94. Biologic Dentistry with Dr. Cody Kriegel

Dr. Cody Kriegel 0:03

from a health point of view to just like periodontitis right another way of looking at that as leaky gum play on words with the leaky gut, it's the same thing.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:12

Welcome to the your longevity blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear from Dr. Cody Kriegel. Today we're going to talk oral health specifically how metals in the mouth can impact the health of the rest of your body. Dive into why ceramic implants are the best talk about fluoride and ultimately discuss what biologic dentistry is, let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of The your longevity blueprint podcast. today. My guest is Dr. Cody Kriegel. Dr. Kriegel never wants dental treatments to compromise your health and your ability to live every day as the best version of yourself. It's his passion to help you achieve optimal health with unique tailored biologic dental treatments. His philosophy centers around a non toxic minimally invasive biocompatible approach. Your teeth are intimately connected to the rest of your body and understanding that intricacy and complexity of this relationship is fundamental. This is his craft, and he trains diligently to find the best ways to improve the health and well being of his clients. His desire is to help you see the impact your oral health can have on your well being and empower you on your journey to optimal health. Welcome to the show, Dr. Kriegel.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 1:31

Hey, thank you for having me. This is awesome. Awesome, awesome. Just to remind

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:35

my listeners early on, on Show Episode 18, the title was healthy mouth healthy body. And so here I first interviewed Dr. Ben PLAs Bissell, who's my local dentist. And I encourage the listeners go back and listen to that episode, because my intent here today is that we echo what we already talked about, but then build upon that. So before we get to the good stuff, I want to hear more about you Dr. Cradle. So tell me your story. What got you so passionate about changing the way you provide dental care.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 2:00

For me personally, I've always been interested in health and wellness, it's always been a passion of mine. And as I went through dental school, through all my education, I kind of I didn't want to live a polarized life, I wanted to have my passions and my career be kind of married. And so I started down this path of looking into things myself, not just ingesting what you're told, but looking at all the cards on the table and literature reviews and things like that myself and found how incredibly important the oral cavity is to overall health. And I'm a big believer that you can't have optimal health without a healthy mouth. And so sometimes we get into these discussions and a lot of people kind of have a certain situation that led them down this path. And for me, it was a very close family member of mine where we we did some treatment for her and we had some very interesting results happen. And so I started to take things a lot more seriously as far as optimal health and and here we are. It's been way more fun this way too.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:56

Well. Now, I want to ask about that. Are you comfortable sharing your situation? We I will.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 3:01

Yeah, I mean, she won't care. It's my mom. Yeah. It's my mom. No, she excuse, okay, I tell her story all the time. And mentor, good friend and mentor of mine from Texas. And basically, we co treated her together a little bit. We removed some infections from her oral cavity, and her heart palpitations that she had for years and years and years went away within a few weeks, and we've gone and she had those for a long time going on me. And after we removed those we're going on, I think for years now with with no incidents, and she used to have them, you know, two or three times a month. So that tipped my hat and said, huh, going on here. Yeah. Awesome.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 3:47

Well, we're just gonna dig in I we should talk about infections. But I think before we get to infections, let's talk metal. Let's talk amalgam fillings, mercury, we're going to go there. So yeah. Why is it important that someone has their amalgams removed safely? And actually, let me just back up? What are amalgam fillings tell the audience, they may not know they may be very, very familiar. I've had mine removed, but just tell us what they are, and why you feel like they are dangerous and should be removed.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 4:12

Yeah. So amalgam is one of many forms of metals that we classically have placed in people's mouths. And the teeth are kind of considered outside body. They're not inside body in a sense. And so we in sometimes things are people get away with things like that, because we're not putting them inside body even though we put things inside people's bodies all the time, right. But amalgam particularly is a it's an alloy of a mixture of metals, mercury, zinc, copper, tin, there's a lot of different metals in a mixture. It's kind of a civil war technology is what I say. And so the idea that we still use it, I think, is a little bit baffling, but they're predominantly about 50% of mercury by weight. Mercury has been coined as one of the most neurotoxic substances on the planet. We all know that from a lot of different ways, shapes and forms and has been used as a filling material for it. A very, very long time. Today, I always say I get the benefit from being in today's world, but we have a much we have much better materials nowadays to be able to use. And once we've known now, we have a lot of literature to support the dangers of that can come with amalgam restorations. For some, for some individuals, we don't use that material anymore.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:19

You say we don't use that. I do think some dentists still use that material.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 5:24

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's still used quite a bit. It's frustrating, you know, it's subsidized by the government, you know, so it's easy to use, it's cheap, it's readily available, you know, those type of things. And it doesn't take a lot of skill, I'd argue to say it takes no skill to place. And so there's a lot of, you can call them benefits to the use of it. But I think we're better than that now. And so, I think we need to do better, it

