Episode 25: Safe Dentistry & MCS. A Conversation with Dr. Amy Dayries.

Aaron Goodman  00:05

Welcome to The Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. It's a podcast that amplifies the voices of people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity or MCS, also known as environmental illness, chemical intolerance and d loss of tolerance or TILT. The podcast also highlights emerging research about the illness. I'm Aaron Goodman, host and founder of the podcast. 

This is episode 25 and the title is "Safe dentistry and MCS", features a conversation with Dr. Amy Dayries. Dr. Dayries has practiced integrative and aesthetic dentistry in Roswell, Georgia in the US since 1996. She takes a natural, holistic and biologic integrative approach to care when possible. Dr. Dayries personal experiences with lead and mercury toxicity letter to develop an interest in dentistry for people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. She is a Fellow and faculty advisory board member with the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine in the US. Dr. Dayries is also a board member of the International Academy of oral medicine and toxicology and the American Academy for oral systemic health. 

In our conversation, you'll hear Dr. Dayries explore how to find a dentist who understands MCS, how to ask a dental office not to use air fresheners and scented products, amalgams and if they should be removed, testing for dental materials that people with MCS can tolerate, root canals and safety issues and more. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and find it a benefit. 

We release new episodes twice a month, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can now subscribe to hear bonus episodes featuring experts on MCS and information you won't hear anywhere else. Thanks for subscribing. It helps us to continue making the podcast available and creating greater awareness about MCS. Leave a review on Apple podcasts. It's a great way to help others learn about the podcast and find us on social media. Just search for the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast or podcasting MCS. Leave your comments about anything you hear on the podcast and please share the podcast with others. 

You could watch the podcast on YouTube and read closed captions in any language you like. Please support the podcast find the link to our Patreon site and episode descriptions at chemicalsensitivitypodcast.org. And if there's someone you'd like to hear interviewed on the podcast or a topic you'd like us to explore, just let us know. Email info@chemicalsensitivitypodcast.org and thanks for listening.

Aaron Goodman  02:49

Dr. Dayries, it's wonderful to be speaking with you. Thank you so much for taking time to come on the podcast.


Dr. Amy Dayries  02:55

Thank you for having me as a guest, Aaron. 

Aaron Goodman  02:57

You know, dentistry and the challenges that people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity face in terms of going to the dentist, I think it's on the minds of a lot of people with the illness. So I'm really grateful to you for sharing your insights. In your view, do you feel that the profession as a whole, dentists, by and large have enough information about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, environmental illness, in order to respond to people's needs?

Dr. Amy Dayries  03:27

I think that's a growing need in our field in our profession. Dentists, we get a lot of I would say in traditional dental schools, we, there's a bit of hazing that goes on. And you're trying to corral a bunch of people that when we started our professional programs that have maybe different backgrounds, different disciplines, free prior to coming to dental school, and at the end of it, we need to be able to do strictly pure dental things with competency and hopefully excelling in those things, not just barely getting a decent filling. So a lot of this type of education, I think is going to need to come from his graduate programs, or from continuing education. And with all the chronic illnesses that we are seeing in today's world, more and more people are showing up in our chairs with these chronic problems. And so that's going to, I think, you know, it's like supply is going to create the demand. And so we are seeing increasingly at our dental conventions, and you're going to see new topics like this. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  04:25

This is considered I'd say a new topic for our dental profession. You're going to see that at these conventions and these CTE programs outside of the schools first and it will get to schools but it's probably going to take a few years we have a lot we have extensive oral pathology throughout all four years of our dental programs, but in some of it dabbles and touches in on this, but this is a growing field. It's exploding. 

Aaron Goodman  04:47

Yes, the numbers of people with MCS, EI, are growing. And just for listeners, could you talk a little bit about your own practice and how often do you have patients coming to you to see you specifically because of your knowledge about how to treat folks with the illness. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  05:07

So, I was one of those people that I did go back and do some postgraduate work, I ended up doing an integrative medicine fellowship at the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine. Some of my colleagues might do it with Institute of Functional Medicine, or seek out additional training other places, I went with AIHM, some of my training was in Oregon, Portland, and other parts of San Diego. But I do have people that call specifically because they are chronically sick with things. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  05:35

And so first of all, we recommend to our patients that they might bring in or maybe send ahead, any recent lab tests, they've had any, any kind of recent lab tests from any practitioner that they're seeing a lot of these people when they are sick, they've tried, they've had to go to multiple offices, and they're, they've been desperate. They've been in places of desperation as a dentist, I also had gotten myself there about 10 years ago, I had I had heavy metal sensitivities, tremendous heavy metal lids from the work I was doing, which actually catapulted me into changing how I practice and going back to school and doing a lot of education for myself to familiarize myself with with these topics. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  06:13

