What Your Dentist Doesn't Tell You With Heather Paul
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
Cathy:Welcome to Late Boomers, our podcast guide to creating your third act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy Worthington.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference in the world.
Cathy:Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started. Hello there. I'm Kathy Worthington. Welcome to our latest episode of late boomers.
Cathy:I'm here with my cohost, Mary Elkins, and we want you to meet our unconventional special guest, dental hygienist and entrepreneur, Heather Paul, who has important news for boomers and all of us about the hidden dangers in traditional dentistry.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Besides being a certified biological dental hygienist, she's an orofacial myofunctional therapist, author, speaker, and also founder of Simply Silver Mouthwash. Early in her career, Heather questioned what we were taught about our oral health and discovered the connection between it and whole body wellness. We're looking forward to hearing all about what she has to say. Welcome, Heather.
Heather Paul:Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Merry:Great to have Tell
Cathy:us Heather about your background and how you came to question traditional dentistry.
Heather Paul:Well, is definitely a loaded gun question
Merry:there. Uh-huh.
Cathy:It's a big one.
Heather Paul:It is. It's really a big one. I had twin girls in 02/2002. It was a very, very difficult pregnancy. I didn't even know I was having twins actually till eighteen weeks.
Heather Paul:So surprise, surprise.
Merry:Yeah.
Cathy:And then
Heather Paul:one of my little girls, she was born, they were born at thirty three weeks. So they were premature, very low birth weight. And one of my little girls had a lot of health issues. She was just constantly sick and it was really frustrating trying to figure out, you know, what the root cause was for her. Turns out she had like 30 or 25 different food allergies, just sensitive.
Heather Paul:So I really had to learn how to read a label. She was allergic to everything. We're talking white flour, sugar, tomatoes, turkey, soy. So I basically really had to understand, you know, the ingredients in our food. And it was really shocking actually what they're allowed to put into our food, but that didn't actually transcend into looking into oral care products until 02/2010 when I thought, you know, I've never really delved into what the ingredients are in oral care products.
Heather Paul:I was a good hygienist. I did exactly what I was taught in school, and that is to promote fluoride. Isn't it wonderful? Everybody needs it. Conventional dentistry, you know, is the only branch of medicine that keeps anything dead inside the body and that's fruit canals.
Heather Paul:But you know, that's what we're taught in school. But when you really are on a health journey, you start questioning everything and looking into the science and the ingredients. I I was absolutely shocked to find out that your companies are allowed to put these awful chemicals in your oral care products because it falls into the category of cosmetics. Whatever
Cathy:you see Except we're all swallowing it.
Heather Paul:It gets into your blood supply because your mouth is the most vascular part of your whole body. So start looking at say Listerine, I call it cancer in a bottle because when you see what's in it and you're absorbing that, by the way, Listerine was originally created to be a floor cleaner. Mister Really? Yeah. Lister was the the gentleman that created it.
Heather Paul:He rebranded it into mouthwash, and it was because of gonorrhea and everything back in the day. They thought, you know, hey. Let's use some floor cleaner. That'll surely clean your mouth up. But that's how it was originally.
Heather Paul:It was originally formulated as floor cleaner. So it just goes to show you the power of marketing. But it's extremely acidic to your mouth. And then the ingredients in there contain things like polyoxamer four zero seven, which is an endocrine disruptor, sodium saccharin, which is a known carcinogen, and of course dyes that are banned in other countries but allowed here. You know?
Heather Paul:So you're sticking all of these things into your mouth, and please tell me how that's gonna make you healthy because your
Cathy:mouth tried to clean a floor with
Heather Paul:it? Actually, it does
Cathy:have because maybe it's a really good floor cleaner. It might be. Maybe if people have it in their cabinets, they can just use it
Heather Paul:for Right.
Merry:Or maybe even a toilet cleaner.
Heather Paul:It it can clean sinks pretty well because the 27% alcohol, you know, kinda shines the sink up a little.
Merry:But you don't need to
Heather Paul:be using acid because it really has a 4.2. And if your saliva drops below a 5.5, that's how you can get a cavity. So you're swishing with acid, you're disrupting your oral microbiome. You know, it's all of these things that when you just look at the ingredients, you're like, why do I need this? You don't.
Heather Paul:And, you know, you're But
Cathy:you were a hygienist originally. So how did you how did you find this out? You were already a hygienist when you found this?
Heather Paul:Yeah. So I just just started looking more into the ingredients and then also what happened in 2010 is my husband had gotten a root canal in 02/2001 on the lower right side, it's tooth number 30. And then also what happened in 2010 is he would get this huge swollen gland right here. I mean, would just blow up like a golf ball and it just kept kind of coming and going and never really going away. And you know how you get like a gut feeling And I'm like, something has to be going on on the right side of his mouth.
Heather Paul:So we took a dental x-ray, nothing showed up on the x-ray. But then as I started researching, root canals, Pandora's box opened up for me about understanding your teeth are organs, they're living, they have a blood supply, they have a nerve. So when you get a root canal, you know, you have that removed to become something dead in your body. So what had happened is he was having a reaction to the dead tooth in his mouth. When we went to a biological dentist and they did a cone beam, you could actually see the infection down into the bone that does not show up on a regular dental X-ray, by the way.