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:51

takes more skill to remove, which we'll get to, but I want to go back to the neurotoxic effects that you said Mercury has. So I think our we're in agreement on how bad mercury can be like literally putting it in our in our bodies. So my stance on that is every time you too, I remember hearing through my fellowship program through American Academy of anti aging medicine, medicine they talked about, I mean, it's a whole module on heavy metals and how bad they are for us and one major sources of metals in our mouth, every time you chew, you're releasing mercury vapors. So even if you're not even currently still having metal fillings placed in your mouth, the old fillings that are there over the course of days and weeks and years and decades, right, are still releasing those mercury vapors when you chew. Do you agree with that?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 6:31

wholeheartedly? Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, they do off gas 24/7, we've known that for some time, it's not like it's a news, a news, break news flash in any way, shape, or form, they will off gas more with attrition. So as you're chewing as you're brushing those type of things, and with temperature changes. So if you're drinking like a hot coffee or something like that, they will off gas a little bit more. And that vapor that's very insidious, it knows no barrier is what I say. So it can cross a lot of the barriers that we have built into our body to be able to defend ourselves. So that's where it gets to be a little bit alarming as well. And we also know, the mouth is one of the entrances to the body, the most used, I will say, as we pass food and things through that, you know, that all goes down into our digestive tract. And so we have to be cognizant of whatever we're putting in somebody's mouth will have some strong effects on the rest of the system.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:24

Absolutely. Want to go back again, just to that that concept that these metals in our mouth can be neurotoxic. So that means they can be damaging to our not just our nervous system, but certainly our nervous system. So I have had patients who've had dizziness, headaches, tremors, different paraesthesia, which are really just impaired sensation. So patients can feel like they have you know, pins and needles. Patients can have muscle weakness, twitching, they can even have emotional changes, right? Mood swings, anxiety. So having these mercury vapors in your mouth, certainly, like you mentioned, can affect multiple organ systems in our bodies, specifically our nerves and even back to your mother's palpitations, I would imagine the mercury for one patient could even cause palpitations, right? So they're not, this is not something that you really want to have in your mouth. And if you're listening right now, for the first time, and you're wondering, well, what do I do about these because I already have them in my mouth. We're going to get to that. So we're going to talk about how Dr. Kriegel is different because he has a different protocol that he follows for removal. So do you want to talk a little bit about that and how your office is different? And what your approach is to safe removal of

Dr. Cody Kriegel 8:22

these? For sure, yeah. And going back to what you said really quickly about all the different ways or symptoms that people can get, you know, there's a plethora of them, that our body only has so many ways to show something is wrong. Right. Right. And so I always encourage people to know that, you know, and then we'll probably come back to it again later. But there's a bio individuality at play. Some people can tolerate things to a certain extent, and some people can't tolerate them at all. Yeah, my classic analogy is, you know, we have the woman on the nightly news that is 110. And when they asked her her key to a long, long life, she says, you know, Dr. Pepper, and a pack of cigarettes every day, and

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:58

those is not good advice.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 9:02

And she didn't live to 110 doing that. I might argue she might live to 120 if she didn't, but what I'm saying is, is there's an individuality at play that some people like you, you know, the detox system very, very well, some people, they can't get those things out of the system as easily. So then they start to have some symptoms, whether it's early on or years down the road,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 9:20

totally when we can look for that. That's the topic of Chapter Three in my book is really looking at our genetics because some of us can remove toxins much more easily than others. I did not win the genetic lottery in regards to toxin removal, I need to be eating organic, I need to be taking glutathione there are things that I need to be more aggressive at doing than my husband who did almost won the genetic lottery, you know, different ways. Yes, yes. It's just not fair. No. So let's go back to the protocol for removal. So tell us more about how you remove these safely in your office.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 9:51

So we use the Smart protocol. So safe mercury amalgam removal technique. It's been published by an organization called the IA OMT so International Academy of oral medicine and toxicology and for any listeners, I would encourage you to hop on their website, they've kind of pulled a lot of the literature, they even have some good educational videos, things like that in relationship to amalgam fluoride, or these different things that can be used, that are used in dentistry a lot. And even just other materials, like we'll talk about metals in general, I'm sure, but even just materials in general and a way to approach and what that looks like. But they've developed something called the Smart protocol, which is a bit of a way to basically mitigate and eliminate exposure to to the mercury content in amalgam during removal. So when you understand what these restorations are composed of, that doesn't mean that you want to grind them all out and let them go all over the place and let people ingest it and things like that, that

