Robin Kunkel, is a client of Acupuncture, Chiropractor, Hypnotherapist, and Mother of two. She will be speaking about how Acupuncture helped her, the state of healthcare post-pandemic, and general knowledge of how Hypnotherapy works for some people.
Transcript
00:00:08:08 - 00:00:30:06 Speaker 1 Hey. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the show. A Modern Healers Journey. I'm Tony Bennett. And my guest today is Dr. Carl Valencia. He's a local dentist in the central Florida area. We've become friends outside of just being patient and client. And we're going to chat today a little bit about how we met. And a little bit about his life and experience. 00:00:30:07 - 00:00:31:13 Speaker 1 So welcome, Dr. B. 00:00:31:22 - 00:00:33:10 Speaker 2 Good morning. How are you doing, Tammy? 00:00:33:14 - 00:00:39:18 Speaker 1 I'm good. So it's a beautiful sunny morning and you look fantastic on camera, I have to say. 00:00:39:22 - 00:00:40:15 Speaker 2 Well, thank you. 00:00:41:06 - 00:00:41:21 Speaker 1 You're welcome. 00:00:41:21 - 00:00:43:01 Speaker 2 Now, my first rodeo. 00:00:43:14 - 00:00:58:19 Speaker 1 I get that. So tell me it for for the audience purposes, I'd like them to know a little bit about you and how we met. Just a little bit of information about your life. Your life on Survivor, how you got to acupuncture and a little bit about dentistry. 00:00:58:22 - 00:01:20:10 Speaker 2 Okay. Well, I am a dentist here in central Florida, as you are well aware of. I wanted to be a dentist since I was 14 years old. So I followed that path. I came down here with the military in 1981, served three year residency here at the Naval Training Center Orlando, and opened up my own private practice three years later. 00:01:21:01 - 00:01:45:00 Speaker 2 I've been in the local community now for God 40 something years, and I like to live life pretty full. I became the team dentist for the Orlando Magic, and then I got challenged to apply to Survivor. So I did. Survivor Africa Third Season 2001. I look a lot different 21 years later, my hair is white and gray. So that's part of my journey. 00:01:45:07 - 00:02:08:18 Speaker 2 But how I met Tammy is very interesting because my son was in the 82nd Airborne. And for, you know, for people who don't know what that does, they jump out of planes that go behind enemy lines. And he he got caught in one of the drag lines and he had his shoulder actually dislocated. So as soon as they laid him, they medivaced him, put his shoulder back in and had him jump out again. 00:02:08:18 - 00:02:41:18 Speaker 2 So we qualified. He's been in constant pain since he left the military. Unfortunately, the military at present was just prescribing opiates and drugs and a lot of these vets get addicted to. My son can't take drugs. He doesn't like them. So the military came up with the ingenious idea that acupuncture may work. So they started a division and my son went and Tammy was the provider that was outside of the military acupuncture world because they don't have people to do it in the military, so they have to go to community care. 00:02:42:04 - 00:03:04:11 Speaker 2 And that's how my son found Tammy and he was getting excellent results. Now go forward to me. I had a bicycle accident in 2014. I fractured T8 vertebrae, broke my back. They thought I would be paralyzed. Obviously, I am not. I'm talking to you guys and basically I refuse to have surgery. Surgery is never reversible. I don't care what anybody says. 00:03:04:11 - 00:03:25:06 Speaker 2 What you have surgery. It's irreversible. So I was in a body brace for six months. I ended up selling my dental practice because I couldn't do it full time. And I started working part time because my patients did not like being transferred over to another dentist. The last year, my back started hurting. When I say hurting, it was getting uncomfortable. 00:03:25:06 - 00:03:49:22 Speaker 2 Sitting chair side 2 to 3 four hour procedures and my provider at the V.A. says, Why don't you try acupuncture? I said, Well, I'm going to go to Tammy Bennett. And I got to be honest with you, I was a little skeptical. I saw Tammy and she's got a world of knowledge. I was very impressed. I think she thought I was giving her a test inquisitor, because I don't give a lot of accolades to people because I need common sense. 00:03:50:05 - 00:04:08:08 Speaker 2 And she had more than common sense. She told me, was it a cure all? It wouldn't be a one time fix. So after four visits, my back improved from a pain of 8 to 4 and now, literally, I don't have anything. It's rare when I have pain. So do I believe any acupuncture will tell me to tell you? 00:04:08:08 - 00:04:26:17 Speaker 2 I've been referred my patients to Tammy and most people don't realize that acupuncture acupuncture does benefit you. But don't look for a one quick stop. It may take more than a couple of visits with me. Visit five and I've been flying ever since. And my back is no issues. 