Wednesday 12 October 2011

mercury in your mouth

getting interested in this because I have a lot of amalgam fillings in my teeth.

from David Saxon MD :

"The major source of mercury poisoning in the United States is dental amalgam. Dental amalgams are usually alloys composed of mercury, silver, and tin with small amounts of copper and zinc. These alloys solidify at room temperature and are used to fill in cavities, or build up tooth surfaces for restoration. Dental amalgams contain about 50% mercury, and mercury has been shown to be more toxic than lead, cadmium, and arsenic. Mercury vaporizes at room temperature. The temperature in your mouth is much higher.


Fifteen Facts about Mercury and Dental Amalgams

1. Mercury vapor is the common manner in which mercury comes out of amalgam.
2. Mercury from amalgam binds to sulphydryl groups. These exist in almost every enzymatic process in the body. Mercury from amalgam will thus have the potential of disturbing all metabolic processes.
3. Mercury vapor is absorbed directly into the brain.
4. Mercury from amalgam will result in a slow build up of mercury in body tissue.
5. Mercury crosses the blood-brain barrier.
6. Mercury is implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease.
7. Mercury crosses the placenta.
8. Mercury will cause an increase in number and severity of allergies.
9. Mercury from amalgam will migrate through the tooth.
10. This rate of migration is increased if a gold crown is placed over a tooth filled with amalgam.
11. In the brain, mercury from amalgam is stored preferentially in the pituitary gland and hypothalamus.
12. Micro-mercurialism is principally characterized by neurological symptoms.
13. Mercury from amalgam may be stored in every cell in the body. Each area affected will produce its own set of symptoms.
14. Brain levels of mercury are in direct linear proportion to the number of amalgam surfaces in the mouth.
15. Dental personnel are severely effected by exposure to mercury."

so the next step is to look at removal and detox - will keep you posted ( if I have any brain cells left!)

Saturday 1 October 2011

"pain is a disease"

at Parsons Chiropractic we offer fast relief from back and neck pain so its interesting to see this article from the Times:

"Chronic pain needs to be recognised as a disease in its own right, experts say.

The hospital doctors and academics argue this would lead to more momentum for official strategies and funding to help patients.

Nearly 8m people in the UK are suffering ongoing problems with pain. But only 2% of them end up seeing specialists - and a quarter believe their doctors do not know how to treat their pain, research shows.

Prescriptions worth a total of £584m are written every year for painkillers. And pain - including back problems - is the second most common reason cited by incapacity benefit claimants for not working.

Dr Beverly Collett, a consultant in pain medicine from University Hospitals of Leicester and chairman of the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition campaign group , said: "This problem has huge ramifications for society as a whole. Pain is difficult to treat.

"Many patients are seeking reasons for what is behind the pain - but in the vast majority of cases, you can't find one. We are trying to get it taken more seriously - and there's a push, particularly in Europe, to say it is a disease in its own right."

Researchers are examining the idea that changes in the spinal cord and brain have the effect of maintaining pain in sufferers, making it an ongoing problem that can lead to depression or anxiety.

Experts believe more training would help GPs in assessing the severity of patients' pain.

Distraction

Non-medical interventions such as physiotherapy and encouraging patients to stay active can also play a role, with some work showing that distraction can help patients avoid feeling pain.

Professor Steve McMahon, from the Wolfson Centre of Age Related Diseases at King's College London, said the number of new drugs developed to treat pain in the past decade was "very small".

Another expert, Irene Tracey, Nuffield professor of anaesthetic science at Oxford University, said: "There is a cultural problem where it's thought that there is a benefit from suffering. We have to get over this. It's not acceptable for people to suffer significant pain in the 21st century."

By Jane Dreaper, Health correspondent, BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8543561.stm