Dr. Stephanie Gray 10:48

does more harm in the process. Yes, yeah. And I encourage

Dr. Cody Kriegel 10:51

people, I say, Hey, if you're unable to have them removed, then you feel like you want to do that, again, informed consent, we want to make sure everybody's making a decision for themselves. But if you're, you know, feel that you want to have yours removed, I always encourage people to do it safely. Don't do it unsafely, it's better to leave them in there until you're able to remove them safely, you could exacerbate some issues that you may be having.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 11:12

And I totally agree. So that's the protocol that I had to remove mine. And I will say I didn't have many to remove, thankfully, but they're they're out. I will say part of that protocol, I think maybe you can speak to this as not removing like them all at once, either. Right? So would you do do one quadrant at a time? Or like, how slowly do you remove?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 11:30

Yeah, good question. You know, I take into consideration kind of a patient's like Whole Health from that kind of looking at that to are they able to withstand something like that, you know, we see the patient population, we see a lot of people after one optimal health, people that are sick, or sometimes even athletes that want to improve their optimal health and things like that. And so we're kind of looking at an in context, I think that's a little bit debated. And I don't know i i Don't remove them all at once, I will do it by quadrant, so top or bottom left or right, that type of thing, or by side of the mouth. So that's kind of the approach that we take. Sometimes the patient will dictate kind of how that's best if it needs to be done one or two at a time or something like that. But that's kind of the approach that we take, yes, usually quadrant are by the side of the mouth.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:13

Can you dive a little further, but the smart protocol, so like, for a patient who's listening, they're like, Okay, so it sounds smart, and smart. Like, how is that different from them going to the regular dentist and just having the fillings removed? Just kind of briefly explain.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 12:26

Yeah, that's a great acronym. I need to shake the hand of one of the guys in the OMT that made that. I think that is smart. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's just it's multifold layers of protection. So again, when we're removing something that has those contents in it, we want to mitigate exposure as much as possible. And truth be told, it started a little bit from a selfish standpoint, once I learned about them being human nature, I thought, oh, I want to protect myself. Like I you know, dentists are known for neurological issues. They're known for things like that later in life. And it's no coincidence when they've been handling it physically in hand, or intoxicating themselves, in a sense, by doing this their whole career, and then I started to think, Wait, I want to protect also my staff, my patient, you know, everybody, so what we do is it's we drape the patient.

So we use an impermeable barrier, we're using a rubber dam, which kind of acts as a little like, oh, conduct a gasket, where it's kind of separating the patient from their teeth, in a sense, is how I look at it. And that serves as a catch to make sure that none of that goes down the back of a patient's throat or anything like that. We're using a nasal source and kind of covering a patient's face making sure that's all covered pre rinsing, and post rinsing with certain metal binders or things to get down into the GI tract. So that in case something gets passed the we use a product by Quicksilver called IMD. But it's basically we're putting something on the GI tract. So if something gets by any of our catches, there's a strong binder at the you know, in the track to bind it and push it through.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:52

Yeah. And are you like dressed up in what looks like hazmat suits? Like, are you well?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 13:57

Yeah, protected. And we? Yeah, so we use disposable gowns. Of course, we're using a Mercury a mask has a mercury content in it that we want to protect ourselves. Yeah. And then we're also using the one of the biggest things I think, is the outsource suctions, like an aerosol. So these things are vapor giving off a vapor, right, we have that sitting right by the patient's chin, to make sure that that pulls about 90 or 99% of the vapors in and of itself. So we're filtering that as well. Just like the filters that are on, you know, ourselves and things like that my staff, everybody's wearing that type of thing, and they're so

Dr. Stephanie Gray 14:29

wonderful, wonderful. Okay, so obviously, what you do is better, safer, smarter. That's what I recommend for my patients. So I do want to get to fluoride. You mentioned fluoride, but I think I want to dive into root canals. Next, though, we haven't talked about root canals on the show at all. So can you explain what a root canal is? Why do dentists place them? Like should we really ever get one? And if we've had one should they be removed and how so? So there are a lot of questions there. But let's first maybe have you define what a root canal is like. Why are they placed?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 14:57

Yeah, the way I talked to my patients about is a tooth is in Oregon and Oregon by nature. So he has multiple tissues and on the inside and we have been Naml and dentin and things like that most people have heard of those things on the inside of a tooth is what we call the Pope. And the Pope is composed of a blood supply, a lymphatic system, and the autonomic nervous system. So it's actually the the apex are the terminus of the cranial nerve fiber, trigeminal nerve, which is a very important, cranial nerve, they're all important. But I'd argue this one's very, very important. And so when we do a root canal, we remove all those things. And the root canal can be deemed appropriate for a lot of different reasons. But typically, it's because of a bacterial infiltration or infection of the nerve. When teeth get infected, they can go it's a very dichotomous situation, it can go one of two ways, you can either get really, really painful, or you can have no pain at all.