00:04:26:18 - 00:04:41:13 Speaker 1 So you you sound like a great commercial for me, and I should probably find a television for that. But I want to go back to that day when you had the bicycle accident. So if I remember correctly, you told me that you were doing a charity, a charity bike event, right? 00:04:41:20 - 00:04:59:23 Speaker 2 Well, one of my best friends has M.S. so every year there's an EMS ride from Miami to Key Largo, 75 miles one way, then 75 miles to back way. I'm a weekend warrior, full time dentist. I do TV, I do radio. I don't have time to train. So I was training on a Sunday and I was riding my bike. 00:04:59:23 - 00:05:19:13 Speaker 2 And I don't remember a thing. I believe that I blew out the tire. I clipped in because, you know, clipped into the pedals. Obviously, I had a helmet on which saved my life. Next thing I know, I remembered nothing. I woke up on the on the bypass, bleeding with the bicycle mangled. And my son, I called my son and he I told him, take me home. 00:05:19:13 - 00:05:37:09 Speaker 2 I need a bath. He took me right to the E.R.. Evidently, I was cursing him out. He said I was in shock. I don't remember. And when they saw me at the E.R., the last thing I remember him telling my wife on my son was Carl could be paralyzed and the morphine kicked in. So they medivac me to our. 00:05:37:21 - 00:05:55:05 Speaker 2 I was there for about three or four days. And I got out of there and I was put in a body brace. They call it a turtle from the neck down to the waist. Could not sleep on my back. Had to sleep in a recliner. They gave me OxyContin and Dilaudid, which I don't take. I took it one day constipated. 00:05:55:06 - 00:06:03:00 Speaker 2 Forget about it. I ain't taken no drugs. I'm not into that. And I just healed naturally. For the next five months, went back to private practice. 00:06:03:12 - 00:06:25:21 Speaker 1 So what's common, what I see commonly with people in the dental world, especially high Genesis, you know, you're lean and over. Yes, constantly. So especially where you had the fracture, which was the thoracic spine. Right. That commonly sends pain throughout the shoulder blades in the area, basically shoulder blades to right before the lower back. That's where you had pain, correct? 00:06:25:21 - 00:06:44:13 Speaker 2 That's correct. Because every after work I would stand up and then my back against the wall. My dental assistant had one of those massages and she would know because I don't complete I have a very high pain threshold. I read the London Marathon with a broken bone in my foot. That's how I got picked on Survivor. So pain, really. 00:06:44:18 - 00:06:58:20 Speaker 2 I can ignore it. But when you're sitting at a dental chair like this with three, 4 hours, the pain would come in. Not enough to totally make me bedridden, but it was annoying. And then I went to you. And the rest is history. I feel great. 00:06:59:01 - 00:07:23:00 Speaker 1 So, just so the audience knows, I did a very basic formulation with you when you came in, when you laid on the table. I can feel the musculature in my back and I can tell what doesn't feel right and what feels right. I've seen over 10,000 patients, so for me it's very intuitive at some point where I can feel where things are wrong and I place the needles accordingly. 00:07:23:00 - 00:07:43:18 Speaker 1 But we also do something called reflex of acupuncture. So you might remember I put something in your elbow. Yep. To work that area. Which seems very counterintuitive. Like, why is in everything in my back, what's going on with my elbow and that really that combination work for you. So I was pleased to see that you had some incredibly good responses, including the body work therapy that was done. 00:07:43:18 - 00:07:53:01 Speaker 1 So I think, you know, when people think about acupuncture, I think they just see that Steven Seagal movie. Do you know the one I'm talking about, where he he does acupuncture on himself? 