Heather Paul:So we had to have it removed by a biological dentist. It was so infected in there. They sent him to get an IV right away. And you know what? It never blew up again, that's that gland.
Heather Paul:So that really just this 2010, I was like delving into ingredients and root canals. Just totally
Cathy:I can see why. Doctor.
Heather Paul:Yeah, but it didn't do very well for my career. Ended up getting fired two times because I root canals, I talked about the dangers of fluoride, and that does not go over very well in today.
Merry:That's what I'd like to ask you all about, you know, why are root canals and mercury fillings and fluoride, why are they bad for your health? And also I had a couple of other questions. First of all, what about hydrogen peroxide? Because a lot of dentists tell you to gargle with hydrogen peroxide in water.
Heather Paul:That that's an excellent question, Mary. So if you have any mercury fillings, which if you have a silver filling, it's 52% mercury by weight. So if you have a mercury filling in your mouth and you put hydrogen peroxide in your mouth, it actually leaches that mercury into your bloodstream. So no hydrogen peroxide for anyone that has mercury fillings in their mouth. The second thing is it's a broad spectrum antibiotic.
Heather Paul:And what I wanted people to know is that your mouth is a mini immune system. It has an oral microbiome of over 800 different bacteria, both good and bad. So we don't wanna wipe out your immune system. We wanna bring balance to it. And that's why pH is important, not using anything alcohol based or anything that's gonna disrupt your oral microbiome, which by the way, fluoride disrupts your oral microbiome.
Heather Paul:So you're constantly using like antiseptic in an area where you need to be having good bacteria flourish. This is your first line of defense. Right? How how we get viruses is through our our mucous membranes, our eyes, nose, and mouth. So you don't want to be using broad spectrum antibiotics and wiping out all of your good flora.
Heather Paul:So, you know, it is a way to naturally whiten your teeth. So if you're going to use hydrogen peroxide, it would only be for a very, very short period of time for a very specific purpose if you're wanting to whiten your teeth or something, but definitely not for everyday use. Way way too damaging.
Cathy:I have frequently used it for sore throats. It really, really works on a sore throat. It'll wipe one out in the day. You know, if you think you're coming down with something, it just gets rid of all the stuff in your throat, which shows you how strong it is.
Heather Paul:It's very,
Cathy:strong. Use it for my teeth, but, like, if I'm getting sick, I use it.
Merry:But of course, that's affecting
Cathy:the teeth.
Merry:I've been gargling with that and equal amounts of water every day, so perhaps I should stop.
Heather Paul:I wouldn't. Plus it also can damage your odontoblasts, which are the cells inside your teeth.
Merry:That I don't wanna do.
Heather Paul:Not a proponent of hydrogen per peroxide.
Merry:Well, what tell us a little bit why I don't think a lot of people connect oral health Yeah. With body wellness. Can you talk about that? And and without if something happens to your mouth, then what happens to your body?
Heather Paul:That yes. This is such a great topic. I think people compartmentalize the mouth mouth from the rest of their body, but there's no vent at your body. So whatever gets into your mouth is going into your bloodstream and everything is connected. Like I said earlier, your teeth are organs, they're linked to other organs.
Heather Paul:People usually tend to fall into a category of either cavity prone or gum disease prone. Sometimes people fall into both categories. I feel very bad for those people, but usually it's one or the other. So we're dealing with trying to find the root cause of what is creating that problem. So someone that is very cavity prone, I would say evaluate the airway because if you're breathing through your mouth and you have a dry mouth, dry mouth is the number one cause of cavities.
Heather Paul:So we need to evaluate the airway. We need obviously, you're susceptible to streptococcus mutans, which is the bacteria that causes cavities, so we need to get them on something that kills that naturally, which colloidal silver does. All of my products contain colloidal silver. But we need to find out what pH you're at. If your if your diet is ultra processed and you're eating nothing but junk food and you're drinking soda Like
Merry:most people in in America.
Heather Paul:Well, exactly. Your pH
Cathy:Speak for yourself.
Merry:No. Mine aren't. I eat salads.
Cathy:I know what you eat. I'm just teasing you. I'm just teasing you.
Heather Paul:Eat a very acidic diet, and then
Merry:their body
Heather Paul:is constantly in a state of acidity. So if your saliva is dropping below that 5.5 crucial pH level, you're gonna get cavities. So we need to get to the root cause. In my book, Dentistry Made Easy, I have chapters on all of this stuff. If you're gum disease prone, that means you could have an underlying bacterial infection.
Heather Paul:So we screen, we actually sample areas in the mouth and send it to a lab. And then the lab tells us out of the 11 bacteria, they have one, they have two, they have all 11. I don't know. Get them on the right antibiotics, treat the root cause. So it's all about getting to the root cause.
Heather Paul:That's what I love about biological and holistic dentistry. It's not just looking at the mouth because if you have a disease in your mouth, I don't care how much you exercise and how clean you eat. If you have a disease in your mouth, you have systemic disease. And a hundred million Americans don't go to the dentist every year nor do they brush their teeth twice a day. That's a huge statistic.
Heather Paul:So we've got this major chasm between oral health and systemic health. One doesn't affect the other, but your whole body's connected. I mean, if you have, you know, your teeth have meridian points. So a lot of times this gets overlooked. Someone that has cancer, say in their colon needs to look at, say, I think it's tooth number seven that's directly linked to the colon.