I'm, so sending in lab work ahead of time, that's one option. If you have any heavy metal testing, that would be helpful. Or maybe you also bring in where we can seek out a dentist, I happen to be a part of something called the International IAOMT, International Association of Oral Medicine and Toxicology as well as another group called American Academy of Oral Systemic Health. So you might seek out a dentist that's either a member of the IAOMT or AAOSH, A-A-O-S-H, because these are the types of dentists that have discovered that there is a need to know. And we do have very heavy amounts of Continuing Education ongoing multiple opportunities throughout the year, some virtual and to in person conferences a year. But sending ahead your labs is an excellent way. I mean, sometimes people send in sometimes it's a box. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  07:04

So you're not alone out there. If you have been affected with chemical sensitivities, and you've been around the world, all these different doctors, you're not crazy. You need validation. And you need to start that's those two social dental groups, professional dental groups are good ways to start finding who is in your court who is going to have respect for your journey, where you've been, and hopefully some know how about where you need to go. The other thing I love about those two professional groups is it's unfortunately, some of our professional groups and dentistry are like sort of like pay to play where you can join, but you don't have to do and with these two, they're on both of their websites, there is transparency about what background says dentists have had. So, you know, if you're looking at a locale, you know, some locality and you can read up more specifics on what that particular dentist has to offer and what their background is. That's a good clue getting getting on that dentist website. And those two professional groups will link you to the prospective websites. 

Aaron Goodman  08:05

Thank you. And I will provide links to those organizations in the show notes for listeners. Are the are those primarily for dentists based in the United States? And if so, should people just look for other associations if they're not in the States? And should they seek out holistic or biological dentists if they're wondering what to do? 

Dr. Amy Dayries  08:28

Yes, this is a really great question. So the International Association of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, IAOMT is truly international, they actually will have an Australian conference, they have one in South America, they have European conferences, and there really is a network and they'll have typically at some of their conferences, somebody come from one of the other groups on one of the other continents. And so there is a cultural cross cultural reference, where there's a giant constant dialogue going on the AAOSH, American Academy of Oral Systemic Health, it is a newer organization. And it's really more of a spin off in a way I don't want to misquote them and I'm so but it's it feels as, as a member as a board member, more of a spin off of the American Dental Association. So it's a maybe a little bit more mainstream. It's it and but that one has also doctors now both of these groups do work together. They weave in and out of it together. And frequently, at least once a year. These are generally these each of those groups has a live conference twice a year, but they'll collaborate with another medical group as well. So IMBD is one of those groups. There's several there's a collaborative effort with AIAHM and that's where I did my fellowship so you can also go on your asking like where else you might go, you can go to some different physician websites. So Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine would be one Institute of functional medicine would be another one IMBD would be another one.

Dr. Amy Dayries  10:00

A lot of lot of letters I don't mean to be confusing with all the letters, but looking for a holistic or a functional or an integrative dentist, a biologic dentists, those are the buzzwords. But you need to understand out there that if you were talking about somebody being an oral surgeon or an endodontist orthodontist, there are fellowships specifically at the dental school program residencies at those dental programs that are two or three, sometimes up to five years for all surgery, residency programs for people who are already dentists. And now they're specializing in that we don't have that for somebody to call themselves a biologic, integrative holistic, functional dentist. So this is why looking at the dentist's background is going to be very, very important. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  10:45

Because you're not going to get the same consistent care from practice to practice it's not it's not quite the same that's why these the live education is really important. Because you're you're there isn't an actual fellowship. There's not like a test where now you are officially a biologic Dennis was some of those people, you have to look for the people that aren't just paying to play or calling themselves so there are there are in some of these programs, testings and extra degrees that you can earn. But that's again, just you don't have to to call yourself something. That's all I'm trying to say. 

Aaron Goodman  11:18

That's very helpful. I think it'd be helpful. I think that'll be very helpful for listeners, some of the challenges, maybe I could just run some by you and and you know, check in with you get your pulse on your reading on these. When we go to the dentist, we're often confronted by you know, scents in the office, chemicals in the environment, such as air fresheners, cleaning products, scented laundry products. Do you hear that from a lot of people, or what's your response to that? Do you think that's just like does not have a place in the dental office should not be part of the space in order to make sure it's accessible for folks?

Dr. Amy Dayries  11:56

I think it would be wise to be very careful. So for instance, with our team, we ask people to not wear colognes, perfumes or things that have a lot of scents to them. We also have level five air filtration. The company is called Surgically Clean Air. They were earlier this year, they were merged with a dental companies and all supply company called A Deck but Surgically Clean Air has traditionally been sold, they initially started their products, it looks like a cylinder. It's an air, it's a level five air freshener. So they've been used some hospital settings and some of the dental school settings. But initially, they were used with the hockey professional hockey groups and some of the other professional sports arenas where you where you have people sweating in a locker room before and after a practice or a game, it's, I think you're gonna find more and more of this, especially after the COVID pandemic that we've been through, we are realizing how things can hover in the air for up to 10 hours after somebody has left a room. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  12:50