00:07:53:07 - 00:07:53:17 Speaker 2 Yes. 00:07:53:22 - 00:08:12:15 Speaker 1 Sticks a needle here and he puts the hot thing in. The smoke is coming out. And and I have that on one of my videos on YouTube. And it it doesn't people always don't have the full picture. Like you're you're on the table for about an hour. Yes. And it's not just needles. You know, we do myofascial work. 00:08:12:21 - 00:08:32:15 Speaker 1 I it's called cupping. People have seen it's called fire cupping that works really nicely in compliment with the acupuncture. I also will turn my patient over sometimes and check their pulses or check other parts of the body and do complementary therapies. So it's not just, you know, lay down needles, go in the same spot and you're out the door. 00:08:32:22 - 00:08:54:16 Speaker 2 So interesting, the cupping is also done in massage therapy. Yes, I didn't know that. You know, I didn't know that acupuncture did that because I used to get massages for my back. But it never relieve the pain and the discomfort that I had that acupuncture did. So I stopped doing massages. And you were very accurate when you said you could feel the knot in my back, you could feel the area. 00:08:54:22 - 00:09:00:04 Speaker 2 And like I said, you know, after the visit for God, visit five, it was down to like, what? So. 00:09:00:05 - 00:09:02:00 Speaker 1 So you're back at work now, right? 00:09:02:08 - 00:09:19:08 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm working. Actually, it's funny because I used to only work the mornings two days a week. I'm semi-retired and now I work a full day just Wednesday and everybody laughs. You ever worked a full day in, you know, in six and a half years? And I go my back doesn't hurt. It's easy. They're amazed that I can work a full day. 00:09:19:08 - 00:09:20:20 Speaker 2 Give me a break. Really? Come on. 00:09:21:03 - 00:09:34:08 Speaker 1 Yet. So let me let me go back to something then. You talked about you being nominated to go on Survivor. Yes. So you've got this high threshold of pain. Tell me about that. How does how does that work? I don't. Well, I didn't. I do not have a high tolerance. 00:09:34:08 - 00:09:58:03 Speaker 2 Well, survivor or I went on Survivor in 2001. That's way before my back. My bicycle accident. Survivor was pretty intense. The survivor you see on TV now, I don't even want to make a comment about it. The early survivor, the old school survivor was very difficult. Nothing was fixed. They didn't try to sway you. And I was in Africa for nine weeks and nine days. 00:09:58:03 - 00:10:07:21 Speaker 2 I lost £18. So it was a great adventure. It's opened up a lot of doors for me. So, you know, if I to do it again, I would. But they don't take old people like me anymore. 00:10:08:10 - 00:10:28:14 Speaker 1 I never watched Survivor back in the day. I've seen some newer episodes recently, so tell me about I'm fascinated with the physical requirement. What were you required to do physically? Did you have to get a cardiovascular exam? Did you have to do all kinds of different things? Did you have to take medicine? Did you have to take a malaria shot? 00:10:28:14 - 00:10:29:10 Speaker 1 What what was that? 00:10:29:10 - 00:10:34:08 Speaker 2 Great questions. Great questions. And in my book, a lot of that's going to be here's what happened. 00:10:34:08 - 00:10:35:17 Speaker 1 Let's not forget to plug your book. 00:10:35:19 - 00:10:55:18 Speaker 2 Right. So what happens is when you apply to Survivor, I'm talking about the early days. I can't talk about how they do it now. Once you make the top 50, because they used to take 16 people and four alternates, so they fly 50 people to California. You're sequestered in a hotel for two weeks and you go through a battery of exam, psychological testing. 00:10:56:02 - 00:11:16:11 Speaker 2 They check you out cardiovascular. Now, in 2001, I weigh £226. I like to eat and talk and it show. Yet I ran marathons all during that time and they were amazed that here I'm telling you, in £26, I'm going to go on a physical show like Survivor. I'll explain that. And Mark Battista, you know, you're a little bit tubby. 00:11:16:11 - 00:11:31:16 Speaker 2 I go, excuse me, because you're a Teletubby. How how are you going to do this? And the other producer said, Do you know he just ran the London marathon with a broken bone in his foot? And he goes, Why did you do that? Since I was responsible for ten of the people to complete the marathon, I says, pain's all between your ears. 00:11:32:02 - 00:11:49:18 Speaker 2 So when? So when I got picked, I had no idea. I never watched Survivor before. There's a long story how I got it, but when I got there in Africa, they do challenges. So you have a team and you have your tribe and a second tribe. And there used to be eight of us. Yeah, eight people in a tribe. 00:11:50:00 - 00:12:11:18 Speaker 2 So that's six people. And you have to build this little community and then you have a challenge and it's physical. We had to push this big boulder in a cart down a beach and then climb up a pole. So it's physics challenge and all the challenges are different. Now, could I do it today at 67? Most likely I would even try because it's very grueling. 