Total Body Dental Health (TBDH)
The concept of Total Body Dental Health (TBDH) has emerged as a solid field in medicine. Can your oral structures really have a large impact on your health? As craniofacial pain experts we have noted the direct oral-systemic connection. Besides pain therapy there are other modalities of care in dentistry that can help you achieve high levels of health. We all want to feel and function better. TBDH can help.
As humans we constantly seek to gain pleasure and avoid pain. It is part of our basic survival. We all want to feel better, look better, and function at a high capacity….devoid of pain and sickness. This allows us the opportunity to gain pleasure. We see people around us who seem to have boundless energy, function at high performance levels, and have enthusiastic attitudes. We may wonder how one human can be so healthy while another is always suffering from some sort of ailment. More often than not those of us who live below optimal health are often lacking some basic knowledge or insight. The previous chapters have provided this knowledge. Now that you have been educated about TOX and your body, it is time to figure out the best ways to improve your health.
Simple Basic Principles
Better health comes from some very simple basic principles. Can our basic necessities be aiding OR causing some of our health ailments, including headaches and migraines? Our survival depends on 3 basics:
- AIR
- WATER
- FOOD
- FUNCTION
Clothing and shelter comes next but we are not in shortage of these. Without these basics we cannot survive. But what is today’s environment doing to our health? Let’s look at these from some simple perspectives.
Air Quality
Air Quality continues to be ruined by a very toxic world that we all live in. Pollution, chemicals, auto emissions, ozone depletion, cellular/wireless waves, and electronic transmissions all add to the depletion of oxygen and decrease the quality of the air that we breathe. They are part of TOX. Although you cannot hide from TOX you can take some countermeasures to improve the quality of the AIR that you breathe.
- Use a high quality room air filter/ozonator in your bedroom to clean your air.
- Keep your windows closed at night
- Change your furnace filter at least every other month
- Add healthy plants like Aloe Vera or Lavender in your bedroom
- Turn off or put the cell phones in another room, away from your bedroom
- Use organic cleaning products to clean your home
- Don’t leave your TVs or electronics on when you sleep
- Review the Sleep Apnea chapter and determine if you need to use Nasal Cones or if you require a sleep study. Proper nasal breathing is crucial. Adults require 7 hours or more of “good sleep” each night for optimal health. Sleeping less than 7 hours or achieving “poor sleep” can be detrimental to your well-being. Grinding and clenching your teeth will also cause you to lose sleep. This topic has been covered in detail on our website and Headache Book.
- Do breathing exercises. Deep breath in, expand your stomach area, count to 10, exhale! Repeat this at least 10 times every hour. The deeper the breath, the better. It helps to expand lung volume and oxygenation.
- Buy a good mattress. No mattress under $1500 will provide proper support for your spine.
Water Quality
Water Quality has been ruined by many factors. Tap water is full of TOX. Most water filters can provide enough efficiency to give you clean water to drink. Even a $30 filter can help, although reverse osmosis is your best option. Plastic bottled water is full of phenols and cancer causing chemicals. Stay away from plastic bottled water! Read about Bisphenols, part of TOX.
Food Quality
Food Quality is at an all time low. A leaf of spinach in 1955 had ten times more minerals than it does today. Our food lacks minerals and fulvic acid. It is also full of TOX.
All health improvement starts with quality food and your gut. Besides emotional problems, most illnesses start and end with your food, GI and digestion… as previously discussed. We will address emotions and thoughts later in this book but for right now we must start with practical solutions.
Think of your digestive system as a highway. Cars enter and exit the highway at numerous on/off ramps. These ramps are analogous to your organs. The pancreas, liver, and gallbladder are like entry ramps while the skin, lungs, kidneys, and rectum are like exit ramps. Consider what happens when a crash (TOX) occurs on the highway and causes a large backup. No cars can enter and few can exit the highway. It is the same thing with your digestive system. Give it TOX and you have a vehicle crash. The organs get stuck and they stop functioning normally. The only way to start your way to a healthy body is to clean out the crash and get the highway and ramps working again. Turning to vitamins and other promoted fads is usually a waste of money and time. These end up being similar to more vehicles trying to enter the congested highway. They just add more to the problem and can make you sicker, especially if they are synthetic.
Function
The Health Improvement Program that we recommend to our patients is based on 3 Levels. If you follow the advice at each Level and complete some of these basic requirements you can take a major step upward and improve your overall health.