So that's an interesting concept of teeth, first and foremost. But when we do a root canal, we then remove those contents. So we remove the blood supply the lymphatics to the autonomic nervous system, and then we render the tooth is now a non vital Red Dead Oregon, you know, along my path. And in these things, there's always a pause for thought moments, as I call them, where it makes you stop and think a second kind of ticket 10,000 foot view and realizing that dentistry is the only branch of medicine that feels it's okay to leave a dead organ in the system is a pause for that moment for me totally. Now, yeah, we never make a anybody not have a root canal. I'm a big like I said before a big believer and informed consent, I think that people need to know all sides of what's going on possible systemic health effects that can come with root canal treated teeth, they need to have all those cards on the table to still make a decision that they feel is best for themselves. That's first and foremost important.

We have patients choose to get a root canal all the time, and I send them to the best endodontist or specialist that I know, I think they have to be done by a specialist when they're done. I don't think a general practitioner by and large should be doing those procedures. At the end of the day, a lot of our patients don't do a root canal, they prefer not to do a root canal. And so we will remove that tooth, remove the infection. And then there's some replacement options that can come with that in our clinic. It's almost always a ceramic implant to replace that from from a biological and an optimal health point of view.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 17:13

I want to rewind, I want to talk about the ceramic implants. But so can many times can you save the teeth? Like if the underlying cause of the need for the root canals infection? Can you? Is there any like ozone? Is there anything that you can use to try to save the tooth?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 17:27

Yeah, yeah. And we're actually getting a lot further. That's an interesting topic, as we advanced dentistry, just like medicine, but it advances by the minute. And so I feel very strongly if you don't keep up, you'll get left behind pretty quickly. It depends on a little bit of how far along that bacterial infiltration is happening within the two for sure. There's a lot of different therapies out there that that can be used ozone is one and that's used in every facet, at least of our clinic and some other clinics out there. There's some vital pop therapies, there are some different ways to utilize what's called PRF or platelet rich fibrin which is fabricated from we use that in all of our surgeries as well. It's it's it's like I call it Harry Potter magic, the stuff is incredible.

But what you do is you take a couple of vials of blood from a patient chairside you spend it in a centrifuge, you extract growth factors and membranes like that. And you can utilize those growth factors in a couple percent stem cell using that down inside the Pope of the to to try to regenerate the nerve. That's proving to be something new and exciting out there. Because the idea at the end of the day is a healthy tooth is the best. I'm a big believer that God made to the best and whatever we do is secondary to that at most. And so between that and lasers are also coming onto the onto the catch pretty good. And utilizing photobiomodulation and low low level laser therapies for that is you know, there's some interesting stuff going on with that as well.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 18:52

Our bodies are naturally designed to handle stress, detoxify chemicals and preserve cell function. But when the burden increases, those naturally built in systems can't keep up with demand and we start to experience physiological changes in our bodies. What causes that burden to increase unfortunately, a whole list of things including common modern lifestyle habits like poor dietary choices, lack of sleep, abundance of stress, exposure to chemicals and exercise extremes just to name a few. To protect ourselves from this oxidative stress, our bodies are forced to use up stores of the master antioxidant glutathione. And this works for a while. But when those stores become used up however, our body doesn't have enough antioxidant capacity to protect itself allowing the stress to our body systems to cause lasting damage.

That's why I recommend many of my patients take glutathione daily to help protect their natural reserves, support full detoxification capacity and help keep their immune systems functioning at full strength. Use code glutathione for 10% off at your longevity blueprint.com. Now back to the show. very progressive, but we'll have to have you back on the show in a couple years when you're doing all that we'll see you For now, for patients like myself, who have had a root canal, how do you recommend they be safely removed? I think a lot of dentists just say Don't touch them, leave them put, what is your philosophy on who is a candidate for removal, and then like how you remove them.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 20:16

So in our clinic, it's standard of care that a new patient always gets a cone beam. So we want to investigate what does that route kind of look like? First and foremost, at the end of the day, it's always a patient's decision on if they want to have a tooth removed, we can do that, again, with informed consent, talking about what that looks like, the replacement options, if that's in alignment with who they are and their values, of course, but we routinely find infected root canal teeth or or infected non root canal teeth on a cone beam every day, sometimes two, three, or four

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:47

and people's mouths explain what that cone beam is because patients are listeners.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 20:50

Yeah, a cone beam is a CBCT, or cone beam is another term for it. But it's basically a three dimensional rendering of your of your jaws of your mandible and your Maxell, your top and lower jaw. And we can look at not only your teeth, but we look at everything in cross section down to a handful of micrometers. And we can look at the tooth inside the bone, the roots, where are your nerves? Where's your sinus? You know, where your vital structure so when we go in to do a surgery on a patient, we know how close are we to those vital structures, and basically to stay the heck away from them. Again, I get to benefit from that technology nowadays.