00:12:12:01 - 00:12:18:16 Speaker 2 So the physical aspect of Survivor, the mental aspect and you get no food was pretty challenging, but it was great. 00:12:18:17 - 00:12:20:09 Speaker 1 Wait a minute. You don't get to eat? 00:12:20:21 - 00:12:33:21 Speaker 2 No, not really. You you have to figure out how to eat. Now, in the early stages, they gave us about maybe 20 cans, unmarked food. And you had no idea what was in the can and you got eight pizzas. 00:12:33:21 - 00:12:36:18 Speaker 1 Could be spam, it could be beans, it could be corn, it could be anything. 00:12:36:19 - 00:12:56:06 Speaker 2 It was exactly that. We had corn in one. We had cherries in another one, green beans. And then they give you what's called maize, AZT, which is like grits or cornmeal, absolutely disgusting. That's supposed to sustain you. But as you go further in the game, they have challenges where you could win food. I never made it that far. 00:12:56:06 - 00:12:59:11 Speaker 2 I missed the question and that's how I got God from the game. 00:12:59:17 - 00:13:01:08 Speaker 1 What was the question? 00:13:01:08 - 00:13:11:00 Speaker 2 It was a medical question of all things. If you pour hot water on a tick, will it cause the tick to retract? 00:13:11:00 - 00:13:13:01 Speaker 1 I'm going to guess. No. 00:13:13:16 - 00:13:35:12 Speaker 2 That's what I guess that's what the medical director does and everybody on his set. The answer is yes. It's hot, it's heat. It causes that. Now, the only reason why the person I was going against got it right is she had a tick in her buttocks that morning and they poured hot water on it. But I was out getting water, so I never saw that encounter. 00:13:35:22 - 00:13:36:19 Speaker 1 Okay. Okay. 00:13:36:19 - 00:13:52:10 Speaker 2 So I missed the question and my friends were very upset because I knew all the answers. I was brain dead. I don't get nervous, as you already know, to having nerves at that point. But when you don't have food for nine days, my brain was not functioning the way it should have functioned. 00:13:52:11 - 00:14:07:11 Speaker 1 When I when I get loopy is if I don't have enough protein in the diet like a slice of turkey. Right. Or some chicken or something gets me back in action. I haven't eaten or something's going on where I'm for a stretch of time. It sounds like what you guys had was mostly carb. 00:14:08:00 - 00:14:27:04 Speaker 2 That's all you had. You really it's a very physically, mentally challenging game. It's the best social experiments on television. The issue is it's changing. You know, like everything else is changing in this world. So people will ask me, Oh, how do you like to do Survivor? I don't. I like the old Survivor. Yeah. So now they call it Old School Survivor. 00:14:27:05 - 00:14:45:09 Speaker 2 New School Survivor. But it was a phenomenal experience. I was very blessed to get picked on. The funny thing is, when I did my video, I went home and told my wife I applied to survive and she goes, You did what? I says, It's Debbie. I apply to you, you know, pack your bags. They're picking you. I go to get 70,000 applications. 00:14:45:14 - 00:14:50:18 Speaker 2 They're going to pick the 46 year old overweight dentist. I don't think so. I now listen to my wife. 00:14:51:21 - 00:15:14:06 Speaker 1 I'll bet you do. So we know a little bit about your background, a little bit about your pain threshold. Tell me about dentistry. There are a lot of things. So this channel supports all things related to knowledge, okay? And well-being, spiritual, physical, mental. So I believe when you and I first met, I said, Hey, Dr. B, I got a quick question for you. 00:15:14:12 - 00:15:32:19 Speaker 1 I would like to do some more teeth whitening, but a dentist told me years ago it would make my teeth sensitive where I had braces before I was going to have some weird discoloration. And you said, hey, don't go through some of the crazy stuff out there. There's a lot of fad stuff. Just do some simple baking soda and some hydrogen peroxide. 00:15:32:19 - 00:15:49:18 Speaker 1 3%, mix it up like a paste. Use it liberally if you want to. It's not going to degrade your teeth. So can you give me a couple of things, ideas for the viewers out there about myths and facts about dentistry, just so we can get a little bit of info from your brain? 00:15:50:02 - 00:16:14:16 Speaker 2 Yes. When whitening first came about, they had this great idea if they used bleach, they could bleach the tooth and it would make the teeth white. And it did. Unfortunately, bleach kills the tooth. So what happened is they were using a hot light, using a bleach liquid, and these patients were getting sensitive teeth. And then later on they were getting what we call external resorption. 