There is ALWAYS something you can do. You just need to put the time into figuring it out.
After my 14 weeks of chemo, even after refusing to take the steroids, my bones were pretty weak. I went to a superfancy anti-aging clinic and was given a bunch of expensive tests including a bone density scan. They diagnosed osteoporosis in my hips and lower back.
Also, I noticed that my teeth were pale and gray and quite porous.
Anyone who's ever been pregnant will tell you that the bones and teeth are connected, if you don't get enough dietary calcium and supporting minerals while pregnant, your body will leach it out of your teeth and bones. Your teeth become more translucent or cracked over time.
Terrified, I asked the doctor what I should do. He said, "Well, there's nothing you can do once you've lost the bone. But I can prescribe you Boniva which slows the loss."
He was a good looking, well-spoken guy but I never trust a pharmaceutical salesman. Lots of people believe that Boniva and Fosamax (and their ilk) make your bones brittle.
A few months' later, I discovered I had a huge cavity in my tooth - also, obviously, due to bone loss. I spoke to my dentist - and I love that guy as a person. But his answer: "Well, there's nothing you can do once you've lost the tooth to decay. It's really all about prevention. We can look into crowns." (More expensive stuff).
Spending a little time thinking about it, neither idea made sense to me. If you break a bone, you set it and it rebuilds itself. So your bone is not only capable of healing itself, it's designed to do that. You just have to figure out how to support your body to do its work. And teeth are bones, so why can't they grow back?
That summer, I researched bone building supplements on a whole bunch of osteoporosis forums and chat rooms. Since I'd gone into menopause post-chemo, the lack of estrogen caused further bone loss. I added lots of minerals to my diet and exercised like crazy.
In the winter, I was crossing the street in front of my kids' school and was hit by a taxi. My face and hip hit the ground. While my face needed to be sewn back together, it turned out my hips were solid. In other words, the stuff was working. No pain and no fractures - not even a hairline - showed up in the x-rays.
This summer - about five years' later - I went to an incredible dentist, Idelle Brand, who practices holistic dentistry. She took a look at the now GINORMOUS cavity which had developed underneath an old filling and said, "Wow. No wonder you didn't have any pain. Your tooth was growing back." Basically, the dentin had grown back over the nerve.
There are actually a lot of schools of thought around re-building teeth and bone with diet, most of them based on Dr. Weston Price's studies of different cultures and their teeth, bones and jaws. (Personally, I don't process eggs or dairy products well - even raw (unpasteurized) dairy which because it isn't heated, has its enzymes intact thus making it more digestible and bioavailable to the body - though I occasionally have raw sheeps' milk cheese - so I can't totally follow his diet.)
Keep reading or scroll down for the useful stuff. What follows is a tried-and-tested bone and teeth building regimen - this is an amalgam of success stories from osteoporosis chat rooms and my own discoveries. I gave this to a friend I worked with recently as a polarity practitioner and a holistic nutrition coach. Teeth seem to be harder work than bones so it will require more of a commitment. But two things to remember, carbonated drinks and pasteurized dairy foods (sugary ones like sweetened yogurt are even worse) actually weaken your bones by stripping the calcium.
The brand names on the supplements are the ones people recommended. You should do your own research - test them out and see what feels good for your body. However, I don't recommend drugstore or Costco/Sam's club/Walmart brands as they tend to use cheap ingredients or substitute other stuff (even cheaper).
Even if you are being presently treated for cancer, you can follow this:
First thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, have a glass of water with the juice of half a lemon, ideally fresh-squeezed. Then take
3 Doctor's Best Strontium Bone Maker (separate from ANY calcium foods or supplements),
2 capsules of Bio-Kult, Dr. Mercola or Nexabiotic probiotic
1 Digest Gold or Life Extension digestive enzyme
1000 mg of a good vitamin C (I like Lypospheric vitamin C by Livon-Labs - squeeze a packet into your water and rub the remaining stuff onto your skin).
1 capsule New Chapter Turmeric Force or other curcumin.
(If you can bring yourself to have a fresh-pressed green juice, this is a good time to do it - add the vitamin c to it. You might also do 10 to 15 minutes of oil pulling if teeth are your main issue. Skip the coffee for a little while as that is not good for your bones. If you must have a coffee now, use coconut milk or cream without any added calcium, not dairy).
Drink lots of water! Personally, I also have two cups of comfrey root and leaf tea or 30 drops of comfrey root extract during the course of the day. Many people don't have comfrey as it can be hard on the liver but I have never had any trouble with it. Here's a video by Dani Katz who healed HER teeth.
Wait 60 minutes to have breakfast. For breakfast, have cooked or raw (if you buy them directly from a farmer) organic, free-range eggs. You should also crush the eggshells and add the powder to your raw egg smoothie or meal. With your breakfast, have 4 drops of Numedica Micellized Vitamin D3 and another packet of the lypospheric vitamin C.
Drink a glass of water and add 1 tablespoon of food grade Diatemaceous Earth. Drink it up as soon as you add it in as it tends to get thick and settle if you leave it. The only salt you should use is grey Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt.
with lunch and dinner
3 Jarrow Bone Up (6/day)
1 JarrowSil 5 mg
1 Digest Gold enzyme
1 capsule New Chapter Turmeric Force
1 packet of vitamin C
Avoid table salt and ALL sweetened and carbonated beverages (they leach calcium from your bones).
Have LOTS of fresh green vegetables - especially spinach, collards, kale, mustard greens - and orange vegetables - squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, carrots - you can eat them raw or sauteed with garlic, however you like them.
Make and drink bone broth - sear organic, grass-fed beef bones on the stove (I add onions and garlic myself). Then I fill the pot with water and let it simmer for several hours.
To bump up your vitamin K2, eat eggs, brie or (raw milk) gouda cheese, hummus, molasses - just make sure everything is organic.
In order to add more minerals to your system, take 1/2 teaspoon of grey Celtic salt and follow it with 2 glasses of water. Do this any time of day but not with the strontium.
At bed time, take
1 digestive enzyme
1 probiotic
Any magnesium you like because it helps you sleep better.
For gum loss or peridontal disease, before you brush, massage the base of your teeth with one round (one water basin full) of the hydrofloss. It's a fancy version of a waterpik, but it's value comes from the variable speeds as well as the magnetized water which according to medical studies is proven to clean and strengthen gums more effectively. If you read the reviews on amazon.com, people have regenerated gum tissue within 6 months using this device (or the earlier incarnation) daily.
Also, for tooth decay, there is an incredible mouth rinse called liquid dentist. You swoosh it around your mouth for 2 to 15 minutes (I do it while I slather on all my night time face creams and potions) and then you swallow. I am not sure how it works, though it was created by a Harvard Medical School and Tufts dentist, and if you do it at bed time, you wake up with smooth, unsticky teeth.
An easy bone building exercise - stand or hop on one leg at a time, for 30 seconds. Eventually, try to build to 3 minutes on each leg. I do this on the subway when I can't get a seat. Just leaving out the hopping.
Even easier, stand on a powerplate for 30 seconds on each leg. I bought one for my dad on craiglist (but my mother refused to allow it in her house) so I use it regularly. Still cheaper - jump on a mini trampoline for 5 or more minutes a day. That's been shown to stimulate bone growth.
Remember, your body is designed to regenerate and heal itself. Your job is just to help it. Unfortunately, the older you get, the more effort your machinery requires to keep it in order - but it is ALWAYS possible!
If you decide to follow or modify any of these recommendations - let me know how it works.