But if I was doing surgery, you know, 20 years ago, knowing what I know, now, it would have been crazy to not know where things are at when you're doing that for a patient. Those are all vital structures that in some people, everybody's very much the same but drastically different. I mean, they all have a nerve. But is it high? Is it low? Is it near? Or far those types of things? So but when we're about evaluating root canals, we're kind of looking at the surrounding structures, first and foremost, and then seeing is that root canal, does it have a apical? An infection on the end of the route? And classically, we see that quite a bit.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 21:53

Do you ever not see it like sometimes do you say this one's okay, well, we've been alone. Yeah,

Dr. Cody Kriegel 21:58

well, yeah, I show every patient the root canal right away, I show it on a big screen in front of them, so they can't miss it. Their tooth is as big as our head. I'm like making it as clear as day. And yeah, we do see some that don't have an apical infector and infection on the end of the root apex at the end of the route. We do see those for sure. The hard part with that is is I will then tell people that we have removed a lot of different teeth root filled or not refilled or you know, a root canal or non root canal tooth. And even we've had a couple of patients that have had some systemic health decline immediately after having a root canal tooth for those patients, they want to have it out. And so when we remove that tooth, even if it looks like it's normal, I will send those in to get a kind of a pathology report or report and say what's inside this tooth. I've never had one come back clean, even the ones that show no infection, we know that a root canal without an immune system is a cave for kind of bad bacteria and things and bacteria are one thing. Their toxins are biotoxins are another whole concept there as well.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:56

Is there any trick to safely removing root canals?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 22:59

Yeah, I think there's a lot of tricks. Yeah, yeah. So there's a protocol that we kind of employ whenever we're doing anything just like a smart protocol for amalgam removal. When we remove a tooth, it starts with kind of saying, Okay, what's the patient? What is their systemic health? You know, that's to be taken into large consideration. Somebody's able to go through something like that, or they do we need to kind of up their nutrition and things like that before they go through a surgery. Of course, if they have an acute infection, we don't have time to wait for something like that. But and when we're looking at nutrition, it's a lot of looking at some of those things like vitamin D, K to C, magnesium, kind of just having them pre supplementing, make sure that they're on board with that. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, when we remove it to then it's, it's a traumatic as possible. Sometimes that means taking the tooth out. And one piece, sometimes it's multiple pieces, but we want to make sure it's done ah, dramatically. And then we treat this site with ozone, we treat the site with laser. And then we're usually using that PRF for blood concentrates made from the patient's blood to be able to heal and regenerate those areas.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 23:59

And so when you're removing the root canal, you're obviously assessing for infection. And afterwards, you're sending the tooth in as well. But you're you're basically spraying ozone down in that fat pocket or whatnot. And then you're saying you would then put a ceramic implant on to replace the tooth?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 24:13

Yeah, exactly. Yep. So when we were injecting kind of an ozone gas, that's called ozone fumigation into the site. There's a lot of reasons that we're using ozone, we use it and just simple cavities, or simple restorations, we use it in our tooth cleanings and things like that. And then in this site, we're using it to kind of clean and help disinfect the site also bring more blood flow to the site. So we know that's the source of healing. And then we're putting in PRF. And if a certain game plan is the choice that somebody has made to be able to replace that tooth, then we're looking at whether we can do that the same day, which is always the most ideal if we can, or letting the site heal and returning at a future date after things have healed and that sometimes is also dependent on a patient's vitamin D status. If they have a low vitamin D status, we know that that's going to be tough to heal, and that could cause a failure of an implant. Just From us from a bone health point of view, so if they have a low vitamin D, I'm not going to be putting in an implant, we're going to be waiting until they can help that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 25:07

Yeah. Awesome. So is ceramic, your choice replacement? I mean, is it for the tooth? Or are there other options that you offer in your office?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 25:17