00:16:14:16 - 00:16:41:22 Speaker 2 The root started shrinking on your teeth. So obviously that wasn't a good treatment modality. They knew we've been using hydrogen peroxide for years and peroxide is just anything with two atoms. And if you take hydrogen and you put it with peroxide, you get hydrogen peroxide. That's what it is. And the difference between hydrogen peroxide and the one that I recommend is coralline peroxide is that hydrogen peroxide in your case will work real fast. 00:16:41:22 - 00:17:03:09 Speaker 2 Now, when you're whitening teeth, they still use the term bleach. It's really not bleach. But you got two kinds of stains in teeth. You have intrinsic, which is when you see people that have really dark, funky looking colored teeth, that's usually due to antibiotic therapy when their mother was pregnant. And it stains that we don't use tetracycline anymore for pregnant women. 00:17:03:19 - 00:17:34:09 Speaker 2 And then you have an extrinsic staining tobacco, coffee, wine that usually can get take it off. Pretty simple with what I told you, hydrogen peroxide. But I like carbon. My peroxide. I don't know if you could buy it over the counter. I'm not sure. But that's what we use in a lot of our whitening materials and dentistry. And I tell patients the difference is it provides better results, meaning that hydrogen peroxide, when you use it with baking soda, may last 30 to 60 Minutes carbon. 00:17:34:09 - 00:18:00:14 Speaker 2 My peroxide last. At least 50% of the effect is in the beginning, but it can last up to 6 hours, so you get a better result. Now, sensitivity 80. Some people have minor sensitivity and you can assess that before you even start whitening. If your teeth are sensitive to cold or sensitive to ice cream or which is cold or even air, you might be a little sensitive to the carbon, my peroxide or the hydrogen. 00:18:00:20 - 00:18:16:23 Speaker 2 They're not going to hurt your teeth. There's nothing they could hurt your teeth, but it's uncomfortable. So what we do is we make trays that we put, like the fluoride solution in the tray, and you can wear that, you know, for an hour, a couple of times a week and then try the whitening. And I've had great results. 00:18:17:15 - 00:18:39:05 Speaker 2 What you want to avoid is if somebody wants to put a hot lamp on your teeth and you're putting a bleaching solution. Now, we do use a UV light when we're using carbonized peroxide, which is a gel that we apply in the teeth. Suppose only the heat allows it to get in the teeth better and you get what they call a bleaching effect. 00:18:39:05 - 00:18:57:19 Speaker 2 And that's why they keep using the misnomer bleaching. But you got to be careful. There's a lot of scams out there. You see on TV. Oh, look, you just take these little pellets and you put them on your teeth and it's a little brush. I've had no results like that and I've told my patients I only recommend things that I would do to myself. 00:18:58:02 - 00:19:20:12 Speaker 2 I've done all these whitening to myself. I've done what I told you first to test it out. Then I did the carbon, my peroxide, it that works. You can get all this stuff over the counter now I like to 35% carbon my peroxide reason why it's stronger that's what is dentist shoes but if you can handle that the range is 3 to 35%. 00:19:20:19 - 00:19:30:14 Speaker 2 So some patients like to start off at 20. They're not going to get the same effect that 35. But if they can tolerate 20, then you just move up the ladder and you're not crazy money. 00:19:31:01 - 00:19:32:10 Speaker 1 And they can slowly work up. 00:19:32:16 - 00:19:50:15 Speaker 2 Yes, I've only had a handful of patients. I had to do that. Most of the patients I started right off 35%. But you got to remember, I'm asking them their health history. Did you have braces all time? Braces had brackets and it declassified the teeth so you could have sensitivity if they say yes. And I asked them the questions. 00:19:50:15 - 00:20:14:07 Speaker 2 They said early sensitive to cold. So to there they say, yes. I go, okay, here's what we're going to start first. Some patients are not compliant, as you know, Tammy, because I referred somebody to you that was a compliant. And the problem with noncompliance is that they're disappointed. And I tell patients, you have to be compliant. If you're not going to do that, then you could do a one visit in the office where we can do the in office whitening. 