Dental Cavitation Surgery: My Experience and What You Should Know
I underwent dental cavitation surgery in June of 2022 to clean out infected wisdom tooth sockets. It was a long time coming, but it was quite a process to get to this point. I’m sharing my entire dental journey from start to finish in hopes that it will help someone else out there who might need the same procedure.
But first, let’s get into what dental cavitations are and why they can be dangerous for your health.
What Cavitations are and How they’re formed
Dental cavitations are pockets of infection underneath your gums. They are usually caused by dental surgery, whether that may be a root canal or tooth extraction.
When teeth are removed, dentists often leave behind the periodontal ligament that holds the tooth into your jaw. The ligament is now dead tissue and it becomes a breeding ground for bacteria, parasites, and other pathogens to feed off of (I hope you aren’t eating). This can also happen if the sockets are not cleaned out properly before being closed up. If there’s bacteria present, it gets trapped inside and continues to grow.
When the bacteria takes over, the socket isn’t able to fully heal and it leaves a cavitation (aka a hole) under your gums. If it’s left for too long, it can start eating way at your jaw bone. How nice.
But here’s the kicker — because they also sever the nerve when they remove the tooth, you can’t feel any of it. Usually we are alerted to infections in the body because they cause pain, redness, or tenderness, but because these infections are under the gum and there’s no nerve or sensation, we often don’t know they’re there.
You may not know about the infections, but your immune system sure does. The immune system is constantly trying to clear these infections but often isn’t able to because of the presence of the rotting tissue.
How Cavitations Are Linked to Health Issues
The link between dental cavitations, gut issues, and disease is far more complex than what I could fit into a single blog post, but I’ll do my best to put it as simply as possible.
Think about the immune system as a person working in a cubicle, and the cavitation infection as their cubicle neighbor who won’t stop humming showtunes. It’s distracting and pulling attention away from the work that needs to be done.
For the immune system, this might mean missing cancerous cells and allowing them to proliferate. Or, it could mean letting pathogens into the gut that shouldn’t be there.
Experts believe around 70% of the immune system is housed in the gut. When gut issues are present, it can cause immune dysfunction which further perpetuates disease. This can manifest as allergies, autoimmune issues, skin issues, and for me — thyroid disease.
My Dental Journey
I got my wisdom teeth out in November 2010. I had 5 wisdom teeth — the normal 4 and then an extra one in the top right of my mouth. I was told by the oral surgeon that removing the extra tooth might be risky because it was close to my sinus, but they were able to “safely” remove all 5. Following the procedure, I was told my bottom right tooth was encased in a cyst, so the hole was much larger than the other 3 and required more healing time. Other than that, I was told the procedure went great and I had no indication there would be any problems.
The healing was rough. I got sick from the antibiotics and was extremely swollen on the bottom right side of my face for 2+ weeks following the surgery. Back then, I didn’t have the holistic health knowledge that I have now so I relied solely on the meds that were prescribed by the oral surgeon.
Eventually I made a full recovery (or so I thought) and moved on with my life.
Fast Forward one year
A little over a year after my wisdom tooth removal, I started having random symptoms like anxiety, fatigue, and brain fog. I chalked it up to starting college and being more stressed than usual, but ultimately I sought out my first holistic-minded practitioner and was diagnosed with hypothyroidism.
I was put on Armor Thyroid and sent back to college. Never in a million years would I have attributed that diagnosis to anything related to my wisdom teeth, but we’ll get to that.
Fast Forward 11 More years
One undergrad degree, one master’s degree, and one nutrition certification later, I started to learn about root cause healing. I truly believe that disease doesn’t occur for no reason — there’s always a root cause of every condition. The more I research, the more I keep coming back to stealth infections and exposure to toxins/pathogens as common root causes of many modern day diseases.
Oral health became a popular topic among the natural health practitioners that I follow closely. Through them, I learned about the links between stealth dental infections and disease. I read stories of people with terminal cancer who cleared up dental infections and their cancer went into remission. I learned about the dangers of root canals and why they should never be performed. I learned that the dental industry was just as corrupt as the medical industry and they’re more interested in your money than your health.
Eventually, it clicked in my brain that my thyroid issues started shortly after I had my wisdom tooth removal. Given that my recovery was so rough, I had a nagging feeling that there could be infection left over in the sockets where my teeth were removed.
I wanted to explore that theory a little further, so I booked an appointment with a biological dentist.
Finding a Biological Dentist
Thankfully I already had researched biological dentists when my husband’s tooth cracked a few years before I started my own dental journey. He saw a conventional dentist who wanted to do a root canal, to which I said hell no.
We go to Swiss Biologic Dentistry in Phoenix and I cannot recommend them enough. I had a lot of anxiety around going to the dentist before I started seeing them, but now I can say I truly look forward to going there because I trust they aren’t using toxic ingredients and everyone on their staff has been so lovely. My surgery was performed by Dr. Amelia and I couldn’t be happier with the results.
To find a biological dentist, I suggest googling “biological dentist near me” or searching your area on the International Academy of Biological Dentistry & Medicine website.
Diagnosing my Cavitations
Regular x-rays will not pick up dental cavitations or hidden infections. To see those, you have to get a Cone Beam CT scan. These are not scans that traditional dentists will do, so if you’re interested in getting one I would recommend calling the dentist to ensure they have this technology before booking an appointment.
I got my cone beam scan done and sure enough, I had 2 cavitations where my top and bottom right wisdom teeth were removed. The same spots where I had 2 teeth removed and where my tooth was encased in a cyst.
It’s tricky to see how severe the cavitations are on the scans, but my gut told me that this surgery needed to happen so I went ahead and booked it.