Yeah, so whenever it's an implant, which is usually the best option, but not always, I don't always make that choice based on everybody, right? It's kind of patient dependent or situation dependent. But most of the time a ceramic implant is the best option. And we only utilize ceramic in our practice, we don't utilize titanium or other metal implants anymore. Other options, we can have a fixed Dental Bridge, which is kind of a that involves the two neighboring teeth. So we don't like to do that if those are virgin teeth, or they're pretty close to being merged in teeth. There's also some removable options as well, kind of like a little tooth with a retainer with a tooth on it or things like that, that can work as well. If somebody is very sick, if they have a autoimmune diseases that are affecting them, and they're kind of debilitated, we're not going to challenge their immune system with with an implant or something like that, we're going to be looking at some different options for them.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 26:05

Why is okay, let's transition to fluoride. When talking about fluoride, yeah, do you use it in your office? Or no,

Dr. Cody Kriegel 26:12

we do not use fluoride in our office. Fluoride is an interesting one, you know, it's a halogen. It's a very reactive compound. Again, 10,000 foot view reports for that moment. Decay is not the lack of fluoride. And fluoride hasn't, we haven't been using it in the grand scheme for a long time decay is a manmade disease. It's interesting that we only find that that we what I kind of say is we put these things like their golden caps, we cling to these things. And we'll, it's a confirmation bias, we will look at certain reports or literature that that is not in support of it. And and I think that's what's happening. Sometimes we know that fluoride being a reactive component, has a lot of affinities for a lot of things. And the human body can have issues with the pineal gland. Bones. Thyroid is a big one, because it's so close. Right? You know, very much, you know very well about that. Right? Yeah. So there's a lot of health issues that are at least there's there's some neurotoxicity issues with it as well. So there's a lot of things going on with fluoride, that or at least pause for thoughts, in my opinion.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 27:11

So instead of using fluoride, how do you improve my oral health in general, you've already alluded to some nutrition, but for the audience, give them some take home, like what are what are better alternatives?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 27:21

Yeah. And again, going back to decay, it's what's the root cause? Right? Is it that you have some salivary issues, right, if you're on a lot of medications, is that diet, a lot of times it's diet to for if we're not eating the right foods and things like that, right, we can absorb minerals in our gut, vitamin D, if that's not high, we're not gonna be able to mineralize those structures, right, such as teeth and bones, those type of things. There's a lot going on there. And we see we do see some gluten intolerant issues as well. Sometimes you can kind of look in the mouth and kind of have that conversation with somebody and ask them about gluten. I'm not really a big fan of gluten. Most people aren't. If we're have a gluten intolerant patient, and they have all that inflammation going on their gut, of course, they're gonna have an issue with mineralization of their teeth as well.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:00

It's the time of year where many of my patients are feeling the motivation to detox, cleanse, reset, whatever you want to call it. After the year we've had in 2020, I think we all could use some renewal in our lives. Of course, one of the most common resolutions at the start of the new year is to focus on exercise and clean eating, but I'm going to be honest, you likely need more than that. If you're looking to truly build optimal health. You likely change the furnace filters in your home regularly and in your car, you probably pay close attention to scheduling oil changes in both your car and your home. This regular maintenance removes gunk that keeps those systems from operating at their best and even breaking down over time. Have you ever thought about the gunk that accumulates in your body?

That gunk often takes the form of toxins that accumulate over time. And you believe that each year the average person is exposed to 14 pounds of pesticides, herbicides, food additives and preservatives. That's about the equivalent of a bowling ball of toxins. Just like your home and your car. Regular maintenance is required to restore your body's ability to cleanse itself and eliminate these toxins to keep you operating at your best and prevent long term damage. You might know that your liver is responsible for filtering toxins from your system and you can think about this as a glass of water. If you keep on pouring in the water, the glass will eventually get full and overflow. Similarly over your lifetime your liver may accumulate a large amount of toxins and need assistance clearing them out. When it comes to supporting your liver. Consider a strategically designed research structured liver cleanse program. To help with phase one and phase two detox pathways. You need a program with ingredients like beet, artichoke, dandelion, Milk Thistle and Alpha Lipoic Acid all of which help your liver and gallbladder purge toxins and then a fiber protein powder to bind the toxins so that you can eliminate them. In my practice, I recommend the core restore program.

