Mouth Care for those with Lyme Disease

4 Comment(s)

1. On Mar 24, 2009, jolola said:

   i wish there were more responses to this one. i need help and direction, and i don’t think the new dental book can get to my house fast enough, i ordered 3, on for me, one for my llmd and one for my dentist.

   i lived a life of realtive good dental health, over the past few years, even though my diet has remained constant, and my dental hyigene has remained constant, my dental health has declined rapidly and drastically.

   it started first with what i eventually discovered was actually a thin line of yellow discoloration along the top edge of one tooth at the gum line. (one dentist told me this was common with people who had long term illness, and that it was a simple discoloration, no problem.)

   it wasn’t long, a week or two later, i noticed that after brushing my teeth, i had tiny particles of crunchy stuff in my mouth. i thought it might be tartar, (though i rarely even get tartar any more) it was like that crunchy-ness you get after having your teeth cleaned and there are still small amounts of residual tartar particles in your mouth.

   with my fingernail, i scraped the tooth with the thin line of discoloration, thinking surely, it was more than discoloration, and the tooth did have tartar build up after all. with no pressure at all, i discovered that the entire line of discoloration was instead “etching” of my enamel as the top edge, .5mm of that tooth literally crumbled from gentle fingernail pressure…i looked closer and the tooth next to it had now developed the same yellow line of etching.

   one by one this same pattern occured on tooth after tooth, spreading from one tooth to the next at what i considered a frighteningly rapid pace.

   at that point i began to have worse than major anxiety on top of an already serious dental phobia…though phobias are irrational, and my fear really made perfect sense, i had real reason to fear dentist, as well as proof that dentists you could trust were hard to find.

   and here is where i must flash back about a decade for some background to fill in the picture.

   you see, for the last 10-15 years, i have gone from dentist to dentist TRYING WITH ALL MY WITS to convince the dentist that my teeth had become totally immune to deadening. no one would believe me, and the few who entertained the possibility with amusement were nothing more than simply that…amused…until after asking for more and more deadening, painful shot after shot until they finally started to drill only to have the drill knocked out of their hand and fly across the room…sorry, i didn’t do it on purpose, it was just reflex i guess. every dentist, every time, the same cycle of pleading for understanding only to meet more disbelief until i would eventually uncontrollably knock the drill out of their hand, and each time they would say, “wow, you really CAN feel that” duh duh duh, i need to say a stronger word than duh! but i am a lady, so i will abstain from profanity tho this calls for some!

   over that decade plus, of knocking drills across the dental exam room, i have begged, pleaded and done everything i could think of to explain to every dentist i went to that I COULD NOT BE DEADENED enough for a dentist to drill on my teeth.

   i endured untold amounts of excruciating pain, which dentists flippantly called “discomfort” (i would like to discomfort them, i tell you what!)

   by that time it had developed into a full fledged dental phobia which was getting worse and worse as my pleas for help fell on deaf, unsympathetic, disbelieving ears.

   the last time anyone tried to deaden me, i sat in the chair with tears streaming down my face, pleading with my eyes as intensly as i could, back and forth from tech to dentist, saying, stop stop stop with my eyes, my tears, my squirming body and my mumbled words, how can you say, help with four hands, needles, drills, squirting water and suction in you mouth? aren’t tears and moans and and arched back where nothing but my head and my feet were touching the chair…doesn’t that say enough.

   now don’t say i had bad dentists, i went to the ones who specialized in gentleness…fruitless eventually all of them, they just didn’t believe i could not be deadened…and this is on top of taking large doses of methadone for uncontrollable lyme pain.

   so phobia is not the word for it…self perservation is, pure primal survival kicked in and i could not force myself into a dentist office, i could not pick up the phone to make an appointment, finally my hubby started making them, and then the day of the appointment after a two or three nights of no sleep, cancelling them because i knew i could not take all that pain on top of all my other lyme misery…

   so i clamped my mouth shut until i finally found a dentist who had recovered from lyme, and who would put me under and fix what has grown rampantly in just over 2 years into 21 or more cavities.

   it is one week until my $30,000 worth of dental work will begin.

   now, mind you, up until the last decade and a half ago, i have had dentists marvel at my teeth, relatively few cavities…not even one until is was 14 years old…and even then, when i got one, they did not grow, i could go three years with a tiny cavity that stayed tiny…until now.

   i did a lot of journaling and investgative clue gathering on my teeth, dental habits and diet and i can find two dental environment factors that contributed to this. the only two things about my mouth that have been different these past couple of years are this….

