I don't normally share personal stuff but this might help someone. Skip to the conclusion if the wall of text defeats you.
About 4 years ago, after the covid debacle, my wife and I drove for two hours to a seaside resort for a holiday. On the way there, I developed tooth pain. I saw a dentist who took an x-ray and told me that I had an abscess and that the infection had been there for a long time. I took antibiotics.
Back home, a few days later, I saw my own dentist. (No waiting times here!) He drilled out the tooth, injected antiseptic, put in a temporary filling and repeated this process every few days for a month before completing the root canal filling, fitting a crown and declaring it fixed.
Thereafter I always had a slight ache but kept convincing myself that it would go away.
Two years later I woke from an afternoon nap (I was 73 then and I had serious backache and sciatica) to find my heart racing. My wife rushed me to the local medical center. They put me in an ambulance and rushed me to the nearest hospital. I was hooked up to a chart recorder, which showed an erratic heartbeat of 160 bpm. I felt OK but apparently this was bad.
I spent 2 days in bed with a drip feeding dextrose into a vein. (This subsequently caused a hematoma - a blockage of the vein - but that's another story.)
Eventually, I was made to hobble down a long corridor (my back was even more painful from 2 days on a hard bed). In a tiny room a guy in a white coat did an ultrasound scan of my chest, grunted and told me that a nurse would give me a prescription for three drugs that I would have to take for life, otherwise I'd have a stroke.
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Beta blockers to slow my heart (half a pill to be taken if my bpm was more than 70 on waking. It was usually around 70).
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Statins - no reason given - my cholesterol is a perfectly normal 220.
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Anticoagulant capsules.
I did some research. Arrhythmia causes blood stagnation in the heart, which can lead to a clot reaching the brain. Scary. After two months of hesitating I started to take the anticoagulant. (I didn't ever take statins. I took a beta blocker twice.)
Six months later, I had a heart stress test where a nurse injects a radioactive dye and then a chemical that makes the heart work hard. This was followed by a scan. It felt unpleasant. I thought I was going to faint. When I collected the results there was no doctor available and it hasn't been mentioned since. I assume that the results showed normal heart function.
When I saw my own private doctor he looked at the results and merely grunted. I told him that I'd started taking the anticoagulant. He informed me that I was supposed to take TWO per day, not one. Darn. They were already costing me 30 Euros a month (after insurance deduction).
I'd been having "funny turns" - momentary dizziness as my heart faltered - nearly every day.
I started to take two capsules per day. I was worried; I'd read about the side effects, one of which was brain aneurism or stroke!
A few weeks later my eyes literally exploded internally and I developed "floaters". My ophthalmologist did an eye examination and determined that the retinas were intact but the gel was detaching. This had caused a release of blood cells and collagen. The result was that my vision was filled with "cobwebs" and a couple of "tadpoles". (It still is.)
I stopped taking the anticoagulants and did more research. My magnesium levels have always been low. I was born just after the war when food rationing prevailed and bread with "dripping" was a meal, with salt if you were lucky. We'd have meat on a Sunday. I was already, by age 70, taking magnesium supplements but maybe not enough. I switched to magnesium Glycinate, twice a day. I did more research and started adding potassium chloride salt to my meals.
As I increased the electrolyte supplements, the arrhythmia decreased but not completely.
I did more research and finally reached the conclusion that I'd been dreading. The root canal tooth had to go.
Two weeks after the extraction the arrhythmia stopped. This morning, on waking, I checked my pulse. It was 57 bpm. It's never been so low.
CONCLUSION
Heart problems such as mine can be caused by infected teeth and/or gums. They can also be caused by a lack of magnesium and/or potassium. And I can tell you that a blood test will tell you nothing.
Also, there's no quick fix. It can take a year or more of supplements to get your bone and muscle stores of minerals up to normal where your body starts to work normally; your immune system actually works. Your migraine attacks and muscle cramps and heart arrhythmia stop. Doctors won't tell you this.
I hope this helps somebody.
Good read, and thanks for sharing important information that so called doctors will not.
Most people are deficient in magnesium (I don't know why that is but suspect poor diet). Calcium and magnesium, assisted by Vitamin D, have a complex balancing mechanism governing their absorption into the body. Getting it wrong can mess you up in ways you didn't expect.
For example I had what I thought was a frozen shoulder. Could not move my shoulder properly and very painful. Xray showed it was not "frozen shoulder" as such - it was one of the tendons had absorbed too much calcium and lost its flexibility. They call it "calcified tendon". Showed like a stick of chalk right there on the xray.
tl;dr - make sure you get enough calcium and magnesium. Suggest magnesium glycinate for best absorption.
Many thanks to Greekish for posting this.
My last checkup, my calcium was high. Coincidentally my rotator cup and elbows have become painful. Take vit d and dr added b12. And had a recent x ray that again confirmed my back is disintegrating.
🙏🤍
Overall physical health begins with dental health. You are right, OP, things going on in the mouth can lead to heart problems and other health issues.