00:20:14:12 - 00:20:33:07 Speaker 2 What's the difference? We use it 35% on a gel with a light and it's going to cost you between six and $800 some places 1000 to me by the over the counter stuff. Try it first. You're not going to be out of pocket. Hundreds of dollars. And that's what I tell my patients all the time. And it works. 00:20:33:15 - 00:20:55:20 Speaker 1 So we're going to wrap up in a few minutes. But I also wanted to talk about a hot topic that maybe you and I could get together on this time, which is Mercury. A lot of clients that come to see me are very holistic minded and I've been in practice for over 25 years. That gives me and you've been in practice for a long time and you've seen the holistic thing come and go in waves. 00:20:55:20 - 00:21:13:18 Speaker 1 You know, it's it's real hot, it's real low, it's real hot. It's so with it. With regards to Mercury, where does it stand now with mercury toxicity, removal of fillings and what materials are used now for people with mercury in their mouth that needs to come out if they truly are, in fact, toxic? 00:21:13:22 - 00:21:29:07 Speaker 2 Great questions. In 1985, you're going to hear a story now. A patient came and interviewed me. If he wanted me to be his dentist, I had no idea I was being interviewed. You know, I was only in practice for years. He told me he had 12 silver fillings in his mouth. He was approximately a couple of years older than me. 00:21:29:07 - 00:21:46:05 Speaker 2 So was he was born in the in the fifties. He was from Chicago. So the Midwest in the Northeast used to use a lot of amalgam. And I asked him why he wanted the silver fillings out and he said they were causing medical issues. And he said a sty in his eye, balding in his head, ringing in his ear. 00:21:46:14 - 00:22:07:23 Speaker 2 And of course, I listen to what every patient says. I don't discount anything I said, Well, let's take a full set of X-rays and see if these fillings got decay. Nothing. Everything was perfect. The guy didn't have a decay in his mouth. So I said, Well, there's really no ethical reason to remove the amalgams, but if you want them a remove, I will only replace them with one material. 00:22:07:23 - 00:22:27:08 Speaker 2 And he goes, What is that? I go, Gold. He looked at me, he goes, Right, answer. I go, What? He goes, I don't want those plastic fillings. I forgot this guy was the top engineer for Lockheed Martin. We're friends today for over 30 years. He's a genius. He's he researches everything. I love the guy because he's that intelligent. 00:22:27:08 - 00:22:48:07 Speaker 2 He's actually helped me devise a dental instrument. So the bottom line is we took I said, if you really think you're being poisoned with mercury toxicity, entertain, let's get you to a hematologist, an endocrinologist. Let's do a whole blood smack profile before I remove everything. And let's follow up. For over two years. So we'll have a two year study. 00:22:48:11 - 00:23:11:22 Speaker 2 I'll become famous. I've found that Mercury is killing people. Well, poisoning? Well, guess what? We took out all the fillings, put in all the gold. He claims the state. As I went away, he still bald and the ringing in of his ears would have weight. I'll touch the ring. I also found that he was going through a terrible divorce at the time, so I don't know if that added to what he thought was Mercury, but he said he felt better. 00:23:13:01 - 00:23:34:16 Speaker 2 I did that one in 1986. So you talk at 14, 36 years later, I only had to replace one of the gold restorations. I put it in his mouth. What did I replace it with? He didn't want gold anymore because it now we need a full coverage. So we have porcelains that are completely biocompatible. So I put porcelain and so that leads me to my beliefs. 00:23:35:00 - 00:23:53:01 Speaker 2 Some dentist will argue with me. That's fine. I only do two patients. What I would do to my own mouth, period. Right or wrong, that's how I work. So why don't I like the white fillings that are plastic? Well, think about it. Get plastic. You're putting them in the back molars or your back teeth when you're chewing. That's a lot of force on plastic. 00:23:53:07 - 00:24:15:19 Speaker 2 Does it leak? There's a breakdown. I've seen it for 30 years. Break down. Do you get recurrent decay? You need root canals. Now, there was a machine developed called a serac where we could mill porcelain in the office and then bonded to the tooth and it makes the tooth stronger. I was one of the first dentists in Orlando area in 2000 that bought the machine. 