Deciding to do the surgery was easy for me, but the anxiety leading up to it was SO hard. I would rather walk across broken glass than have oral surgery again, especially when I had to be awake for this one. But I knew it had to be done if long term healing was my plan.
Cavitation Surgery
The surgery involves the following steps:
Reopening the gums where the infection is present
Scooping out the infected tissue
Cleaning the socket with ozonated water
Drawing blood from my arm and spinning it in a centrifuge to pull out the PRF (healing factors from your blood)
Packing the sockets with the PRF clot
More ozone!
Closing it back up and praying they got it all
When my dentist got into my cavitations, she told me that they were a lot bigger than she anticipated. The top one was shallow but very wide, and the bottom one was smaller but much deeper. Overall, the procedure went well and I went home to recover.
My Healing Protocol
I healed SO much better from this one compared to the original tooth extraction. This time I had holistic remedies on my side. When I went back for my follow up visit to get my stitches removed, most of them had already fallen out because my body was healed enough to push them out. The rest were clipped out with ease and my dentist was shocked when she saw how well it had healed. She said it didn’t even look like I had surgery and it had only been 2.5 weeks since the procedure.
Here are the remedies that I believe helped the most with my healing:
Arnica for pain
Proteolytic enzymes — these enzymes help break down proteins related to inflammation and pain. I took CT-Zyme from Cellcore.
Inflammation support — my dentist provided a turmeric supplement, and I also took IFC from Cellcore.
Red Light Therapy — I did 20 minutes of RLT on the right side of my face every day for 10 days.
Magnesium — the body burns through magnesium quickly, especially when healing.
Mindfulness, breathwork, and reducing stress
What They Found
After the surgery, the dentist sends a sample of the cavitation to a lab to be tested for different strains of bacteria. The lab results of my cavitations came back with:
15 strains of bacteria at levels that indicate “serious risk”, with levels of Enterobacter agglomerans at levels higher than my dentist had ever seen
2 bacterial strains at levels considered “moderate risk”
2 strains considered “low risk”
Where we are now
I wish I could say I’m fully healed and my thyroid issues were in remission, but I’m not quite there yet. Healing takes time and I’m less than 2 months out from my cavitation surgery. My dentist recommends waiting 6-12 months before doing another cone beam CT scan to see if the infection has cleared, so that will probably happen some time in early 2023. This allows the body enough time to truly go through the healing process and allow the cavitations to fill in with healthy tissue.
I also want to emphasize that this surgery was one piece of the healing puzzle. I firmly believe that my thyroid issues have a root cause, but many times there isn’t just ONE root cause. I’ve been working on healing my thyroid for a few years by getting rid of toxic household and beauty products, parasite cleansing, and more recently, treating mold illness.
With that being said, I do think this was a big step in the right direction of healing and I look forward to sharing my healing journey as it continues.
***HEALTH UPDATE 11/28/2023***
Lately I have received several emails asking how I’m doing now that it’s been over a year since my surgery, so here is the update you’ve all been wanting.
Following my procedure in June 2022, I continued a many-months-long detox of parasites and mold working alongside amazing practitioners. I cleared parasites for around 4 months, and then began the journey to detox from mold that flagged high when I did toxin testing. In total, I detoxed from mold for about 2-3 months (I took a little break between parasites and mold because I ended up having a surprise pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage. You can read that story here). Mold detoxing is not for the weak — I went through a rollercoaster of healing and emotions while clearing out the mold. It’s a process that requires a lot of patience but I’m so incredibly glad that I did it.
It’s also worth mentioning that I came off of my thyroid medication in August 2022, just 2 months after my cavitation surgery. I didn’t anticipate to come off of it that soon and to be frank I wasn’t sure I was ready to. Ultimately I did not agree with the plan of care from my doctor at the time and didn’t have another doctor to renew my prescription. I was on a fairly low dose of NP Thyroid, so I tapered off with the medication I had left but I wasn’t worried about drastic symptoms when coming off of it. I decided I would monitor how I felt and run thyroid labs on my own if I started noticing symptoms pop back up while I shopped for a new doctor. Luckily, they never did.
In August 2023, 14 months after my surgery and 12 months after coming off thyroid medication, I redid mold testing and ran all of my thyroid bloodwork. The results showed that I had cleared nearly all of the mold from my previous test and my thyroid labs were not only in the normal range, but in the OPTIMAL range. I haven't had any thyroid or gut symptoms in months and I feel confident that I cleared out the majority of mold and infections that were at the root of my thyroid issues.
With that being said, I know that my thyroid is sensitive to mold and toxins. We’re exposed to mold, parasites, bacteria, and viruses all the time which is why I’m a huge advocate for regular detoxing. This isn’t the end of my detox journey, it’s just the beginning. I will do yearly parasite cleanses and occasional mold binders for the rest of my life in an effort to be proactive with my health. I never want to get to the point where I need thyroid medication again!
As for my dental cavitations, I have not redone the cone beam CT scan to see how they’ve healed for a few different reasons. One, I feel great and my labs are showing excellent signs of health. Two, it’s a source of radiation that I prefer to avoid when I can. Three, it’s expensive. I would like to redo it at some point to have confirmation that everything healed well, but it isn’t high on my priority list at the moment.
Overall I’m incredibly happy with where my health is at today. I encourage all of my nutrition clients and everyone I know to get a cone beam CT scan if they have a history of tooth extractions or root canals and can’t seem to get to the bottom of their health problems. It’s an area that I think is largely missed, even in the holistic health world. Dental surgery sucks but it’s one of the BEST things I ever did for my health and I don’t regret it for one second.
