My purpose in writing this letter is to help those of you who wonder whether dental work can have an impact on your health. In late February and early March 2000, I had the entire left side of my mouth “fixed” by removing four root canal teeth that had gone bad, along with six crowns that had mercury underneath them. The impact it had on my life was nothing short of astounding. There were many subjective changes that occurred including the feeling that a fog had been lifted off of my brain as I sat in the dental chair after my teeth had been removed. I will never forget that change in the way I felt immediately after the teeth had been removed. However, there were many objective changes such as the diastolic blood pressure dropping by about 20 points and my systolic blood pressure dropping by about 30 points within a week of the removal of the teeth, crowns, and amalgams. My blood pressure had been running an average of about 160-170 over 95-100. In less than a week after the teeth were removed my blood pressure dropped to about 130-140 over 75-80!!! I have had marginally high blood pressure (diastolic of about 90) since I was about 25 years old, which abruptly returned to normal. I lost about 15 pounds over a two month time period without effort. Prior to that time I had watched my diet very carefully and tried every type of exercise and aerobic activity and was unable to lose weight. After the teeth came out, my weight dropped like a stone. I had severe osteo-arthritis in my right shoulder to the point that I could hardly move my shoulder without severe pain. The arthritis in my right shoulder had started up and gotten progressively worse since tooth #12 had been re-crowned in September 1998. My previous dentist had said that there was an infection beneath the previous crown, which was only a couple of years old. He cleaned up the decay and re-crowned it. Coincidentally, the pain in my right shoulder started very shortly after he did the dental work. My right shoulder felt about 75% better immediately after the teeth were pulled and is now causing me very little pain. I had severe osteo-arthritis in the fifth metatarsal bone of my right foot. It had been hurting and making walking difficult for the past year, but more severely for the past several months to six months. I was having trouble walking when I went in to get the teeth removed. The arthritis also cleared up after the removal of the 4 bad root canal teeth and the six crowns and mercury fillings. Also, I regained a lot of the energy that had not been there for a number of years. There were many other changes but these were the ones that had the biggest impact on my life.