Heather Paul:Someone that has a heart shape.
Merry:Really? Which teeth can you point out for our YouTube people which teeth you're talking No,
Heather Paul:actually need to look at a meridian chart and tooth number seven is let's see, it's this one here.
Merry:This one here? On the
Cathy:On the top.
Merry:Not the second one, but this one here.
Cathy:Not Top on the right.
Heather Paul:Uh-huh. Yeah. So that would be like tooth number seven. So there is a meridian chart that people can go look at and see, hey, you know what? I've been struggling with GI issues.
Heather Paul:What is the tooth number that this is connected to? And start putting that together. And honestly, mainstream dentistry just does not do this, which is so frustrating because again, we're not looking at a key piece of our health and everything is, you know, really relating to what's going on inside here that's going to affect the rest
Merry:of What about, I know especially for older people, there's a connection I understand between oral health and your healthy heart.
Heather Paul:Doctor. And Alzheimer's too. So the 11 bugs that I said cause periodontal disease, oh, I think I actually have a test. I don't know if I have it handy or not, but it actually shows the markers for pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, heart attack, strokes, diabetes from that bacteria. So it's a fantastic screening tool.
Heather Paul:So there's two bugs specifically, and forgive me, their their names are like crazy. So I'm gonna call one the AA and the other one the PG. Those two bugs, if you have one of those two bugs, they are extremely virulent and difficult to get rid of. But that PG bacteria, that if you've got that one, that's also linked to pancreatic cancer and Alzheimer's. Don't you want to know if you've got that marker?
Heather Paul:I know I do. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great way to
Cathy:Especially if there's a way to wipe it out.
Heather Paul:Absolutely. In colorectal cancer, if you have the FN bacteria over that threshold, you are colorectal cancer. So that's why I'm saying the mouth is where we need to be starting instead of, you know, not going to the dentist. Yeah. Letting insurance dictate what you get done or what you don't get done.
Heather Paul:We really need to change our thinking in, you know what? This is so important. I really need to be paying more attention. I need to be having good home care, brushing twice a day with an electric toothbrush. I need to be flossing the teeth I wanna keep.
Heather Paul:You know, you need to go to the dentist. Finding a provider that's also on board with the holistic side of things is is also very important because mainstream dentistry just isn't gonna do it.
Merry:Well, how many providers are there?
Cathy:Oh. Yeah. I was gonna say there can't be very many. There even might Proportionately. Proportionately.
Heather Paul:In California, probably you guys have more, I would imagine, more holistic.
Merry:They don't teach it in school though.
Heather Paul:It's separate learning like my certified biological dental hygienist thing that was additional hours or a facial myofunctional therapist additional hours. This is not taught in dental or dental hygiene school. Again, if we're not getting to that root cause, we're really not able to help people. I was so tired of seeing the same patients struggle with the same thing over and over and over again, despite the fact that they were brushing, despite the fact they were flossing. Clearly there was something else going on inside their body that was not being addressed.
Heather Paul:That's why I wrote the book, Dentistry Made Easy. I want people to be able to find out what that root cause is for them so they don't have to keep struggling because I know people hate going to the dentist. So I want to help them be their own advocate and make smarter choices so that it's overwhelming for them when they go.
Cathy:Can you please tell us what what an oral microbiome is? And what our dentist isn't telling us about gum disease, bad breath, and the oral microbiome.
Heather Paul:So that oral microbiome, like I mentioned earlier, is your mini immune system, and it can be easily disrupted. So what we wanna do is we wanna keep it balanced. We want to avoid things that contain alcohol because alcohol like Listerine is 27% alcohol that's going to disrupt that.
Merry:So are talking about drinking alcohol or basically a Listerine type of product?
Heather Paul:Listerine, anything with alcohol swishing with that in your mouth. I am a proponent of wine. I mean, hello. We we need to have some.
Cathy:Yeah. And let the record show she's got a glass of wine, but she's on the East Coast, and we're taping this very late in the day. She's done with she's done with work. But tell us, go back to the microbiome. Oh, we
Heather Paul:usually wanna use products that are promoting oral health and not disrupting that delicate balance. And I am a big proponent of coconut oil. I love coconut oil.
Cathy:Oh, yeah.
Heather Paul:Silver. So In your mouth? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So my my toothpaste actually is the only one on the market that is both oil full and the toothpaste.
Heather Paul:Cause the number one ingredient is coconut oil. So you only need a little bit. You can squeeze a little bit in your mouth, melt it and kind of pull it through. You do need about fifteen minutes to get a really good, you know, working up the the bacteria and you wanna spit that out. You don't wanna swallow anything that you swish in your mouth for more than thirty seconds.
Heather Paul:Definitely spit that out. But coconut oil is great. It's a natural anti inflammatory. It help helps to whiten teeth that, you know, really it has great healthy properties to it. And quigoidal silver is another one that does not disrupt the oral microbiome.
Heather Paul:It kills And
Cathy:where does that come from?
Heather Paul:Quigoidal silver? Well, I have a generator that generates it and it's from 99.9% silver plates and it's like ionized through this whole frequency kind of thing and it pulls the ions out and creates ionized silver that is naturally antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, antiparasitic. But it like I said, it kills the bad bugs and not the good. So it's a beautiful medium for a mouthwash as it it's not gonna disrupt anything. And plus, I have a bunch of other ingredients in there because, you know, I'm in the trenches, right?