The kit comes with day by day instructions making it very clear and easy to understand how to change your lifestyle what to eat and which supplements to take. Staying healthy can be difficult but straightforward, easy to follow cleanses like the core restore program can help you get back on track and pilot you into better cavers moving forward in 2021. Please don't start this program if you have active gallstones or diabetes without consulting with your medical provider, and this is not for those who are pregnant or nursing. I know from personal experience, this type of program will help you feel better lose weight, release stored toxins and benefit your entire body. Check out more product information on our website, your longevity blueprint.com and use code liver detox for 10% off either the chocolate or vanilla core restore programs. Now let's get back to the show. Okay, I've never really talked about that the association between gluten sensitivity, or even celiac and oral health but but I imagine Of course, if your guts inflamed, your mouth can be inflamed. And then if you're not absorbing nutrients that's going to impact you know, your tooth structure. Makes sense? I've just never thought about that

Dr. Cody Kriegel 30:50

from a health point of view to just like periodontitis, right. Another way of looking at that is leaky gum, you know, play on words with a leaky gut, it's the same thing. We have a breakdown in barrier, we have food passing, you know, pass those barriers, you know, tooth going back to being an organ, it's an interesting organ because it spans inside outside body. And it's it goes down inside the bone. And then it goes up and out and is barraged with you know, pH changes, over 800 species of bacteria, virus, all kinds of things in the mouth, it's kind of a trash can to be honest with you. So that oral microbiome, so it's an interesting, interesting thing, they're going back to other things outside of fluoride, you know, we're big fans of Hydroxyapatite at our at our clinic, that's the mineral found naturally in your teeth. And we have a lot of toothpaste out there that use Hydroxyapatite. They're clean toothpaste, so they don't have a lot of other things. And then we'll say, and that's been proven in multiple studies to be as good at remineralizing or better than fluoride. And you can drink the whole tooth and nothing will happen to you. And that's one of the past without moments with fluoride.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:50

Why? Good point. But I do have a question on that. I mean, just to play devil's advocate, so do those have dairy in them then for patients who have dairy allergy or I mean, there's a small amount in the the patient or whatnot, but like,

Dr. Cody Kriegel 32:02

yeah, for patients, you really already know hydroxyapatite pace. So at least the ones that we that we kind of are fans of rise well is one of them. Am I paste is another another pace that we use, it's minimal in intervention paste has calcium phosphate, and then that works very, very well for mineralization as well. But it does have some casein in it. So guys ask them yeah, there. Yeah. So am I paste or kind of whenever we employ that for a patient, it's always caveat. Do you have a dairy allergy? And if you do, you know, one? Yeah,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 32:29

sure. Sure. Wonderful. So it sounds like you are very progressive, and I'm with you, I want to stay ahead of game I don't want to be left behind here in my field. So why don't other dentists? I mean, I know where you've kind of younger? So we have we have a lot of our career left, right? Why do some even older dentists maybe not recognize this way of doing dentistry? Like what do you think the pushback is?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 32:49

Yeah, I'll be the first one to say I can't speak for others. But I can theorize I'll put it that way. I think, you know, again, going back to that golden calf analogy, I think when we use certain things for a long time are then our response is, well, we've done it this way for so long, and it's worked, and you have to define work, right? It's worked, and why would we change? And I think change is good in a lot of ways. It's a cognitive dissonance. You know, it's a challenge to a long held belief. And I think that's what had to happen with me. For me to be kind of pushed past that is I have to say, Wait, hold on. What are these people saying about fluoride in it being bad, right? What are these people saying about amalgam that might not be good for some people, instead of putting it down? I want to know that I want to have that open dialogue and investigate it myself. And I think that's where sometimes we get into those old dog new tricks, or those things that we just ingest what we're told, and then do it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:38

And it's easier to just turn an eye and keep on doing it then too

Dr. Cody Kriegel 33:42

much easier. Never is the path of least resistance the easiest, or the best way. I shouldn't say never most of the time,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:50

I'll say, okay, great. So you are a biologic dentist, that what you call yourself biologic dentist. So what what exactly is that I probably should have opened and asked you that as a first question. But we'll just keep asking away here. So how does that make you different?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 34:04

A lot of the things that we've talked about are kind of what will make us a little bit different. We're kind of coming from a perspective of optimal health. So we want to use things that aren't a challenge in the immune system. We want to use products, like I said, that are challenging the immune system, filling materials, surgical interventions, those type of things, we're kind of always looking at the body as how can we either not tread on the body's system or improve upon it. And so we're kind of looking at that and systemic health as well, with all of our treatments and things like that. We look at people's health histories, and we see a lot of things going on.