   one is a constantly high acid level of my mouth, i guess caused by the same thing that makes all of us acid. i have not been able to control the acidity of my mouth in the same way that i can control my body though…and i have not yet found a dentist to admit that the characteristic constant acid level of my mouth might have something to do with my accellerated rate of decay.

   and the other major problem was when i started taking methadone…my mouth is always dry, i drink water constantly, in amounts that surpass the recommended daily amounts…

   other than that, neither my diet, nor my dental hygeine habits have changed, if anything, they have improved, as i have tried inconsistantly to eliminate sugar from my diet, i don’t eat more, i do eat less.

   now, here lies my contention, if my theory is correct, then perhaps in addition to some bacterial infection (that i have yet to study since i don’t have the book yet, but i have found scanty information about this online)
   both the acid level, and the dry mouth are both directly related to my lyme disease…

   so why wouldn’t medical insurance cover this, rather than dental insurance which will not cover virtually ANY of the $30,000.

   my dentist is not willing to stick his neck out and say that my dental problems are directly related to lyme, he says no one will accept that explaination.

   my llmd IS willing to write a letter, but he says i must find 10 citations that support a relationship between lyme disease and dental decay first…i don’t know how far we will get with only a doctor vouching for a medical reason for dental care, but we are going to fight it.

   i think all lymees should be aware of the fact that this could happen to them, and if i blaze a trail that sets a precedent for medical rather than dental covering this work, then that will help a lot of people.

   so if anyone is still reading my long, lyme brain, mix of irrelevant and relevant dental information, and they have had a similar experience, then please please please, post here.

   if anyone has any citations or medical articles, please post them too.

   and if anyone has any ideas, let’s hear them.

   any and everyting i discover on this dental experience will be well documented and prepared to share with others who may need to follow behind me,

   i just can’t believe i am the only one.

   and i can’t wait to read Dr. Nordquist’s book. it could not have been published at a better time, i wish i had gotten my hands on it sooner, i actually did think i odered it a month ago, but i guess i did not hit submit or something because there is no record anywhere of an order, or a credit card charge, so i am back at square one on that…

   thank you for bearing with me, i just can’t condense my thoughts and by the time i finally get everyting i need to say said, i am just too tired to go back and try to shorten it, it takes me literally hours to do something like that and it has alreadly taken two hours to write this.

   lyme disease really sucks…sorry, but i just had to say that…

   good luck to all the snaggle-tooth lymees like me, boo hoo, i miss my pearly whites…

2. On May 14, 2009, delia Britt said:

   please come and have a look at canlyme’s website. There is thread there on dental aspects of lyme disease.

3. On Aug 22, 2009, Carol said:

   My mouth problems with Lyme consist of…

   1) A grey or rust-colored metallic coating, especially on the backsides of my lower front teeth (from incisor to incisor). Backsides of my top front teeth, also, from incisor to incisor. My dentist had never seen anything like this and said that it was unusual in that staining of the teeth usually occurs on back teeth (such as molars), not the front teeth, because back teeth are much harder to reach with a toothbrush.

   2) Significant gum tissue loss (recession of gums) in the areas described in number 1 (front teeth, both top and bottom fronts from incisor to incisor - though bottom front backsides from incisor to incisor are the worst). Areas of my teeth that should be covered with gum tissue are exposed.

   3) Extreme and immediate tartar build-up when I eat any yogurt or probiotic containing lactobacillus, even if I brush my teeth immediately.

   4) A constant magnetic-like pull on my lower jaw, upwards towards my sinuses/brain.

   I am positive for the hemobartonella/mycoplasma microorganism (not just Lyme) and found this article…

   http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=293604

4. On Apr 22, 2010, patti charleston said:

   I am just beginning to see the signs of my dental health rapidly declining as I battle with the after affects of lyme disease that was not dx’d for over 6 years. In the past 3 weeks I have had 1 extraction, 3 deep cavities, and a root canal that has yet to be finished and am in pain. My dentist said it is not the toothe and I have been dx’d w/ trigeminal nueralgia which was calm until the dental work began. Do I believe all of this is connected? Yes but finding the dentists and doctors to agree on helping is difficult. I have a great llmd and a great dentist but am dealing now with daily migraines, earaches, and pain on one side of my face. Very interested on any info about how to protect the rest of my teeth and gums before I lose them too. Any good products out there or mouthwashes? Thanks.