Heather Paul:Every day.
Merry:In the mouth.
Heather Paul:I know what works and what doesn't work. And and it's exciting to see somebody that actually listens and to see the change in their health because I mean, I have found this one gentleman I had been working on him for a couple of years and something was just totally wrong with him and he was bleeding profuse, just unnatural bleeding. And I told him, I said, you need to go get some blood work. And he came back to me the next time and thanked me for saving his life because he had a blood cancer that didn't catch.
Merry:And it came through his mouth. Amazing. Yeah. So are you saying that if we use if say we're we're using your product, but say we just wanna brush our teeth with coconut oil. Is that what you're saying is that that would work too?
Heather Paul:Yeah. You can. You you certainly can. But I like baking soda. I like other minerals.
Heather Paul:You know, you wanna have that clean feeling. And if you just brush with the oil, it doesn't necessarily
Merry:make
Heather Paul:you know, Be gooey.
Cathy:I I like It's gonna stay.
Heather Paul:Strong mint. I I love mint. I I wanna
Merry:I do too. Yeah.
Heather Paul:So that's why I I made my formulas to be Well They're different.
Merry:Does that solve bad breath as well?
Heather Paul:So bad breath usually comes from the base of the tongue and I have a YouTube video on showing people how to actually test for bad breath. And that's just basically you want to get as much of your tongue on your hand as possible. And then you let it air dry and then you sniff it after a few seconds and then you'll be able to tell. Know.
Merry:But you
Cathy:wanna Wow. I I never heard of that. I never knew that.
Merry:I did.
Merry:First thing
Heather Paul:you do in the morning when you wake up, go scrape your tongue and brush your teeth because our teeth poop. Right? Our teeth poop and brushing only gets off 60% of the poop. The rest is in the toilet bowl, and that is the space between your tooth and your gum. The only way to clean that out is with manual floss.
Heather Paul:This Not the cheaters, the actual string stuff, and most people don't do it right. So, you know, you need to use your middle fingers to wrap the floss around because if you're just using those little cheaters, they are not really flossing. They pop in and out of the teeth, they're not cleaning the base of the bowl. And you wanna get to the base of the bowl, which is why you wanna use your middle fingers and just kinda keep unwinding as you go because you don't reuse toilet paper. Right?
Heather Paul:You don't wanna reuse the same piece of floss.
Merry:So what kind of floss do you use?
Heather Paul:I like a natural fiber like Doctor. Tongue's or Listerine does make a good floss I like called Listerine Ultra Clean. It's for people that have really tight teeth, but it has, like, these little tiny micro grooves on there that do help pull the plaque out better. So but I am still a fan of of a natural fiber like Doctor. Tung.
Merry:So what is myofunctional therapy? And also, why is breathing through your mouth bad for you? I mean, when you're exercising, you're breathing through your mouth.
Heather Paul:You shouldn't. You should always breathe through your nose, believe it or not. So, oral facial malfunctional therapy is like physical therapy for the mouth, the jaw, the tongue. So we don't tend to think about this at all. It's kind of a newer field, but our mouth is nothing about our mouth is designed for filtering the air.
Heather Paul:Our lungs are not made to filter air. So when you breathe through your mouth, it takes at least sixty five days for your lungs filter that air that your nose can do in fifteen minutes, and then you don't get any nitric oxide. So what happens if you over breathe? And then also for children that are mouth breathers, you'll notice that their jaws grow more vertical as opposed to horizontal. We want the wide jaw, right?
Heather Paul:That creates an open airway. So the more narrow you are and the more recessed chin you have, you have a compromised airway. So then what's going to happen, your body is gonna naturally move your neck forward to open up your airway. You're gonna have TMJ, neck issues, spine issues, all because your airway is compromised. And then if you're sleeping with your mouth open at night, you are keeping your body in a state of fight or flight all night long, which guess what can cause high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, IBS, autoimmune problems.
Heather Paul:So what we want is constant 100% nasal breathing all the time. We want a lip seal a % of the time. We want proper tongue posture. Your tongue should not ever be on the floor of your mouth. It should be lightly suctioned up to the roof of your mouth.
Heather Paul:We want proper swallowing. So those are the four things that we work on with orofacial myofunctional therapy is we see what needs to be fixed and we give you exercises to try and compensate. Sometimes you have to have a dentist, a surgeon basically that is trained in airway health to do a tongue tie release because sometimes that tongue is just too tethered. And what I mean by that is everyone has a frenum attaching their tongue to the floor of their mouth. But when it's that fascia is connected all the way down to your feet.
Heather Paul:So sometimes it needs to be released.
Merry:Wow. Yeah. Well, what about yawning? I mean, have to yawn with your mouth open unless you're really trying to be both polite and go.
Heather Paul:If can try to breathe through your nose, most of the time, you would be amazed at how much better you feel. I didn't realize I was over breathing until I took the course. And I'm like, no wonder I I sighed like heavy. And it was because I was breathing through my mouth too much. So I had to retrain my my tongue to be where it needs to be.
Heather Paul:I had to focus on nasal breathing and posture work and and really make some changes because I had no idea that it was so important to be.
Cathy:Well, what kind of practitioners teach this?
