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A post from Alan Shanley
I knew Alan for years, we have mutual friends living down the road and I met him twice when he's visited the UK. His blog is a Must Read.
I was a martyr to my teeth. They pretty much came through with holes already in them and I spent most of my life having filling after filling, and of course being scolded for eating "too much sugar" when in retrospect it was too much starch and the ensuing high BG spikes that were to blame.
Having some utterly crap dentists didn't help any - but I've also had a few excellent ones. One of the crap ones told me "all" my fillings needed digging out and replacing. I let him do one quarter of my mouth. The result was constant pain and a massive and recurring abcess.
Fortunately I was then recommended an excellent dentist. He was completely disgusted with the poor standard of this guy's work and had to dig out all his fillings and redo them. The tooth with the abcess needed a root canal, and then a crown, and was basically beyond saving.
What was happening soon became clear - the crap dentist gave up NHS work and obviously had decided to wreck my teeth so he could mend them privately. He was also notorious for overcharging after quoting for work, and for digging out someone's gold filling and keeping the gold, replacing it with amalgam, without telling the patient. He drove a Porsche.
The good dentist had to do little work but my teeth needed regular descaling.
The nadir was reached after I met the dietician who blamed all my ill health on eating "too much fat" and carefully replaced it with even more carbs. I developed a bunch more abcesses and lost two teeth which simply fell out.
After I went low carb the difference was stunning. I seldom need any work, no more descaling just the occasional polish. I think I've had one filling that leaked and needed replacing but it was years if not decades old by then. I snapped off the corner of another overfilled tooth eating nuts.
So I was a bit surprised, and disappointed, when I suddenly developed another abcess.
Turned out not to be as drastic as I feared, rather then being under a tooth it was probably the result of something spiking the gum in between the teeth. I just had it cleaned out, it was already healing on its own. I'm overdue for an inspection but decided to put it off and see if the abcess played up again first.
I read that one known and expected result of high carb low fat dietary policy was an increase in dental caries, but this was dismissed as trivial compared to the risk of CVD. Which makes the connection horribly ironic.
Anyone else noticed a major improvement in their dental health from low carbing?
I knew Alan for years, we have mutual friends living down the road and I met him twice when he's visited the UK. His blog is a Must Read.
I was a martyr to my teeth. They pretty much came through with holes already in them and I spent most of my life having filling after filling, and of course being scolded for eating "too much sugar" when in retrospect it was too much starch and the ensuing high BG spikes that were to blame.
Having some utterly crap dentists didn't help any - but I've also had a few excellent ones. One of the crap ones told me "all" my fillings needed digging out and replacing. I let him do one quarter of my mouth. The result was constant pain and a massive and recurring abcess.
Fortunately I was then recommended an excellent dentist. He was completely disgusted with the poor standard of this guy's work and had to dig out all his fillings and redo them. The tooth with the abcess needed a root canal, and then a crown, and was basically beyond saving.
What was happening soon became clear - the crap dentist gave up NHS work and obviously had decided to wreck my teeth so he could mend them privately. He was also notorious for overcharging after quoting for work, and for digging out someone's gold filling and keeping the gold, replacing it with amalgam, without telling the patient. He drove a Porsche.
The good dentist had to do little work but my teeth needed regular descaling.
The nadir was reached after I met the dietician who blamed all my ill health on eating "too much fat" and carefully replaced it with even more carbs. I developed a bunch more abcesses and lost two teeth which simply fell out.
After I went low carb the difference was stunning. I seldom need any work, no more descaling just the occasional polish. I think I've had one filling that leaked and needed replacing but it was years if not decades old by then. I snapped off the corner of another overfilled tooth eating nuts.
So I was a bit surprised, and disappointed, when I suddenly developed another abcess.
Turned out not to be as drastic as I feared, rather then being under a tooth it was probably the result of something spiking the gum in between the teeth. I just had it cleaned out, it was already healing on its own. I'm overdue for an inspection but decided to put it off and see if the abcess played up again first.
I read that one known and expected result of high carb low fat dietary policy was an increase in dental caries, but this was dismissed as trivial compared to the risk of CVD. Which makes the connection horribly ironic.
Anyone else noticed a major improvement in their dental health from low carbing?