See, if somebody just haphazardly have a little cough, they may just have an allergy, but whatever the whatever was in that bacterial the bacteria in that spot on whatever chemicals were in that sputum can can linger. So I would recommend an office it's got good air filtration. And I think we'll see more and more of that being mentioned, in a lot of biological dental practices, we already use high end air filtration because we are trying to really limit the amount of chemicals that are being spewed by our dental work. Because just like when you flush a toilet or somebody coughs, we use a lot of aerosol spraying when we use like a cavitron or prophy things to clean the teeth. And when we remove amalgams, which are the silver mercury fillings or have mercury by molecular weight and but they also have copper, tin and zinc. And we're grounding those, we try to take those out and a big piece, but you're gonna get this releasing of those chemicals in the air. And the reason that's a big concern is mercury at room temperature is a liquid. That's why you have it and thermometers traditionally. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  13:52

So you heat that up with a lot of friction 1200 RPMs with a drill, and you are not just liquefying that stuff, you're going to there's going to be a little bit of gassing up. So we also use like some hose on like a looks like an elephant trunk. I call it your little buddy during the dental procedures. So we have that resting on your chest. And it provides another level of air filtration. So we try to do it on the patient during any of these aerosol producing procedures. And then we have these Surgical Clean Air machines throughout the office. And those like I said, they're also used in hospitals and these professional locker rooms. They'll do 1200 square foot two square feet every 90 seconds. So they're constantly being turned over. We have to keep the filters up to date. So I think I didn't quite answer your question. 

Aaron Goodman  14:38

I think that's really sounds like what you're describing sounds like an ideal environment in many ways. A lot of people who may not have the ability to access a clinic such as yours. I've heard anecdotally people talking about or suggesting wearing nose plugs, wearing personal protective equipment or PPE, masks or are calling ahead and asking people if they could turn off the air fresheners or not use them not use scented products, etc. Would you recommend any of those steps? 

Dr. Amy Dayries  15:12

Yes, and I would recommend all that you just said, but also just notify the team. Okay. And oftentimes, it's very helpful to have an earlier morning appointment because even if the team does the right things, you could have a patient coming in before you now these this high end air filtration equipment, it also is very helpful reducing with reducing odors, okay, you may not just you could just do a cursory ask. I know, there's all different types of sensitivity levels out there. But I think wearing a mask, it's doable up to a point but being a dental office, you're gonna have to take the mask off. So that might be helpful. Like in the reception area, we really have tried to clean up our act and not have a lot of aerosols. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  15:54

The laser is another place I haven't mentioned increasingly in the field of dentistry, we are using lasers. Instead of drills for a number of our procedures, you cannot use a laser when you're removing an amalgam one of those silver mercury fillings, but you can use them for a lot of other restorative procedures. And anytime you're exposing the mouth to a laser, we always have these funny medical words, we refer to what's being cast off as a plume. And all that really is, is it's a fancy way to say that we heat something up with a laser and there's going to be an evaporation that have either on the tissue if we're using it on soft tissue procedures, periodontally gum, gum tissue procedures, or if we're using it literally on a tooth, there will be a gassing off some degree of again, what contents are in the mouth. And again, that goes back to why in office heavy air filtration is so important. And that's why an earlier morning appointment is good because we leave our filters on all night. So if you catch us earlier in the morning, there's just less of a chance even though we're doing the best we can, there's gonna be a far less of a risk that you're going to end up being exposed to anything. 

Aaron Goodman  16:59

Thank you. You mentioned amalgams and you know, I hear a lot about people removing, going to dentists to remove amalgams. Could you please explain for folks who aren't extremely familiar with what are amalgams? And do you recommend they have them removed if they have MCS? 

Dr. Amy Dayries  17:19

Yes, I'd be I'd love to. So one of the big reasons that this group IAOMT is in existence, and it was founded in 1978 was there had been this big argument for decades about the risks, the concerns about Mercury usage and dental offices are the largest proponent or contributor of getting Mercury dumped into our waterways. If we take out a paper clip one gram of weight of mercury from your body. And if we were to put it into a 10 acre lake, the EPA would say you should not eat the fish from that 10 acre lake because of potential mercury contamination. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  17:55

So when I have people come in with a lot of people with chemical sensitivity problems, they have a lot of other things going on health care wise, they've already been around the world with Brazilian doctors mentor and try it a bazillion different things it so the priority of when do we take these out is really going to be on the individual and what their condition is I prefer if we take them out. I prefer if we take them out when they have some sort of a stability with their health care. But if they've tried everything else and everything keeps coming back to heavy metals, then it might be best for them to have them removed. Let me back up a minute. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  18:30

So heavy metals, the content the contents of the amalgam filling material, it's half about half Mercury by molecular weight. Although it's deemed as a catalyst, it helps to bond all the mercury helps to bond the other metals together and the other metals and an amalgam which means mixture, it's what it actually means. amalgam means mixture, are copper, silver, copper, tin and zinc. So it's about 28% silver, and then in descending order copper 10% zinc. Heavy metals also indicates lead. It indicates gadolinium. There's if you do a task and I think one of the best tests to find out if you're a carrier of heavy metals is with a hair test. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  19:06

