34 years is a long time

In 1974 I had 3 wisdom teeth pulled, urgently, in the dentist's lunchtime. He didn't remove the periodontic ligaments, for sure. These facts, I now realise, may be significant.

In 1976 I became ill with fatigue and neuropathy. I was told it wasn't MS and to go home and get on with it. More symptoms appeared over the years. I didn't work - I couldn't sustain any job for long. I have raised two children but that was all I could manage. My mother has hypothyroidism and I realised I had the same symptoms, though my blood tests were 'normal', just. There is controversy as to whether these tests fairly reflect our health because they don't address how much available active hormone we have circulating in the blood, let alone taken up and used by the body. After 28 years I did manage to get some thyroid hormone and started to feel stronger and less symptomatic, but I am not fixed yet.

In the early 90's I had my first root canal filling following a huge balloon of an abscess. On holiday, as you do! Being in the lower jaw it didn't easily drain, but they did their best according to their methods. I have at least 2 others now, but my memory is poor - it could be more. 2 weeks ago I noticed a bony growth below one of these (bottom) molars, and went to the dentist. He saw nothing on the Xray but also did a CT scan there and then, which produced a rendered graphic of the lower jaw and clearly showed the lump, semi hollow, level with the tip of the root, get on the jaw surface. I am going to see a maxillofacial surgeon at the hospital.

Meanwhile, these things get you thinking. I am already in the process of getting my Hg fillings removed, indeed this very tooth would have been next, so the timing is fortuitous. I had been keeping my head in the sand about the root canals as a possible, nay probable focus of infection and toxicity. Too much disturbance, maybe false teeth and other things I deemed unacceptable. I'm a singer, and I don't know if I can get my tongue round Italian madrigals with a lump or two of plastic in my mouth. And extractions could mean yet more cavitations, couldn't they?

But I don't want to end my days still feeling this sick. Life is not a rehearsal and 34 years is long enough, but then again I've kind of got used to it. Do I even know how to be well? What would I do, how would I start a career now? There's a lot of psychological stuff there to face up to! But then I presumably would feel up to tackling all that!

So I've been researching again, and found TERFinfo.com and Ian's CFS story which led me to Munro Hall clinic who have an ultra sound scanner which can see cavitations. I am amazed at how unreliable Xrays can be for this - too many false 'you're OKs'.

I will bite the bullet, with my remaining teeth, get any cavitations cleaned out, rootcanals removed and cleaned too and the remaining Hg fillings replaced, and we'll see whether I still need thyroid after that!

Hg inhibits the enzyme you need to make the active thyroid hormone T3, and it blocks the places available for oxygen transport on your heamaglobin molecules in the reb blood cells. It also causes the aborting of heamaglobin production if Hg binds to the haem before the molecule is fully formed. So no wonder I have no energy.

Add toxicity and I'm surprised I even get up in the morning. Well sometimes I don't.

All this takes guts - a big upheaval, a fight with the conventional professionals, and the effect on my singing maybe. But I am excited at the moment to think I may have found the answer at last. I admit I've always been that way when I've come across an idea, but this does make a lot of sense. And nothing else remains to do. All that organic food hasn't worked yet, but how can it if I'm still overwhelmed with toxins from lurking anaerobes? It has to be done.

I'll try to remember to update this when I'm better ;)