Heather Paul:You'd have to go to someone that's an OMT. As far as the dentist is concerned, you'd want to have a dentist that is focused on airway health and they'll state that in their list. It's usually a biological or holistic dentist again, who is more trained in the outer skirts of dentistry, so to speak.
Merry:Are are you creating courses for dental students at universities? No. Why not? You should.
Heather Paul:You know, I I don't have the time. I also just I'm more passionate really about kind of getting the word out. I'll leave that to the academic people. I really just want people to focus more on, you know, on their mouth and what they need to do to get themselves healthy. Because like I said
Cathy:Bounce back one more time to Mary's question because I don't think we've touched on it very much, sleep apnea. Mhmm. What is that doing to us?
Heather Paul:That's that's that open mouth breathing
Cathy:Is that the mouth breathing?
Heather Paul:Your mouth is open, you're snoring, your airway is compromised. So eighty percent of people that have sleep apnea go undiagnosed. And that stresses the heart, the cardiovascular system, which high blood pressure, right? That's a that's a sign right there, high blood pressure. And then staying in that fight or flight.
Heather Paul:Because if you're not getting oxygen, which is the number one nutrient your brain needs, you're going to have major health effects. And that's why we recommend in myofunctional therapy a lot of sleep studies. We want to see what is going on. The problem a lot of women have is that especially if they're more of the thin, petite woman, they have UARS, which is upper airway resistance syndrome, which isn't necessarily going to show on your typical sleep apnea sleep study. You would actually need what's called a polysomnogram because that would actually detect if they are having more of a resistance as opposed to true apnea.
Heather Paul:So getting the right test on board is also very important. And I talk about this in my book, Dentistry Made Easy. I know I'm throwing a lot of information out there. So if you'd like to delve more, please get the book. It talks about everything that you need to know.
Heather Paul:It's truly a consumer's hand guide. But yeah, sleep apnea is a huge health problem and keeping that body in that fight or flight all night. If your body can't get into parasympathetic, it has no way to rest or digest, which is why you can have a lot of gut issues and and just generalized inflammation in your body because your body's never get that state of rest.
Cathy:Oh, important. Also, us about the future of non toxic dentistry.
Heather Paul:So I believe we are headed more towards the nano hydroxyapatite side of things because, you know, are you saying in sixty five years we haven't come up with something better than fluoride? Of course, we have. It's called nano hydroxyapatite, and NASA actually created it back in the seventies for the astronauts because they noticed that they would lose bone density and their their enamel and everything would be affected. So our teeth are actually made out of 97% hydroxyapatite crystals. So when you use an anti hydroxyapatite product, it's bio identical, meaning your body recognizes it.
Heather Paul:So you're giving your body what it needs. Again, always get to that root cause. Give your body what it needs and it will try to heal itself. So fluoride is it's a halogen. Right?
Heather Paul:It's a mutagen. It was proven in a federal court last August 24 that it reduces the IQ, that it's a neurotoxin. You don't need it. You don't need to poison yourself to good health. I just I don't agree with that.
Heather Paul:Anything that has a poison label on it, do you really want it in your body? I mean, you don't need it. There's no such thing as a fluoride deficiency on the planet because it is not an essential nutrient. You absolutely do not need fluoride for healthy, strong teeth. What fluoride supposedly does is it creates, fluorapatite when it mixes with that, And that's a form of hydroxyapatite.
Heather Paul:Why not just use hydroxyapatite? Why not use something that
Cathy:Where does that come from? Where does that come from?
Heather Paul:So there's two forms of hydroxyapatite. You can either get it from bovine or it can be, created like synthetic. So I use the synthetic version because I wanted my product to be vegan. So I don't the bovine hydroxyapatite. And also the particle size itself is a little too large for your enamel to recognize it.
Heather Paul:So the nano size and nanoparticle is small enough that it is absorbed with the enamel. You can never regrow enamel, but you can remineralize enamel. So that's why it's so important you don't wear away your enamel with brushing with really, abrasive ingredients, hydrated silica, charcoal, you know, bentonite clay. These things are damaging to your enamel. So you wanna use things that are going to help your enamel, be low abrasive, but also, you know, effective, which nano hydroxyapatite is wonderful.
Merry:Would you spell that for our audience?
Heather Paul:Nano is n a n o, And then separate word hydroxyapatite, and it's h y d r oh, hold on a second.
Merry:Gotta write down No. That's why.
Heather Paul:Hydroxy. Okay. So it's h y d r o. I oh, hold on a second. I can't even spell.
Heather Paul:See? Maybe I've had too much wine. Hold on. Okay. Alright.
Heather Paul:I got it. It's h y d r o x y a p a t I t e. Hydroxyapatite.
Cathy:I know. Oh, and is that an ingredient in some of your products?
Heather Paul:Yes. I have it in all my toothpaste, and I also have it in my spearmint mouthwash. This one is more for people that have, like, dry mouth, cavity issues, and, like, more of a mild rinse. I've got baking soda, Xylitol, fantastic for raising the pH, The MCT oil, colloidal silver. So if you're more cavity prone, I would definitely suggest the spearmint line.