This particular one I'm not I don't make any money profit from anybody. This one happens to be by a group called Doctors Data Lab. They have a location in Florida. They have another location I think up in the Chicago area but being in Atlanta, I worked with the one Florida's easy, but all you do is you send in a little sample of non chemically treated hair and you get back a report it would be sent to a doctor and you might need to request a doctor to open a professional account to to help you do this. But we just charged we just told the patient to pay the lab it's about a $65 test and in this case, they're testing you for arsenic, cadmium, calcium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, lithium, magnesium, manganese, mercury, nickel, selenium, zinc also they can also test for iodine, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, sulfur, and you might not have thought of calcium as a metal but it in the periodic table of elements, which everything in our world is either a metal or nonmetal. So we're talking about pure chemistry. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  20:06

Now you need a good balance, you need a balance, for instance of calcium to have strong events. But you can have an overage where now it can affect like your parathyroid gland, it can affect you metabolically as chemical sensitive people, I'm sure I've done a lot of their own research. So we recommend a hair test, we recommend, if you've had, if you're that person that's had maybe a lot of autoimmune issues, we'd recommend, you know, maybe having a panel done on dental materials, because even though we may have switched off. For instance, BPA free tooth colored filling materials, you know, the difference between BPA free resin and one that's non BPA free is just sometimes just where they moved a carbon from this from this bond, this covalent bond to that one, so they can be similar. So while we, a lot of people are aware, they've heard of BPA, why don't want a BPA, they may not realize some of these other ones are there, they're definitely better. They're so much better than like a Mercury silver filling. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  21:02

But if you've been that person that's very, very sensitive, you can request some of these lab tests, this one happens. This example happens to be from bio comp labs. And you want to keep in mind if you have a cavity or a toothache, it can take three to four weeks on average to get these results back. And it's a blood test. So I've talked about two different tests. We've talked about the hair test for testing to see if you have heavy metals, and we talked about just a dental materials panel, the dental materials panel is going to test you for three to 400 different name brand products and dentistry take several weeks to get back the hair test. This test for heavy metals also takes several weeks to get back. So if you are having a dental problem, it's prudent to call a dentist or try to find a dentist maybe even pre plan what if I need a dentist just have one maybe picked out a stitch in time saves nine as they say. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  21:50

So in terms of prioritizing if you've got somebody really sick, the chemical lab panel is about a $350 test. So I have a lot of people that are sensitive to chemicals, but they're also on a budget. This is where finding somebody who's collaborating, who's going to these classes with these professional groups is going to be aware and you may not feel that you need to spend that money. Or maybe you do feel like it's helpful in terms of prioritizing when do I take out these silver mercury amalgams find out what your heavy metal load is. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  22:19

And the reason this is I'm talking about heavy metals. A: it is a chemical but but B: you may have been exposed to lead and have no idea you may the silver fillings that have mercury when there's lead present in the body, you're gonna soak up more mercury every time there's friction or heat applied to these metals in your mouth. Because remember that mercury is supposed to be a liquid at room temperature, what's keeping it in that solid state is it's mixed in and you've got this luxury this amalgam that holds everything together, but you get a skimming off of the chemical, and they're synergistic. So they love each other, in other words, and they bind to your sulfur atoms. And sulfur atoms are on every hormone, basically an enzyme in your body. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  23:00

So you've probably seen these stories out there about like a duck that's been in an oil slick, you know, there's been an oil spill. And the duck has always known how to swim, at least since it was a little duckling. But it can't swim. It can't operate its body, it knows how to swim, but it can't move its body. And these chemicals lock up your ability, the heavy metals lock up your ability for your enzymes and hormones to work normally. So you want to know what your levels are. If you're very high, and you're very sick, that might help for you prioritizing getting these out faster. Otherwise, you may say, You know what, I'm not stable. I'm having a tremendous amount of gut issues. I know I need to get this done. But I want you to be somewhat stable. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  23:43

And I'd also like to say something about dental implants, the only dental implants I've seen fail, are in people that have a lot of gut problems. And well, it doesn't mean that you've never had that you've ever had a gut problem. And so you can't have a dental implant. They're very, very successful. But what you don't want to do is have, you may have to get a tooth extracted, because you've got an abscess and infection, but you don't if you're having a lot of gut instability, you want to let that gut heal first, before you have the implant placed, it's going to have a much, much greater likelihood of success. Because when that gets messed up, since 90% of your immune system cells are in the gut that's going to really prevent you from healing. Well, if you're laden with these heavy metals, you're laden with other other chemicals that aren't considered heavy metals, but they're still chemicals and you're not well, you want to get to a place of stability. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  24:29

So this is where we try to counsel people, sometimes it's not the first thing you want to do is take these out, sometimes that's not the first thing you want to do. You want to get your gut healthy, as much as you can. And then we've ended that and maybe you can't get your gut healthy until you get the fillings out. But we have a conversation about that. 

Aaron Goodman  24:44

Well, you have just so much knowledge. I just wish everyone could have an opportunity to to see you as their dentist. You just have so much information and thank you for sharing everything. I think a lot of people have may have questions about root canals. I've often heard that root canals often can contain toxic materials can potentially even trigger Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. What are your thoughts on root canals? Should people just strictly avoid them? Are there safe ones that people can have? And if they've had them, should they be removed in some way? 

