Karen Tripp: Recovery from Candida I ordered the SF 722 that she took and I also took Molybdeum Picolinate with it and did the diet that she did. I saw improvement and lost 12 pounds in one month.
This picture was made
December 28, 1991
I had been sick for one year, at this time. When I was first sick, many
times I felt a lot worse than I looked like I felt.
This was while I was still very thin, I eventually put on 25-30 pounds. Felt bloated and swollen. I hated having my picture taken especially after putting on the weight and feeling so bad, I hated looking in the mirror, because what I was looking at, sure didn't look like me. When my picture was taken at family get-togethers, I always tried to smile, (I did not want to look sick) but wondered if this was my last get-together each time we got together.