00:24:15:19 - 00:24:39:12 Speaker 2 I used the machine up until I broke my back in 2014. The learning curve was pretty hard, but I got it. Mastered the problem with it is cost. It's going to cost almost the same fee as a crab, but it's a one visit. It's a one shot deal. I can honestly say I have I don't know how many patients still have the correct porcelain in their mouth and they've had no issues. 00:24:39:12 - 00:24:51:20 Speaker 2 I can't say that about plastic. So now as far as mercury toxicity, when we did this study a year later and two years later, his blood work never changed. The fact that I actually. 00:24:51:21 - 00:24:55:16 Speaker 1 Am not saying that there's not mercury toxicity. No, he wasn't. 00:24:55:20 - 00:25:18:05 Speaker 2 What I was going to say, though, is that I have seen in my 43 years of practice that patients get ringing in the ears tonight. It's and usually if they have a lot of big large amalgams and I remove them and put porcelain in just what happens to the ringing in ears now? Is it coincidence? I've been doing this for 43 years. 00:25:18:19 - 00:25:40:02 Speaker 2 I learn something new every single day. I don't know everything I've not got. But what a patient says, Hey, I don't have ringing in my ears anymore. And I go, But we remove those big amalgams. See the old amalgams. What a lot of people don't realize the old amalgams, the dentist used to mix the mercury by hand. And remember, Mercury's a liquid and then you have a powder of silver, tin and copper. 00:25:40:08 - 00:26:05:08 Speaker 2 And that's why it's called an amalgam. It's a combination of those metals. Right. Well, remember, I don't know if you are you're young going to be the dental assistant. Sometimes we drop the mercury on the floor and you see the ball roll. We don't do that technique anymore. That is obsolete now. It's all pre caps, elated. There's less mercury in the filling, but I don't say that you cannot have mercury sensitivity or toxicity in an amalgam. 00:26:05:08 - 00:26:24:06 Speaker 2 Pure mercury. Absolutely. So I tell patients all the time, if you want white plastic fillings, I'm not putting them in. I will put golden, I'll put porcelain in. And if they can't afford that, they can elect to do what they want. Because it's just my belief that I have fillings in my mouth that will replace with amalgams. 00:26:24:22 - 00:26:26:23 Speaker 1 And so from amalgam to amalgam. 00:26:27:10 - 00:26:45:09 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah, I did amalgam to amalgam or amalgam to gold. It depends how big the selling was. If it was a small enough filling we did about my daughter who's got a perfect smile because she had no choice, because she was my daughter and I made or get braces and do everything else. This happened last year. She got a small cavity. 00:26:45:17 - 00:27:05:19 Speaker 2 She comes to my office. All right, Dad, I want a porcelain filling. I says it's too small. I don't have the machine anymore. And we don't do that here in the office. That's what I want. Well, then go to another dentist. She goes, What? I says, So I put an amalgam filling in her very small. She's upset about it, but she's had no effects. 00:27:05:19 - 00:27:30:21 Speaker 2 Again, when you have metal in your mouth and you're chewing and pounding, boom, boom, boom, what's going to hold up the metal, the porcelain or the plastic? It's going to be the porcelain. And the metal in the metal is going to hold up. So that's my whole take on the mercury situation. There's a lot of people and you know, this family, they used to go to the mall and they would take a hair sample, oh, you got hyperbola. 00:27:30:21 - 00:27:36:02 Speaker 2 Give me a break. You go out in the environment, you get high mercury content, right? 00:27:37:01 - 00:27:55:15 Speaker 1 I don't know. You don't me. I have yet to test that out. We used to use hair testing back in the day in my old clinic, had a big clinic in Rockwood and I used to use the hair testing and not everybody came back with toxicity and not everybody had levels that were warranting any attention. So it ran the gamut. 00:27:55:23 - 00:27:57:08 Speaker 2 But I read the gamut. 00:27:57:08 - 00:27:59:23 Speaker 1 That stuff is I'm going to investigate it though, right? 00:27:59:23 - 00:28:19:18 Speaker 2 But you shouldn't use that as a tool, as an end goal. And that's what a lot of it was being sold to the public. Oh, my God. I just found your hair. These people had no symptoms, you know what I mean? So I'd rather run a full smack of test bloodwork, endocrinology, and then you get basically you have a baseline and you can just sort of. 00:28:19:18 - 00:28:37:21 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I'm not opposed to putting amalgam, but I explain this exactly as I'm telling you. The patients, I tell my patients, here's what I can do. You decide what you want. I don't sell anything. I let you, I educate you. I tell all my patients, my greatest asset is show and tell. I'm going to show you. 00:28:38:02 - 00:28:43:17 Speaker 2 I'm going to tell you. I'm going to put it on a screen and then you make the decision after I armed you with enough information. 