Dr. Amy Dayries  25:23

Those are great questions, there is some medical data that's coming out that is linking there seems to be a correlation with certain types of, for instance, cancers, with people that have root canals. And those cancers oftentimes will be on the same side of the body is that tooth at the root canal, these teeth are all your teeth are like a switchboard. So they are between your brain and everything else your heart, and they are connected to the meridians. So you have these acupuncture figures, okay. And I don't know how much of this podcast and sometimes people might watch something. But if you're listening, just what I'm showing is a is an acupuncture model, little plastic mannequin, and it's showing all these criss crossing lines that start really on the by the feet and meander all the way up the body. And a lot of them well, they culminate in the jaw area. And so for instance, the gallbladder meridian starts by the pinky toe, it's the slight green one of for anybody who might be able to watch this, and it meanders all the way up and up through these teeth here. And so when you have a tightness, maybe in your ankle from an old soccer injury, maybe you've had a surgery and knee surgery done, you have messed with that meridian, there's going to be a surgical field. And when there's a crib somewhere, there's going to be it's sort of like having a tightness on that whole line. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  26:43

For any of you out there who've ever stripped meat off of a chicken, the meat tears off the chicken off the bones a certain way. So imagine if somebody did that to you. And actually they have done this in Chinese medicine where they've chained taken the meat off of a cadaver, and it tears off a certain way. So think about this is how if somebody were to take my meat off of my body, this is how I would tear. And what I'm saying is these how do these connect to the teeth, the muscles and the fascia over lie these and so they actually when you have a tightness, for instance, in that gallbladder meridian, you're going to have issues potentially around the pre molars around the upper maxillary premolar. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  27:21

So the these think of the teeth as a switchboard, if you're getting a root canal, then you're having an implant done. You may be on some level messing with that meridian. You got a question about root canals, could they affect things adversely? I think that depends on the person's resiliency, there's not a magic recipe, there's I think we're always going to have a need to have root canals available in dentistry, it is sometimes the most viable best way to take care of a horrible toothache pretty quickly, pretty instantly. The other option would be to pull a tooth. Now there are this is a diff - this is an area of differing opinions in my profession. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  27:55

So some holistic or biologic dentists would say never, never, never do a root canal, there are different ways to do root canals, we have gotten better most s use a microscope these days to go in and clean out these sinuous canals doing a root canal on a tooth is where the nerve tissue inside the middle of the tooth inside the inner most chambers of the tooth is removed and filling material is placed all the way to the tip of the root. In some cases, they've we've used in the past either silver points or something that's laden with some cadmium, which is another heavy metal. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  28:24

And so knowing where you are with your heavy metals, trying to be as well as you can are always helpful things generally speaking, though, when you're faced with potentially needing a root canal or being told that you either need a tooth extracted and maybe an implant place later because the tooth is abscess or having a root canal. Those are your two options. When you have an abscess or a dental infection that serious, you know, people that opt to do the root canals are needing to do so because they are in pain. And maybe they're in a wedding tomorrow. Or maybe it's their front tooth and they are in a position where they are having eminent horrible, horrific pain. And you can't think clearly you need to get out of pain so that you can process what's going on with sometimes you wake up tomorrow and you need this. Now, that doesn't mean it wasn't brewing for a long time, but you had no idea you had no sensitivity and these things will usually hit you when you're down frequently. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  29:14

There's, well let me say this way, every single patient that I had to see this is my personal experience during COVID that had a dental infection. It got to be a habit I was like have you had anybody anybody past in your family lately, and every single one of them we're talking about like 10 people or so had had somebody passed away in their family with it not necessarily from COVID But I mean just die during this pandemic where we were isolated and locked down and couldn't leave our homes and they were grieving so a lot of times what will precipitate this event right now you're looking at you don't typically you no one really elects to do root canals you do it when there's an imminent infection and if you don't treat it and you're ignoring it, you know about it but you're ignoring it. It's going to constantly wear down your immune system. So it's like pick your poison. You in the past might have had people that you know, they do some sort of a barium, barium drink to diagnose and on X ray some problems like pick your poison Do you want your heart to work? Or do you not want to drink the drink. And now we don't know something that could be very informative and give you more years on your life. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  30:15

With a tooth, it's just a tooth. I mean, you could pull a tooth, maybe it's your front tooth. But now, now you're going to have a conversation with your dentist about how do I contend with replacing that missing tooth. So if you have two people that smoke one smokes for 50 years never has a problem. The other person just you know, grew up in an office or didn't grow up in an office, but maybe works in an office where there's a co worker that smokes, but there's some secondhand smoke and they get lung cancer, there's there's different things that you can tolerate that maybe I can't win in dentistry, that's actually another little conversation because you can have there's a whole science out there in medicine called gene SNPs, or single nucleotide polymorphisms. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  30:51

You can do salivary tests. That's what we do in our office or blood testing. And you can find out as a patient, if you don't detox well, because you might have a gene that's been expressed more fully, maybe an easy way for a layperson to understand what gene snips are these single nucleotide polymorphisms is to consider if you've ever known a set of identical twins, they looked exactly alike back in elementary school, but by the time they're in their 50s, you can definitely tell a difference between this one and that one, because they've had different life experiences. One loves to watch TV, the other one likes to run marathons, they start turning on the influence of certain of these genes snips. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  31:29

So it's not the same as a chromosome issue. But with the turning on of one in particular, it's been highly studied. It's called MTHFR, methyl tetrahydrofolate reductase. That's why we don't say that we say MTHFR. It's somebody that's hetero means from one parent or homo, which means from both parents homozygous, they are not going to be able to get rid of inflammatory levels that happen with chemical exposure. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  31:53

So I think what you're looking at is a multifactorial approach and conversation that really would be helpful to have, if you've got somebody with chemical sensitivities, and they come into the dental office, that's so sometimes some people's doctors, if you're seeing an integrative or functional doctor out there, they may have heard of this gene snip therapy, or it's not so much gene therapy. But the identification of these genes knows, some of those people don't absorb vitamins, well, they also tend to pick up these heavy metals more easily. They just can't get rid of they these things get laden in the gut that sets them up for worse, taking on these chemicals that they're exposed to, like the arsenic in their chicken lead. A lot of people in America, we don't do lead testing historically, but we have very old pipes, lead is oftentimes very quite responsible and not helpful for our health. So Aaron, I hope that answers some of those questions. 

Aaron Goodman  32:44

That was excellent. I wanted to ask you about the dental product testing, I've heard or read anecdotally that some people have found them to be not extremely effective. Briefly, what's your view on the dental product testing effective or not? Please, 

Dr. Amy Dayries  33:02

I'd say it's, it's quite effective if you have the right type of tests. This particular one, I like it a lot. I used to use one called Clifford testing, but they folded during the COVID era two years ago. So so if you have your Clifford test results anywhere out there, anyone out there listening to this, it's about a 40 page report, see if you can get it from that dentist if you don't have it in your hot hands, because that company is closed, but it was an excellent test to show biocompatibility. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  33:30

Now, every year, of course, we have new dental materials coming out there, the longer that time has, the more time that's passed, you know, 15 years from now, you know, it may be that we hardly use a lot of his brand names and things on that list. But it's a very helpful test and you want to hold on to your results because you can't do that test. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  33:46

Ask your dentist or your doctor if they could have a conversation and or your doctor if they can have a conversation together because we should be serving you the public, and we need to all be rowing in the same direction. And on the same page, I think it's really important. The first question to me was, how much do we know as a profession on the whole, I think we know some, but this is exploding. And we also have, you know, more and more things that are coming out in society that are becoming more and more mainstream in terms of awareness. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  33:46

But now I'm using this one called Bio Comp Labs, I think they are out of Denver. Yeah, they're out of Colorado Springs. And like I said, these tests generally are all in the same tear in terms of price point about $350 bucks, it's a blood test, I send people home the kit kits free, I just haven't paid the lab directly and they can go get a blood sample done it like any lab test, I think it's a very helpful thing if you have somebody out there that is has really had a lot a lot of struggles, but they've I'm sure they've spent a lot of money and a lot of other offices. So for those people that are really price conscious, I'll tell them that you know, frankly, I've we've and a lot of our my colleagues in these groups that I've mentioned, we've stripped down our chemicals as much as we can and I generally don't find that they're worse off they're generally so much better off when they get these heavy metals out of their body because that's like cleaning that oil off of that duck that was on the oil slick now they can do with their bodies less heavy, heavily laden with with toxins when possible to all of these things because there's so many factors that can affect somebody's health. If at all possible. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  35:21

For instance, the use of glyphosate and our corn, soy wheat products, where more and more we're realizing oh, my goodness, we need to be eating organic, getting these toxins out that way, driving the demand, or the supply because we're demanding it or asking for it, needing it because these things are causing us to be very sick. And the correlation with chronic illness, a lot of like neurological problems, it's exponential with exposures to these things. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  35:49

So what we do in dental in the dental field, we want to lower our toxin load that we're subjecting you to, but we also want to probably get these heavy metals out of your body. Ultimately, when it's the right time for that patient.

Aaron Goodman  36:00

May ask you about mouthguards. A lot of people have questions around either safe mouthguards for folks with MCS? 

Dr. Amy Dayries  36:09

Yes, so generally, all the materials are going to be BPA free. And there's also some of these, oftentimes, these mouthguards are acrylic or silicone based. The acrylic ones though, they can also do one for people that have gluten sensitivities. And also I want to say this about gluten sensitivity, when you have a gluten sensitivity, the enamel is more likely to break down. So you want an honor, your absorption in your intestines is not what it could be. And so we see a lot of deficiencies with vitamins, D, like dog, E, like eggs, C, like calcium, A, like Apple, D, A, C, and K. And so a lot of us dentists will suggest to our patients, you might want to supplement that or we might do some vitamin testing for that. 

Aaron Goodman  36:52

It's relevant because people who need mouthguards may have clenched or grinded their teeth. and there's wear so the vitamin supplementation or deficiencies, it is connected, isn't it? 

Dr. Amy Dayries  37:07

Definitely, actually. Also, we have like 22 and a half million people, I think, on rabeprazole, the purple pill for acid reflux. And when you are on one of these pills that shut down your ability to make stomach acid, you're not going to absorb vitamins in your stomach, and there's a magnesium iron and vitamin D from food sources. Those are what should be absorbed in your stomach. And when you shut that acid down in your stomach, you're not getting the job done where it was supposed to get. It's getting diverted to the small intestines, it does not work the same way. It's a good question to ask about the materials. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  37:18

But generally you'll find everything being BPA free. But the question is why are you grinding? Okay? It's not just that you're grinding? Oh, let's make you a plastic guard. That's the easy answer. But it's not the full answer to me. Full answers to do a deeper dive and find out the why the cause and that's what integrative and functional medicine or dentistry is about is let's get to the cause. So a lot of times, there could be a history of a birth trauma or concussion even 20 years ago, or you may have a magnesium deficiency, maybe from the purple pill or excuse me, I don't want to quote something but you know, from these from these, some of these pharmaceuticals, the side effects of these pharmaceuticals frequently are you're not going to absorb certain vitamins as well. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  38:21

So let's look at your this is why your health history. And if we had it ahead of time before you come in for your first visit, we can really scour that and have a really pertinent conversation with you about hey, you know, and the fine print on these acid reflux tablets. It says talk to your doctor after eight weeks of use, do I still have to be on this? And then how do I get off because you can't just go cold turkey, you want to wean off. So how do we manage this? So we work with people with a nutrition program a little bit to to help just to try to give that support. You need support when you're going through this journey that you're on with chemical sensitivities. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  38:54

So we also in terms of metal, let's say you have an orthodontic wire, there are certain wires. One is called LG alloy. It's a specific alloy because there's such a need, there's such a need. So we've had to strip away all of our nickel even 20 years ago, we knew that 20% of our population couldn't tolerate nickel and their mouth they would have chronic gingivitis, gum inflammation next to that nickel exposure. So there are materials you can request just be really upfront and open about your chronic health issues because we are always growing and changing and developing better. I think veteran, veteran dentistry and we want to support our patients.

Dr. Amy Dayries  39:30

The mouth is really the key to the the whole body health this is the tip of the iceberg right here. Just as the eyes are the window the to the soul, the mouth is is a window into what else is going on in the whole body. So inflammation here or just the fact that you've got food crossing over these these metal fillings in your mouth, the type the choices we have, we have a lot of choices of materials. Those are all pertinent conversations. Some of my patients you know they they've really on deeply into complementary alternative medicine, which has wonderful I hate calling it that because it has wonderful wonderful support mechanisms for a lot of my patients are they're very well steeped in and science and evidence based medicine, they just don't get the the broadcasting power that our western medicine has gotten. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  40:16

But some of our patients are even going into like muscle testing and things like that, I'd say that's a, that's been a very effective tool for a lot of my patients to use. And it helps you trust yourself more, because it's something you can even do to some degree on your own. So what I'm getting at with muscle testing is maybe they see a chiropractor. And so I'll give them a sample an ingot of maybe the porcelain that we're going to use, take that back to your doctors, your holistic your practitioner, your naturopath, have them do some testing, if so, maybe they could do that in a less in a more cost effective way. Then this big old lab test that I was talking about earlier.

Dr. Amy Dayries  40:52

There's also something out there called EVA testing, electronic voltage assessment testing. It's not muscle testing, and it's not blood work. It's using an activity and biofeedback using a computer program that can help indicate how reactive your body is going to be if something were, you know, intentionally placed in your mouth. You mentioned muscle testing. So let's just say I were to go to your office, and you were to give me some product that you might be considering putting on my teeth or replacement tooth, for example, you could I do that muscle testing on my own, could I hold it in my hand or do something to test? What does that involve? Yes, you can? Well, you might first even practice before you're in that situation on some things, you know, like, Aaron, your name's Aaron, right? It's not Amy. So like, one thing you could do is some people use even like a pendulum. So this particular one VOS, it measures for something called BG3, which is not in the green light spectrum. Obviously, it's not green, but in the fringe sciences about 100 years ago, sort of stopped with the advent of World War Two had really gotten into using wavelength technology for healing purposes. And they found that for instance, EMFs can cause a negative brain, it's almost like in the gray scale as scalar wavelength it's a type it's in physics, it's a type of wavelength, instead of being a nice ocean wave, it's more of a vertical wave. And it can be very damaging to health as if it's not applied well. So some people use a pendulum, it doesn't have to be a fancy one, like this one, that's testing specifically for BG three, but some people will go to like a store. And maybe they have two types of vitamin C, for example. And they might have their pendulum it could be something that means a lot to you. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  42:33