Heather Paul:If you're somebody that is dealing with gum issues, like bleeding gums and and just gum disease in general, the mint or the cinnamon mouthwash would be great for that because I actually use something in there called I know it's it's weird. Dragon's blood. Rock Croton Lunch Larry's sap, but it's from the, Peru's dragon tree, and it's a sap that actually if you were to cut yourself and you put the sap on, it's like a natural band aid. So it really helps address bleeding. It's very medicinal and it's
Cathy:So it's called dragon blood, but it helps us with bleeding or whatever. Okay.
Heather Paul:Use the actual word that the term is raw croton, which Larry sap. That's the name on the label, but it's called dragon's blood because it's red and it makes the mouthwash look like this brown color, but it is extremely medicinal. So a little bit just goes a long way. But like I said, people usually fall into the category of either cavity prone or gum disease prone. So I created a line of products that would really address everything that people tell me they're dealing with, whether it be sensitive eating gums or constantly getting cavities, I wanted to feel comfortable recommending something to someone that didn't have a PEG 40 or a a PLOXMER four zero seven in there, you know.
Heather Paul:Well, so to
Cathy:You're a chemist.
Merry:Yeah. You are. You're a definite chemist. I'm hoping our audience is paying very close attention. But did you do you think that this is the future of nontoxic dentistry?
Merry:Do you think dentists are going to start listening?
Heather Paul:I do because I think you're starting to see a shift in what consumers want, and that is they are wanting more natural products and it's growing at an exponential rate. So I I think if they're looking at the the bottom line, it's there's a real market for it. And you're starting to see I'm seeing three m is starting to pick up on nano hydroxyapatite, prophy paste, and varnishes, and stuff like that. So, yeah, they're just about forty years behind the times, but I I believe they will hopefully eventually catch up.
Merry:That's a while. So what what would you say are the real root causes of gum disease?
Heather Paul:If someone is constantly dealing with gum disease despite their oral care, like if they are really on top of their oral care with the brushing and the flossing and water picking and going to the dentist and they're still dealing with gum disease, they have an underlying root cause of either like a parasitic bacterial infection. They could have an MTHFR mutation. And I know that's like a weird word a lot of people haven't heard of, but fifty percent of Americans actually have this mutation and don't know it. And and a lot of times what it what it does is it inhibits
Cathy:Fifty percent?
Heather Paul:Fifty percent of Americans. Yes. Five zeroes have an MTHFR mutation and don't know it. And so that means your body does not detoxify very well, and it needs methylfolate. So you're you're not able to process.
Heather Paul:It's like a methylation problem. So you need specific vitamins. You need a way to detox, whether it be Epsom salt baths, saunas, dry, brushing, but it's dealing with an inflammation that you if you know how if you know that you have this mutation, it just helps you, you know, with what you need to take to prevent things and to deal with it so that you're able to help your body out. Sometimes it's
Cathy:And how do we find out if we have that mutation?
Heather Paul:Right. A real easy you can actually order that test on Amazon for like a hundred and $20. It's a saliva swab, and they'll send you back a report letting you know whether or not you got the mutation or not.
Cathy:Wow. I'm gonna get it. What do you call that?
Heather Paul:What do you
Cathy:what what's it called?
Heather Paul:MTHFR mutation test.
Merry:M e x h m e h x I.
Cathy:M t h.
Merry:F r. R.
Heather Paul:Yeah. F r. M t h.
Cathy:And then what comes after that? Test? Mutation. Mutation test.
Heather Paul:Yep. Mhmm. Yeah. So that's a really good indicator. And then I offer on my website an oral DNA test, and that is to check on whether or not you have a bacterial infection that is parasite related or bacterial related, and that will screen for the 11 bacteria.
Heather Paul:So that's another one, the MTHFR mutation. And then also, again, airway. If you're breathing through your mouth, you're constantly disrupting your oral microbiome. You're gonna have bleeding gums. So we gotta fix that.
Heather Paul:Sometimes it's also an oxalate toxicity, and oxalates are found in vegetables. Right? So we think sometimes that the greener, you know, all the spinach and the almonds. But if you're somebody like myself that can't that has an MTHFR mutation that doesn't detoxify very well, I can't have a lot of oxalates. It makes me toxic.
Heather Paul:So then that gives me a lot of indigestion and all kinds of joint pain because of, you know
Merry:I was going to going to ask you about indigestion and and gut health, and teeth because I know people who have a lot of problems with that.
Heather Paul:Absolutely. Well, again, there's a systemic thing. For for so long, it's always been either you go to the dentist and just have your teeth looked at, or you go to the medical doctor and, you know, but there's no correlation between the two. And I'm really hoping to start focusing on, well, maybe the problem is coming from my mouth and causing something else inside my body.
Merry:So I'm
Heather Paul:like, here first and find a provider that is on board with that, get the testing, find out what your root cause is, and go from there. Because if you have, you know, dead root canals in in your mouth, it could be definitely creating, an issue. What one person can deal with that same thing on someone else could be the death of them. I mean, so sometimes people can have root canals and never have a problem, but that same root canal and someone else that just can't handle it is going to tank them and, you know, have one health issue after another. So everyone is different, and that's why you have to be your own health advocate.
Heather Paul:Speak up for yourself. You know? Don't be afraid to ask questions. And I again, in my book, I tell you everything that you need to know, the questions you need to ask, the miss and misconceptions that are out there. We we address that.