And today you see people on 2030 medicate, it can be mind numbing, you know, but then there's a tip off there where you know, for example, like a root canal treated tooth. If somebody has a lot of heart disease, they have a history of heart issues or cardiovascular issues. We have to be very cognizant of that when having that discussion about what they should do. You know, there's a lot of literature there and so I think, never should medicine and dentistry have split. We should have always been together and I hope that By the time my career is over with, we can make that relationship kind of more synergistic again, the way it should be.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:05

I love that I didn't get to X rays. What about X rays? Do you feel like X rays are a useful tool? Is that something that you utilize? I know a lot of patients don't want more radiation right in their mouth. But what are your thoughts on X rays?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 35:18

Yeah, you know, we have to follow a principle of as low as you know, reasonably possible for sure. So we don't want to go overboard with them. At the same time, if we miss something that's only detrimental to a patient, and, and so we want to take what we need, but nothing, nothing more. And again, we're improving upon that in the digital era. But at the same time, for patients that have some issues with that, I'm always kind of looking at, hey, why don't we support your system before and after with, you know, vitamin C, something that's going to kind of help with that redox or things like that, you know, there's are some Homeopathics that some patients have used in the past, I've seen them, bring them in and use them. So we're always just supporting people on whatever they feel is best for themselves. I know

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:55

you removed the root canal, one of my staff members, and thankfully, we offer IV vitamin C here at our clinic. So for her surgery, she got her IV, vitamin C, she had surgery with you the next day, we gave her IV vitamin C again, so I'm I'm on board with that, I think the more we can support our patients, just from a nutritional standpoint, the better outcomes they're gonna have period. So

Dr. Cody Kriegel 36:14

oh, man, I to your point, there we see such good healing using IV nutrition before and after, with patients with surgeries. It's it's night and day different what we see. And I would love to make that just a main protocol that is always done.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:27

Can you imagine? I mean, I love that you're offering that for the oral surgery. But can you imagine if we utilized IV nutrition for every surgery, like in every organ system in the body, like my patients asked me, Why don't hospitals like offer this like before and after surgery? And I don't have like a great answer for them other than it's an additional expense that insurance may not cover. But to your point, I think, yeah, I just think outcomes could be so much better. And you're clearly seeing that in your practice. So

Dr. Cody Kriegel 36:52

it's great to have people like you close by to be able to do that for people. We don't do it in clinic right now. But we get we try to work with other practitioners like you to get to, to their to be able to have those things. And it We've even seen that there's been a plethora of literature on vitamin C and just mitigating the effects of chemo for cancer patients. But yeah, it's a tough world out there. And I sometimes you have to read the lines a little bit. It's tough.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:15

Totally. Was there anything else that makes your practice different that you want to share with the audience today before we wrap up the show?

Dr. Cody Kriegel 37:21

I mean, yeah, I mean, again, coming from optimal health, I love innovation, I think the biggest the newest thing that we're employing a lot is laser therapy. So I think that's really cool stuff. And it's fun. It's exciting. And as we continue down this path of looking for optimal health for people, dentistry will become more mainstream as to need it to be able to get people healthy is crucial. Of course, I'm a little bit biased. I'll say that on the front end. But But I think it's imperative that if you don't have a healthy mouth, it's impossible to have a healthy rest of your system.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:52

Totally agree. So tell us your website, your social media channels, like where listeners can connect with you and find you.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 37:58

Yeah, so our website is corridor Dental, nl for North liberty.com. And I'm on Instagram, on I tend to not get on social media as much anymore. It's kind of mind numbing a little bit, but I'm on Instagram primarily as Cody crinkled, DDS. And that's more of a kind of who I am behind the scenes, more of my family and things like that. Sometimes I'll throw a few thoughts on when I think about certain things up there. But other than that, that's kind of where we're at on our platforms. And it's exciting. It's a it's an interesting world out there right now.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 38:27

We're glad to have you here locally. So tell us lastly, what your top longevity tip is.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 38:33

I'll tell you what has worked best for me. I've done a lot I like to practice on myself put it that way. So I've done a lot of things for myself. Before I tell people about them, that type of thing. And I'm always messing with different things and learning new things and applying them in my daily regimen. Some are very protocol driven. But I think the one thing that what I see from some of my patients as well, that over kind of transcends all of it is mindset, if you don't have a healthy mindset and a healthy mind, and that's irrespective of, you know, neurological issues. I mean, if you can't have a healthy mindset and drive that way, you won't be able to live long. live life to the fullest. I think, you know, some people don't get as long but they've lived a lot more full than other people. And so I think having that mindset and especially in today's world where where that can be taken from you quickly, you have to be very protective of I say protective of your vibe, protective of your energy, protective of your mindset. And I think that's the key to people at least living full.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:34

I love that protective of your vibe. Love that. Well thank you so much today Dr. Krieger for coming on the show and sharing your passion to improve one's oral health to improve their full body health. So I'm on board with that. Thanks again for coming on the show.

Dr. Cody Kriegel 39:46

Thank you so much. Appreciate it My pleasure.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:53

That concludes another amazing episode. I love how Dr. Kriegel reminded us to protect our vibe, our energy and ultimately our home To connect with Dr. Kriegel, be sure to visit corridor dental nl.com Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. The podcast is produced by the team at counterweight creative as always, thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting.

The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai