I searched for reviews for Dr Tran on ratemd.com, yelp, google name/reviews.

Then I contacted the VA medical board below:

http://directory.theaba.org/Searchdetail.aspx?id=35832549

ABA Office:

ABA Office:
Phone: (866) 999-7501
Fax: (866) 999-7503

The anesthesiologist's license was current. She recommended that I call another place to see if there were any citations. I did - no complaints against this doctor.

I called Dr Tran and asked him what monitors were being used, what his process was ... he was very prompt returning my calls and spoke to me in detail, telling me that he used a pulse ox, EKG and BP cuff ...

Then I turned to my online sisterhood ... my breastfeeding mother's group ...

I emailed them the whole story and asked for help and suggestions.

Some of them had used Dr Tran before for lip and tongue tie corrections which had taken about 20 mins. They had positive experiences with him. I felt better.

One of the mothers was a ped anesthesiologist. She spoke to me in detail and recommended ETo2 monitor. I am an EMT and FF. I know that the pulse ox is used for emergency situations like transport to the hospital ... I understood at once when she said that there was a 2 min delay for a pulse ox to register o2 levels falling ... 2 mins is a LIFETIME ....

I called Dr Tran back and asked him if he used ETo2. No, he did not use it. He said that the best way to monitor breathing was by watching.... in my humble non-medical opinion, I disagreed ... where my little boy is concerned, I want the volume of CO2 to be measured. Dr Tran suggested that I used another doctor as he did not use ETo2. He sounded miffed ...

I was uneasy and unhappy ... but Dr Niloo was the only dentist who would do the zirconium caps ..

My back was to the wall .. the school was driving s crazy ... they were going to reopen with new management and were asking for more money ...

A and I could not see eye to eye .. I wanted to give no more money. A wanted L to go back to this school saying that we had moved him so much, cant we please keep him in the same school?

What school? They needed more money and were not sure they could make it through the summer and we were going to give them MORE money? Really????

Uggg ....

In the meanwhile I was carefully monitoring L as he ate and as I brushed his teeth for any signs of pain ... I felt like I was sitting on a time bomb ready to go off at any time ...

I made the appointment with Dr Niloo and paid my $900 deposit.

Then by accident I happened to look at the responses to my email to the group and saw that Mikaila had responded to my email telling me about Ramien Nagel's book and beseeching me to reconsider doing root canals ... she told me about fermented cod liver oil (FCLO) and butter oil

I did not think I had an option but I could read a book for sure .... I read the reviews online on Green Pastures FCLO ....

Hmm .... so many people were reporting that their cavities were healing - disappearing on xrays .. one of them reported that the filling started being pushed out of the tooth ... this process is called remineralization ...

Hmmmm ....

I got the book and read it from cover to cover. I began to understand how I got where I was with L's teeth ...

Our diet had been skewed and skewed so badly. With L's poop-o-phobia last year, the doc had recommended that I give him Miralax for 3-4 months. I hated the idea of giving him a chemical laxative even though the doctors assured me that it was safe ... I did not want to give him something that was relatively new and that we have not had enough time to research and see effects long term ...

I decided to try a diet based fiber approach and started to supplement his food with rice bran and give him high fiber GF breads ...

According to Dr Weston Price's diet regimen, this was a death sentence to L's teeth ...

Whole grains and seeds contain something called phytic acid which the grain and seeds need for the germination process. Phytic acid is a powerful binder of calcium, magnesium and phosporus - minerals that the seed/grain will need to germinate and grow into a plant Phytic acid is concentrated in the bran portion of the grain. It is so powerful that when the grain is consumed, it binds to the available calcium, magnesium and phosphorus minerals in the gut, preventing them from being absorbed by the body.

Oatmeal, rice bran, almonds and other nuts are very high in phytic acid. All these were foods that L enjoyed ... Also, I had reduced his milk consuption as he was getting a lot of runny noses from milk .. so in his gut, there was an abundance of phytic acid anda shortage of calcium, mg and phosphorus ... add to this, the anatomy of his molars are such that there are gaps, perfect food catching gaps, between the premolars and molars where we had the huge cavities ...

So - here was my perfect storm of circumstances ...
Abundance of phytic acid pulling ca, mg and ph from his gut, shortage of ca, mg, ph going in and teeth that were harboring food particles in between the premolars and molars .. his body must have been pulling these minerals from his bones and teeth ...

I could have brushed his teeth until the cows came home ...

We would have ended up EXACTLY in the same place ...

The issue was not hygiene, it was diet, a diet that was severly lacking in the correct nutrients and high in stuff that was pulling nutrients that were necessary for his dental health ...

I felt sadness at how little I had understood about the nutrition process while I was the steward of this most precious little boy who depended on me for everything .. and I knew so little on how to feed his body with the nutrients that he needed ..

But I also felt happiness and calmness .. I understood my mistake ..

I was going to correct it ...

I did not now want to make another mistake - drill his teeth before we gave his body time to try and heal ...

Now - this is a very Eastern philosophy or at least between the husband and I, we think it is ...

I think that the human body is a miracle and given a chance, given the right setting, it will self correct and heal.

A's thought process - these are milk teeth, if the tooth abscesses, L will be in a lot of pain, we need to care for the permanent teeth .. forget the milk teeth - sedate, drill and fill ...

So - you can imagine the "discussions" that ensued ...

While I was pushing FCLO on the boy, I removed all grain from his diet - a change that his father and him vociferously complained about, I added bone broth (yuck/puke/yuck) ... I made drastic changes in his diet .. and mine .. whatever I asked of him, I did myself ...

NO EXCEPTIONS ...

I removed toothpaste and started using tooth powder ...

What a struggle as the boy liked his toothpaste and the taste of it .. and so did I ...

I felt toothpowder was just nasty. My mouth never felt really clean.

But for the enamel to reminernalize, I had to stop toothpaste as the glycerin in it supposedly coats the teeth preventing them from remineralizing. Glycerin is used to give toothpaste the gel form so that it can be squeezed out of the tube and keeps it from the drying up. On researching this more, I found that toothpaste is not a food and hence not governed by the FDA. Companies are not required to report the contents with the same regualtions that companies manufacturing food are ...

As Feb 12th came closer, I started to get sick to my stomach ... I was terrified of the sedation, terrified of the root canals. I also felt that we had not given my diet changes enough time.

A did not believe in the diet changes reversing current decay. All the links that I sent him were all anecdotal - there were no xrays showing before and after ... he asked me in any DENTIST had seen this "remineralization" and reversal ... he reminded of something that I could never forget ...

We were talking of L here .... could I bear the risk of something happening to him?

I shuddered at the thought .. and at the same time, of equal importance to me was the desire not to make a 2nd mistake now ... drill and fill everything in sight ...

To my extreme good luck, L got a cold and a fever before Feb 12th. I gleefully called the doc and said we need to postpone for Mr 20 as L has a cold and his nose is full of goop. Dr Niloo's office had me call Dr Tran. Dr Tran was less than happy and asked me if I was a doctor ... no? Ok, then I was required to take L to his doctor to verify that he was indeed sick enough to miss the sedation else I was going to lose my deposit.

So, off we went to the doc. Doc verified that L had a viral infection and that I need to give him time t recover. Dr Niloo's office moved us to the Mar 20 date.

So, now we had 5 weeks to the next sedation date.

I began to search for holistic dentists in earnest to see if I could get any dentist to work with me on L's teeth by waiting for the diet to heal them and not drilling them ... with his level of decay, I did not want to try this on my own, I needed a dentist to work with me.

Another mother at L's school had reversed her son's decay with diet and supplements. Below is the information that she sent me.

------------------------------- Begin excerpt -------------------------------------------------------

"Here are some articles that you might find interesting. Some are stories written by mothers who have successfully healed their children's cavities through diet. Others are articles written by or about Ramiel Nagel, the author of Cure Tooth Decay and a dentist who healed his own child of tooth decay using information from the research of Weston A. Price. The comments to all the articles are also very interesting. Following these resources is the approach we took to heal L’s cavity.

Healing Tooth Decay Naturally

Malloclusion

I am concerned about C's crowded teeth so I started researching on that. I found these articles quite compelling:

http://www.cheeseslave.com/ever-wonder-why-did-indigenous-people-had-straight-teeth/

http://www.cheeseslave.com/can-good-nutrition-widen-a-childs-palate-even-after-birth/

http://www.foodrenegade.com/have-you-got-a-weston-a-price-smile/

http://hartkeisonline.com/natural-health/how-to-grow-straight-teeth-naturally/

http://thepaleohygienist.com/2012/10/26/can-what-you-eat-now-keep-your-future-kids-out-of-braces-part-i/

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/dental%20health

C has no space between his teeth and the front two teeth on both the top and bottom are slightly buckled. It has been difficult getting him to eat all the nutrient dense foods that L happily eats. He loves fruit and grains while he doesn’t care much for eggs, meat, and dairy. I am hoping to work even harder over the next three years to help him consume a more nutrient dense diet but worry about causing food relationship issues by being too insistent. We will see how he develops. I suspect he will be a strong candidate for Dr. Felix Liao’s services to help broaden his palate once he turns seven.

Books

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

By Dr. Weston A. Price

Nutrition and Disease

By Dr. Edward Mellanby

Cure Tooth Decay

By Dr. Ramiel Nagel

Root Canal Cover-Up

By Dr. George E. Meinig

Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food

By Dr. Catherine Shanahan

Cure Tooth Decay Dietary Recommendations

Add fat-soluble vitamins into the diet, particularly vitamins A, D and Activator X.
Increase dietary minerals particularly calcium and phosphorous.
Vitamin D Foods – Herring
Calcium rich foods – cheese (parmesan, mozzarella, swiss, cheddar, hard goat cheese, provolone), sesame, almond, flax, dairy (yogurt, milk), green leafy vegetables (turnip greens, dandelion, kale, mustard, collard), brazil nuts
Phosphorous rich foods – Milk, cheddar, cottage cheese, beef, chicken, liver, fish, turkey, broccoli, garlic
Balance blood sugar with low sugar meals and adequate levels of protein throughout the day.
Avoid toxic and denatured foods; avoid whole grain foods with bran.
Homepathic Cell Salts

Our Own Personal Approach

We avoid:

Grains (especially oats, we do allow rice and quinoa)

Nuts and seeds

Chocolate

Sweets and acidic fruits

Dried fruits (especially chewy fruits like raisins)

Sugar (except honey which is used sparingly)

Glycerin (found in toothpaste and some FCLO flavors)

Fluoride (found in toothpaste and tap water)

We consume plenty of:

Fermented cod liver oil and high vitamin butter oil daily

Homeopathic cell salts for minerals daily

Raw pastured dairy, fresh and fermented (milk, yogurt, kefir, cream, butter, cheese)

Alkaline veggies

Mineral foods: bone broth, seaweed, fish, shellfish, liver, beef, chicken

Food absorption: bone broth, fermented foods, raw egg yolks

Ways we consume Bone Broth Daily

Serve a small glass of bone broth before meals

Use bone broth to steam rice or boil rice pasta instead of water

Use it in soups, stews, and chili

I encourage the children to chew the meat off the bone and suck out the bone marrow.

Ways we consume Liver Weekly

Foie Gras or chicken liver pate on rice crackers

Beef liver and onions with bacon, sweet potatoes, and Brussels sprouts (kids favorite)

Add beef liver in any recipe that uses ground beef, ratio: 1 lb liver to 2 lbs ground beef (Bolognese sauce, meatballs, meatloaf, moussaka, chili)

Supplements

Fermented Cod Liver Oil and Butter Oil

Dosage: 1 tsp each, once or twice a day

BLUE ICE™ Fermented Cod Liver Oil - Non-Flavored

http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Products/CodLiverOil/index.cfm

Butter Oil - X-FACTOR™ Gold High Vitamin Butter Oil

http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Products/ButterOil/index.cfm

Cell Salts

Dosage: 3 tablets each, once a day

Local Sources: Whole Foods, MOM’s Nourish Market, The Vitamin Shoppe

$14.93 Hylands - Cell Salts #1 Calcarea Fluorica 6 X - 1000 Tablets

Calcarea Fluorica assists with improving enamel of teeth and malnutrition of bones

http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-27071-hylands-cell-salts-

$14.93 Hylands - Cell Salts #2 Calcarea Phosphorica 6 X - 1000 Tablets

Calcarea Phosphorica for bone health, gives solidity to bones and assists in building strong teeth

http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-27142-hylands-cell-salts-

$14.93 Hylands - Cell Salts #8 Magnesia Phosphorica 6 X - 1000 Tablets

Magnesia Phosphorica for quick pain relief with symptoms associated with toothache, teething children & bone development.

http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-28109-hylands-cell-salts-

$14.93 Hylands - Cell Salts #12 Silicea 6 X - 1000 Tablets

Silicea assists in building strong connective tissue to support deficient assimilation.

http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-27666-hylands-cell-salts-

$13.09 Hylands - Cell Salts Bioplasma - 1000 Tablets

http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-13894-hylands-cell-salts-bioplasma-1000-tablets

L’s Afternoon Snacks

Fruit (Low acidic and sour)

Berries

Granny smith apples

Green grapes

Kiwi

Sour cherries

Star fruit

Raw Pastured Dairy

Cheese – Parmesan, mozzarella, cheddar, Gouda, Jarlsberg

Yogurt and kefir

Whole milk

Butter

Cottage cheese

Smoothies and smoothie popsicles made with

Yogurt, kefir, or cream

Raw egg yolks

Fruit

Honey and vanilla (optional)

Proteins

Sardines with the bones

Smoked salmon

Salmon roe

Boiled eggs

Mini liver meatloaf (keep freezer stocked)

Shredded chicken (keep freezer stocked)

Leftover beef stew meat

Mini quiche

Beef jerky

Gelatin treats made from Great Lakes Grass-Fed Beef Gelatin

Fruit gummies (gelatin, fruit puree or juice, raw honey, vanilla)

Fruit gelatin (gelatin, fruit puree or juice, raw honey, vanilla)

Fruit salad gelatin (gelatin, fruit juice, honey, raw cream cheese, diced fruit)

Panna cotta (milk, honey, gelatin)

Tooth Cleaning

Tooth Powders and Pastes

$8.00 Pasca-Dent Tooth Powder 6 oz plastic bottle, flip top lid Pascalite Clay

http://www.pascalite.com/Prod.htm

$8.00 Earth Paste

http://www.redmondtrading.com/product/earthpaste-natural-toothpaste/earthpaste-amazingly-natural-toothpaste

http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2012/06/i-found-the-toothpaste-ive-been-searching-for-a-review-of-earthpaste.html

doTerra On Guard

http://thepaleohygienist.com/2014/02/06/finally-a-natural-toothpaste-i-love/

Homemade Recipes

http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2012/10/homemade-clay-toothpaste.html

http://www.aboutclay.com/info/Uses/toothpaste.htm

http://frugallysustainable.com/2012/03/the-benefits-of-brushing-with-tooth-powder-and-a-make-your-own-recipe/

http://www.anorganicwife.com/2012/05/go-green-homemade-tooth-powder.html

http://pocketsofthefuture.com/blog/?p=55

http://renegadehealth.com/blog/2009/06/02/how-to-make-natural-homemade-toothpaste

http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2012/04/rethinking-oral-health-care-a-homemade-toothpaste-recipe-for-tooth-remineralization.html

http://thepaleohygienist.com/2012/11/11/can-coconut-oil-prevent-cavities/

Tooth Cleaning Habits

Brush and floss every morning and afternoon for a minimum of two minutes

Oil pulling with coconut oil or sesame oil and sea salt mouth rinse

Monitoring Progress

Every night I would ask L to lie down on his bed on his back and inspect his teeth with a bright light, mirror, and rubber tipped tool. I would check for hardening in and around the cavity, and look for signs of re-mineralization. The re-mineralization presented itself as a white ring that built up inside the edge of the hole. I would VERY gently poke in the center of the hole and ask if he could feel it or if he felt any pain.

My plan was to follow this regimen and as long as the decay was halted or showing improvement, I would not seek outside help. However, if it continued to progress, then I would have it filled. Fortunately, the decay halted and then improved. The tooth remained hard, a white ring formed, and the hole became shallower. I did not expect the hole to completely fill in because it was deep. In fact, the hole is still there, but I am not concerned because it is smaller than it was before. Eventually, we reduced inspections to once a week and then once a month and now every few months."

------------------------------- End excerpt -------------------------------------------------------

My attempt to remineralize teeth

Friday, January 31, 2014

Research