Heather Paul:So I just really hope that people will
Merry:take it more seriously because it's just such a huge problem. Well,
Cathy:why is commercial mouthwash and toothpaste bad for us? That's my question, but I think you've really answered it. But Yeah. Elaborate a little bit.
Heather Paul:It's disrupting that oral microbiome. It's using chemicals that are way too strong. You remember back in the day with the triclosan that was in all the hand soaps. Right?
Merry:Oh, yeah. The what? The what?
Heather Paul:The hand soaps. The triclosan. It was called triclosan. And it
Cathy:was I didn't know nothing.
Heather Paul:The antiseptic hand soap. It what they found was it was stripping the natural stuff from your hands and creating more bad bugs to flourish because we were wiping everything out. And so they removed it from hand soap. It used to be in toothpaste as well. So you don't wanna be wiping out this delicate balance.
Heather Paul:We wanna we wanna get it healthy. We wanna find out. We wanna eliminate products that are gonna disrupt it. We wanna do everything we can whether it be supplementation, you know, sometimes if you're not getting enough vitamin D, it's going to show. Right?
Heather Paul:With women, I mean, we tend to lose more bone than men. So, you know, the first place that you're going to see is the jawbone, but you don't feel your bone rotting. And I think too many times people wait till they feel a problem, but you're never gonna feel gum disease until your teeth are ready to fall out. But the signs and symptoms are there, bleeding either when you brush or floss properly, by the way. Sometimes the bad taste or odor in your mouth, that's a sign.
Heather Paul:Never going to feel a cavity until it hits the nerve because enamel has no feeling. So we want to get away from the mindset of, well, nothing's hurting me. Well, it won't until it's too late. So, you know, if you want to be preventative, you want to get dental X rays once a year. You want to prevent something from becoming a bigger issue, especially if you're a little bit sick.
Heather Paul:I mean, you know, if you never got an oil change on your vehicle ever, never put oil in it, you can't get mad at the mechanic when you blow the engine. I mean, so don't get mad at dental professionals when you have a $15,000 treatment plan because of neglect. So neglect is extremely expensive. Do the things that will help protect your teeth, use the right products, get your teeth cleaned, go to the dentist, you know, be proactive with your health, but don't, you know, get mad at the provider because of the cost because you didn't take care of yourself. I mean, we really need to start taking responsibility.
Merry:I think you've just answered a question I've had, which is can you give us some practical oral health tips? But how can we take a more holistic approach to our oral health?
Heather Paul:Well, I think the first step is throwing out anything that has a poison label on it. Look at the ingredients. I mean, and you don't even have to listen to me. Just go take the ingredients and look up on an SDS sheet, which is the safety data sheet. And you tell me if that's something you really want going into your bloodstream.
Heather Paul:I mean, you know, so really start looking at the ingredients. So I my my motto is ditch the toxins. So you can make one step. I know it can be overwhelming when you're trying to get healthy, but it's always one step at a time. Make one small change at a time.
Heather Paul:Ditch the soda. You don't need to be drinking something that has a pH of 2.5. That's main ingredient is phosphoric acid. Switch it to kombucha. You know, it's a fermented tea.
Heather Paul:It's an acquired taste, but you have alternatives. So I would just say start making one small change at a time. Make sure that you have a really good electric toothbrush, which on my website, I have one that I really, really like. I give a discount code. It, you know, saves you, like, 40% on it.
Heather Paul:Use the right aids. So have a good
Cathy:Which one is the one you like?
Heather Paul:I like the Burst because it has a lifetime I
Cathy:haven't heard of that.
Heather Paul:What is it called?
Cathy:Burst. Burst.
Heather Paul:E u r s t. Yeah. It's on my website, and I offer discount code because it has a four week, recharge thing. So I don't like things being plugged in on my countertop. So this will hold the charge for four weeks.
Heather Paul:And as long as you get the head come to you every three months, it's guaranteed for life. And mine actually broke down after four years, and they wanted a little ten second video, and they sent me a brand new brush. So I love it. It's simple. You don't it's not fancy.
Heather Paul:It's it's $69 if you had no discount. So it's not a lot of money. It has a lifetime guarantee. And, again, watch my video on how to brush properly because most people do not do that nor do they floss properly. So watch the videos, but have the right aids and use the right products, but eat healthy.
Heather Paul:I mean, you know, again, we can't if if you're a hundred pounds overweight and you continue to eat fast food, you're not going to lose weight. I mean,
Cathy:you have
Heather Paul:the right choices. You have to do the right thing. So if you wanna be healthy, you just have to start making that shift. Right.
Cathy:Well, what's the alternative to having a root canal? Because so many people have them. And a lot of boomers have them. I've never had one, so I don't know much about it why you get it. But
Merry:I have.
Cathy:Tell but tell us what's the alternative.
Heather Paul:So, in my book, I have a chapter on on root canals and cavitations and all of that, but you would want to have the tooth properly extracted because if you don't, again, brain doesn't send the signal to the bone to regenerate bone. So it creates that dead bone, that cavitation there, which is unhealthy. So you want to have the tooth extracted properly and have a ceramic implant placed, not titanium. Okay. In fact, an article I think just came out was it last week or the week before, where they're starting to see, all of these hip replacement, knee replacements that are made out of titanium.