But it's not something you would generally wear a lot. But you could hold it over and just see if it spins clockwise faster, faster or slower. If I pick up an ice test with a pendant is to pick up maybe like a phone. So I have an app on my phone here. So you can see if when you hold that this is how they do it if you hold this, and some people may not believe in this, but you can just try it for yourself. I'm not I really am not manipulating my pendant, but it's going to start spinning counterclockwise. Okay, if it's not a helpful thing for me now, if I pick up something else that might be good for me. Is there anything here good for me, if I had a vitamin C, or I happen to have a protein drink, I don't know if it'll like it or not, we'll find out. But the faster something spends, it's gonna it's clockwise. Now this is clockwise. For me, it means I like it better. So some people go with that. It's something you can play with and see if that rings true for you. I mentioned your name being Aaron and mine being Amy because some people will actually do it another way they'll they'll stand on their tiptoes. And if they fall forward when they say something that's true about themselves that they know is true. Your name's Aaron, if they fall forward that that's their way of their body's way of confirming this is That's right, you got it. So now now you have two different vitamin C's or something which one's better? Do you seem to do you seem to lean on it faster or hard or more more definitely, that might be another way to think about that. But if you fall back that's that's false. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  43:57

So Aaron, if you like stood up and tried to My name is Amy with conviction and you fall back that might not work. Another way is to you want to touch it, you would want to touch the whatever it is you're trying to consider two different types of celery that organic is that organic really were that versus the non organic see if when you hold it and you make a little circle with your index finger and thumb you do a test that you know is true. My name is Amy I'm strong now I say my name is Aaron and I break I try to go with the same intensity and a break when something's not not true for me. It's like some people say it's your higher self in this is getting into like energy medicine. We could talk about that for a while. It's a very interesting growing field too. But it's it's being confirmed with quantum physics. So it's in my mind it's it's like I said it's being confirmed with quantum physics so it's it's something that we're continuing to have normal English verbiage to understand to pull in and except because it's not something we necessarily see. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  44:55

Like you see a lot in this paper as well. If it turns blue, it's this result if it turns red. It's that result. So it's more of a practicing what you know, I live at such and such address. My phone number is blah, blah, blah. And then you say your friend's phone number, see how that test for you. And now just the night you just say, but learn to trust your intuition. I think so much we have externalized, so much of what we tell ourselves about who we are. And I think so much of this, I think a lot of people in their journey to get well, especially from something like chemical sensitivities, you start realizing you're not going to get heard from everybody, not everybody understands what you're talking about. That's why it's so important to find a community that that supports, but find what works for other people. And you will find, for instance, there's a lot of chiropractors, I had to go learn how to do muscle testing, because I had patients coming in from their chiropractors, not just one but several, I'm like, Well, what is that I didn't get taught that in school. So I need to understand that so I can support and lean in and have some words of so I can hold that space for that patient and know maybe how to coach them, help them find where they're needing to go first are the most anybody in health care? We don't we don't really heal people. The patient, I believe heals themselves. We are here to support.

Aaron Goodman  46:07

Well, you know, it's just been fascinating listening and hearing you and you know, my wish would be that everyone would have an opportunity to see a dentist who has such a wealth of knowledge about and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity that you have. I know that's not the case. But wouldn't be nice, right? 

Dr. Amy Dayries  46:26

I hope we get there. I appreciate you having me on. I hope there'll be some other dentists out there that hears some of this and I have one person there's there are other dentists that know so much more or different. Again, we don't have a standardized way to do this yet. So we're learning and taking notes and we are starting to teach some classes I'm able to start teaching in some of the mainstream dental forums and I'm so excited, because it doesn't mean I'm I don't I'm never done learning. I have to keep learning. I'm not the expert. I'm I'm a student, just like the rest of us hopefully are and so just remember that doctor means teacher, so you want to find a personality out there that is willing to show you and listen empathically. 

Aaron Goodman  47:09

Well, Dr. Dayries, thank you so much for everything you've shared. I really appreciate it. 

Dr. Amy Dayries  47:13

Thank you. Thank you, Aaron. 

Aaron Goodman  47:15

That brings us to the end of this episode of the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. Thank you very much to Dr. Amy dairies for speaking with me. The podcast is produced by me Aaron Goodman and Raynee Novak. We release new episodes twice a month, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and you can now subscribe to get bonus episodes featuring experts on MCS and information you won't hear anywhere else. Subscribing helps us continue making the podcasts are available and creating greater awareness about MCS. Leave a review on Apple podcasts it's a great way to help others learn about the podcast and find us on social media. Just search for the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast or podcasting MCS. 

Share your comments about anything you hear on the podcast. You can watch the podcast on YouTube. Read closed captions in any language you like. Support the podcast you can find a link to our Patreon site and episode descriptions at chemicalsensitivitypodcast.org And if there's someone you'd like to hear interviewed on the podcast or topic you'd like us to explore, just let us know. Email info@chemicalsensitivitypodcast.org and thanks for listening.