My story, though not identical, follows a similar path in that I now regularly take magnesium and potassium chloride but I also take nattokinase to prevent blood clotting. Doctors for 40 years have only prescribed drug after drug for my PCVs (Premature Ventricular Contractions, a form of heart palpitations) and high blood pressure. I don't take prescriptions anymore.
Goad you're feeling better fren!
Thanks for sharing your story.
Moral of the story: The seemingly smallest of things can royally screw up an entire system if left to fester...
YDAK
Your Doctor Always Knew
He doesn’t make any money sending you back to the dentist. Doctors are doctors to make money, healing you means losing money. A cured patient is a lost customer.
Thank you for posting your story, it was very informative.
Thanks for the testimony! Glad to see that you are well
There's a book called The Magnesium Miracle (by Carolyn Dean) that was recommended to me by an employee of the gym I was going to. Apparently a magnesium deficiency can cause all sorts of issues, and magnesium supplements can therefore help alleviate many issues. Great book, highly recommend.
I'm currently reading "Magnesium the Missing Mineral" by James DiNicolantonio. ("The Magnesium Miracle" is also there.)
https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/james-dinicolantonio/pdf-epub-magnesium-the-missing-mineral-discover-the-vital-role-magnesium-plays-in-your-health-download/
Bless you Greekish! Praying you will have no more problems and thanks for sharing! 🙏🤍🇬🇷
Thanks for sharing. Good reminders to continue rebuilding our systems and continue seeing our naturopath. Note that our naturopath has us mostly supplements made from whole food, not chemicals. For example, CalciFood is a calcium supplement that is not mineral based. He explained that the body is not designed to digest and process rocks (minerals). Most standard calcium supplements take ages to process, and can leave bits in your system, leading to things like kidney stones. Whole Food based supplements come from Foods that include the entire spectrum of the vitamins inside the food, so that it works synergistically the way the body was designed to get these vitamins. Made sense to me.
I have had a heart arrhythmia, SVT, for most of my life and magnesium, along with potassium, help to keep it in check. However, in my case, I find that proper hydration is just as important and, possibly, more important. If I am dehydrated even a bit, the chances of having an episode of SVT is much more likely and the duration of the episodes increases. If you can, try to maintain your hydration.
This is very true. When I had my hospital visit, it was a very hot day.
Thank you for sharing this. Very interesting...
Thank you Greek! This is valueble anecdote, we don't get reports like this from big pharma. Godbless you fren <3
Thanks for sharing your story.
I will leave you this to think about. A root canaled tooth is a dead tooth. A tooth is the only dead thing in the human body that we try to retain. Personally, I would never get a root canal. A person would never dream of keeping some other part of the body if it died. So, why a tooth? Look up Dr Weston Price's focal infection theory.
Dr. Weston Price, who served as the Director of Research for the ADA from 1914 to 1928, conducted extensive studies in the early 20th century claiming that root canal-treated teeth harbor toxic bacteria that cause systemic diseases. He argued that anaerobic bacteria trapped in microscopic dentinal tubules could not be fully sterilized and would produce potent toxins, such as thioether and mercaptan, which he believed led to conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and arthritis. His original work was stripped from the dental and medical libraries and poo pooed by the dental and medical establishment. How many times have we heard that story before? Especially from the early 20th century before Rockefeller hijacked medicine. It happened in dentistry as well.
A chronic dental abscess can be there for some time before it causes pain. Believe it or not, traveling sometimes can trigger a tooth in that condition to blow up - many times from flying. I think it may have something to do with changes in altitude or air pressure. I knew a gal that had a tooth that needed some work. She had put it off. The tooth blew up flying to London for work. She saw an emergency dentist in London and was given antibiotics till she could make it back to the States. Sure enough, the tooth blew up again on the return flight. She was miserable and got in to see her dentist to get the work done, but in the end she lost the tooth anyway after a couple of years.
With any chronic dental infection it puts stress on the body and silently just keeps doing its thing. An upper first molar is notorious for root canal failures. It is nearly impossible to sterilize all the tiny accessory canals and tubules on a tooth. Molars are the most difficult because they have more canals. If a person elects to retain an upper first molar, it is best to see a specialist rather than a general dentist. Sometimes those teeth can have an extra canal that can only be seen with more advanced diagnostic equipment. The percentage of people with an extra canal on an upper first molar is higher than what they first thought. It is worth it to spend the extra money to see the specialist in a case like that.
Even though the pain many times can be resolved with a root canal, there is always the risk of an infection that can still remain. With a chronic infection, the bone can cavitate at the apex and can become a reservoir for infection. Some holistic dentists can use ozone therapy to try to clear up these kinds of chronic infections. I have seen several people spend lots of money on a root canal, a buildup, then a crown, only to end up loosing the tooth anyway because it failed. Something you usually are not going to hear from a doctor or a dentist, especially an endodontist. Not good for business. I have heard of cases like yours before. All because of a dead infected tooth. Remember, the mouth is connected to the rest of the body. It's a whole body system and everything is linked to everything else. The jaw bone is connected to the ankle bone.