Heather Paul:All of this is showing up in their blood and their brain. You know, titanium is not something that's healthy inside of your body. And you put it so close-up to your brain, it can create a galvanic response, autoimmune response. So I am not for titanium. Plus a lot of men have a nickel allergy.
Heather Paul:You know, when they wear the fake jewelry and their skin turns green, that means that they are allergic to nickel and nickel is in your titanium implant. So, you know, you're oftentimes putting something that your body is allergic to and then it can fail. So you do want to use a ceramic implant. You could also do a bridge, a dental bridge, which is the downside of doing that is the tooth in front and the tooth behind the space is involved. So what I mean by involved is they have to prepare that tooth.
Heather Paul:So they are removing some of the enamel on the front and the back to bridge that gap. So that is also an option. Or if it's just one tooth, you can do what's called a little flipper, but I really don't recommend those. Most people hate them and don't wear them. So I would say either a dental bridge or a ceramic implant would be the best way to go.
Merry:Well, I mean, what about if you've already had a few and you're not really wanting to extract them?
Heather Paul:You know, that is definitely an individual decision, but I had worked with someone who had breast cancer. And she went to a holistic dentist, and her mouth, when they got in there, it was an unbelievable mess. And now she feels so much better. I mean so, you know but she had some some health issues. She had breast cancer, so she definitely was ready.
Heather Paul:She was at that place where she was willing to take that next step. I think she had five or six that she extracted. Doctor. Joseph Eisels was a dentist. He was an oncologist, I believe in Germany that worked with women that had breast cancer.
Heather Paul:He would not work with them unless they removed the root canal teeth. What he often found is the same side that the tumor in the breast was, was the same side of the root canal. So he made them take out the root canal tooth or he wouldn't work with them.
Cathy:And there's and cancer is so epidemic and people don't relate it any ever to your mouth.
Merry:Never.
Cathy:Never even heard that.
Heather Paul:Using Listerine, twenty seven percent alcohol can cause throat and mouth cancer. How much throat and mouth cancer is out there?
Merry:Okay, I'm going to start washing my floors with Tell us about your books, Dentistry Made Easy and The Great Tooth Deception. I know that you've said quite a bit about them, but give us a few more pointers about them.
Heather Paul:So dentistry made easy, that is something I think everybody would really benefit from. I have a chapter on children's health, oral health and myofunctional therapy, root canals, fluoride. It's just really to get people more knowledge on the basics. My book, The Great Revealing the Dark Side of Dentistry, I am releasing that next month. I'm a little bit nervous to release that one.
Merry:Good timing. Yeah.
Heather Paul:Because it's very contrarian, you know, so I literally get into like Scientology and dentistry, the whole thing about fluoride, where that came from, you know, who actually started all of that and mercury and all of that. So, you know, it's quite an expose on the field, the upselling, you know, because I think so many times people are so used to medical insurance that when they assume they have dental insurance, they think it's going to be as good as medical. And it's just, it's so not. Unfortunately, insurance benefits have not increased since the 1980s, at least. So has increased by what?
Heather Paul:Tenfold at least, but the benefits have not increased. And I want people to not just say, oh, well, I only want what my insurance covers. Your insurance doesn't cover Jack Diddley Squad. So now that to, you know, for your health, you're you're gonna have to get off that mindset. It's like a discount plan.
Heather Paul:I actually wrote RFK Jr. And asked him to please address dental insurance because it it's such a a problem. I mean, how is it that they can continue to take premiums from people and not increase benefits from the eighties? I find that criminal. You know?
Heather Paul:Really, it really needs to be revamped.
Merry:Yeah. Did he answer?
Heather Paul:No. But why isn't it why isn't dental covered under medical? It really should be.
Cathy:Mhmm.
Heather Paul:That's very important.
Cathy:Think so.
Heather Paul:Yeah. Separate. Exactly. I mean, can go to an ENT that's covered, but, you know, your teeth, that's a whole another thing. I mean, you can dine Heather.
Cathy:Eat. Heather, what would you like our audience to have as a takeaway today?
Heather Paul:I would say, please floss the teeth you wanna keep. How's that?
Cathy:What? Say it again?
Heather Paul:Floss the teeth you wanna keep.
Cathy:Yeah. Floss the teeth you wanna keep.
Merry:Yeah. Right. I love that. Thank you. I wish we had more time, Heather.
Merry:There's so much more I think we and our audience would love to know. But thank you very much, Heather. Our guest today on Late Boomers has been Heather Paul, dental hygienist, speaker, author, entrepreneur, and founder of Simply Silver Mouthwash. You can connect with Heather via her website, simplysilvermouthwash.com. And Heather, you said one thing about what they can find on your website?
Heather Paul:Oh, yeah. They can find all of my products on there, and they can also contact me, through the website. So if anyone has any questions, please feel free to reach out.
Cathy:Thank you. That's great. Thank you for listening to our late boomers podcast today and subscribing to our late boomers podcast channel on YouTube. Listen in next week when you'll meet Elizabeth Bruckner, who will tell us about the ways we can live a healthier and more joyful life. You can listen on any podcast platform, and we do appreciate you.
Cathy:Please follow us on Instagram at I am Kathy Worthington and at I am Mary Elkins and at late boomers. Thanks again, Heather Paul.
Heather Paul:Thank you.
Cathy:Thank you for joining us on Late Boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.