00:28:44:01 - 00:28:56:10 Speaker 1 So we're going to wrap up in the next two or 3 minutes. And I wanted to talk about your book. It's not related to health care, but maybe we could give you a shameless plug on what's going on behind the scenes in your world. Beyond dentistry. 00:28:56:19 - 00:29:17:21 Speaker 2 My world is insane. If they were to follow me with a camcorder, I would be funnier than Curb Your Enthusiasm in Seinfeld. I've lived a very rich life in March 12th of this year, I got a phone call that I had a half sister. What does that mean? Well, my father unfortunately had an affair, a one night stand, had a kid, blah, blah, blah. 00:29:17:21 - 00:29:38:02 Speaker 2 None of us knew about it. And I found out about this. I was in shock. I left home when I was 18 years old to pursue dental school in college. So I left New York find out that my father was part of the Genovese family, other members of the family, part of Gambino. I found all this out at 66 years old. 00:29:38:02 - 00:29:53:08 Speaker 2 So I decided and my friends go, Well, how did you turn out the way you did? And I go, Well, that's going to give me an idea to write a book. They go Anyway, I go, It doesn't make a difference where you come from. Does it make a difference who your parents are? Look at Ben Carson, who's a neurosurgeon. 00:29:53:08 - 00:30:11:02 Speaker 2 I love the guy. You know, his mother was, you know, on welfare. You have to have the mindset to be strong and decide where you want to go and how you want to do it. You got to get passionate. And I lectured. It's sometimes the high school kids, so my book is really not going to be slamming all the stuff that I just found out. 00:30:11:02 - 00:30:22:23 Speaker 2 It's going to be my memoir, How I Went from living in the Goodfellas area now living in Florida. You know, I'm a very successful dentist. I've been on TV. How did I do all of that with the background? I had. 00:30:23:07 - 00:30:24:09 Speaker 1 Witness protection. 00:30:24:20 - 00:30:47:17 Speaker 2 Hey, why witness protection? That's what I tell everybody. When they ask me what I do, I go, I'm in the witness protection program. My wife cringes when I say that. But the book is called My Rise from the Wiseguys, and it's basically going to be a really good motivational book. We've had a lot of excitement from some of the people I sent you to chapters last night. 00:30:47:23 - 00:30:50:11 Speaker 1 You're oh, it must be in my email inbox right. 00:30:51:00 - 00:31:13:12 Speaker 2 There in your email. Okay. Just to give you a little tease, because we're really not supposed to do that. I have a coauthor. His name is Troy Seuss. He's written ten best selling fiction books on the New York Times bestseller. He was a patient of mine for years. He retired the same time I did. June 1st, we were supposed to coauthored a book called My Stories Behind the Shutter, because they have lots of stories and lots of photographs. 00:31:13:21 - 00:31:32:14 Speaker 2 But when this came up, I says, Troy, sit down. We're changing the book we're writing. We'll write the second book later. So we're halfway done with the book and we're excited. And everybody who reads it is excited me. It's my life. So I want feedback, negative or positive. I don't care. I want to know how people are perceiving the book. 00:31:32:14 - 00:31:46:17 Speaker 2 And so far it's been overwhelmingly humble and everybody's excited and they want to know what I'm having a book signing thing. I said, Well, would you book riches? So that's where my rise from the wise guys coauthored with my buddy Tracy was fantastic. 00:31:46:17 - 00:31:56:20 Speaker 1 I really appreciate your time this Saturday morning. We'll wrap it up. I think you'll be a regular guest coming on the show. We'll talk about all kinds of interesting things and I really, really appreciate it. Dr.. 00:31:56:20 - 00:32:17:00 Speaker 2 Be what I appreciate the fact that, you know, when you hear acupuncture, people go, oh, is she Asian? It says, Oh, actually the brilliant young woman that knows her stuff, she's not a conspiracy theorist nut. She researches everything and I'm living proof that my back doesn't hurt and I had to go back to work so they will. 00:32:17:07 - 00:32:18:21 Speaker 1 Take care of. Dr.. Thank you. 00:32:18:23 - 00:32:27:10 Speaker 2 You're welcome.
