Tooth Regeneration 

Almost every day, there is a request for the recipe for my cashew concoction. It started with a severely broken tooth in which the nerve canal was exposed. It was not a case of a chip but rather more like the tooth split in half. Ultimately, one half survived and the other piece, which had no blood supply, fell off but only after the tooth had regenerated enough to seal the canal. Quite a number of practitioners decided to try this for themselves and thus far, I am hearing favorable results from them but no one else has told me how this has worked.

The underlying idea was simple enough: provide the nutrients needed by the tooth and cross my fingers. Obviously, there are background stories, but I don’t think you need all the details. That said, I did much more than just the cashew paste so today I will try to be a little more thorough. Teeth break because of an inherent weakness or incident. The weakness could be a general nutritional deficiency or lack of a specific mineral. It can also be due to infection or incorrect bite. The incident could be an accident or injury, such as happened to a different tooth in Mexico when biting into a quite large salt crystal hidden in some scrambled eggs. I heard a crack and the shock waves completely unnerved me. The eggs did not taste salty so finding this “rock” in them was a complete surprise.

This time, I am going to be very thorough so those of you who want to try this have a more comprehensive idea of what is involved. That said, what is most important is consistency and careful attention to whether or not the effort is working for you. As you know, I have an intraoral camera and strongly recommend that people dealing with oral issues acquire such a camera. You can find them online for as little as $10 but good ones tend to start around $55 and they go up into the thousands where specific dental applications are concerned. There are very small LED lights on the camera, more than sufficient for very clear viewing. I do not think anyone engaged in any do-it-yourself dental effort should proceed without such a camera because it is the ultimate reality check. You see much more than is possible in a mirror, and you might find some horrors.

So, by way of preparation, all the decay has to be addressed. People have written me with their pet protocols — and there are many — but what has worked best for me is chaparral powder. Yes, it tastes awful, but once you see it in action, you can forgive it for tasting so bad. I have used chaparral in a number of different ways. I have made it into a paste with water and sometimes something sticky like myrrh gum essential oil or propolis. No matter what you do, saliva will have its way so the next option is to mix the chaparral powder with toothpaste or tooth powder and brush it on. I have also used artist paint brushes and cosmetic brushes that are very soft and reapplied the paste more or less every half hour.

Chaparral works incredibly fast on infections so it is not generally necessary to keep this up for more than a few days. If decay goes deep, there may be nerve sensitivity so I address this with propolis. It is not very attractive, but it does the trick. Moreover, it stays put quite well. What this means is that after cleaning the teeth really, really well, you can seal the area with propolis. Yes, I learned this from the bees, and they are quite generous with their sharing of knowledge as well the fruits of their labor. Propolis is truly messy and it tastes only a bit better than chaparral so neither of these important preliminary steps is particularly fun, but oral hygiene is important. Also, of course, you will probably not succeed in regeneration if the pain keeps you awake all night.

If there are other signs of infection, such as sore throats or fever, much more caution is needed. I used spilanthes because it is called the toothache plant. Truth be told, I was curious because it is also anti-spirochetic so with the Lyme studies fresh in my psyche, I wanted to give it a whirl. I do not think it is even one-third as effective as chaparral, but the taste is more palatable, a bit like echinacea because it tingles and talks back. Ultimately, when pinch comes to shove, what always works for me for serious infections is Indigo Drops so if the pain is due to infection, you actually tackle two issues at once. That said, if you do not get quick results, I think seeing a dentist is the next step. Yes, they probably have much more invasive ideas about what to do, but a bad toothache is a red alert. So, what I am saying is that if you are experimental, as I am, and willing to suffer a bit to see if the situation falls within your skill set, try for a day or two to see what you can accomplish. If you do not bring the pain under control, the outlook is probably not promising. 

Keep in mind, I did see my dentist with the first fracture. The pain was over the top, but I told him to forget about root canals and extractions as I was not going there. This cornered him and it took about 45 minutes for us to come up with a strategy. This involved, using his language, cementing the tooth to the adjacent tooth. You might call it a composite bandage. This was a compromise for both of us. He doubted it would work, and I felt it would address the pain but impede the absorption of minerals. What I discovered, with the help of the intraoral camera, was that most of the regeneration occurs internally so while keeping the teeth clean is important, brushing with mineral-rich compounds did not seem to account for much regeneration. The front teeth are thin and you can actually position the lights on the camera from behind and see what is going on inside the teeth. It was very clear that a milky fluid is moving inside the teeth and that regeneration is occurring from within. This does not mean that nothing is absorbed from the exterior surface but I have not got a way to observe this.

So, what do we have now? The paste is just a delivery methods for minerals and it is taken internally, and it tastes incredible! I had a very bad week last week with four teeth screaming and howling and then all teeth, and I got this under control quickly, from the point that I could not even stand water in my mouth to being able to chew a tiny bit on the newly cracked tooth. I was religious about brushing with chaparral using an anti-plaque toothbrush within 10-20 minutes after eating. The idea was to take food away from whatever was infecting the crevice (which, to be honest, I could not see; but I could see suspicious discoloring where I felt the crack.) The fever broke on Saturday after only about half an ounce of Indigo Drops. I am experimental and held it in reserve. I knew it would work but I wanted to see what else works. I don’t recommend this kind of curiosity to the uninitiated. For me, it meant, there is a back up plan so don’t panic yet. Friday was the worst day, and my dentist doesn’t work on Fridays. He has a back up but I had no illusions about what would happen if I presented with pain and the dentist did not have a clear record of my idiosyncracies. The dentist would go by the book, and I would never agree to that. 

To wrap this up and to be clear, the recipe for the cashew spread is part of a more complex strategy so while it is delicious and helpful, it does not address either infection or pain. It is for the purpose of providing nutritional support to ashti dhatu, fifth in the list of the seven dhatus.

2 ounces of raw cashews

Dash of salt

Heaping teaspoon bamboo manna

Coconut milk

Optional: pearl powder

In reviewing my cashew purchases, I estimated I was consuming about 2 ounces a day (60 grams) of raw, unsalted organic cashews. I know I have mentioned before that “raw” is not exactly a proper label for cashews as none are completely unheated. All “raw” means in the context of cashews is “not roasted” so try to keep that in mind. The paste will go fungal unless consumed quickly so I make a small batch with a dash of finely ground Himalayan salt because I worry about what comes from the ocean. To this, I add a heaping teaspoon of bamboo manna (vamsa rochna) and whirl it around in a food processor. When the powder is quite fine, I add coconut milk. I have tried many options including coconut cream but prefer the coconut milk to the coconut cream. Other nut butters would also be perfectly acceptable so feel free to try pumpkin seeds or even pistachios. You can try sesame seeds, in which case, I would suggest the black sesame seeds. You can adjust the liquid to make anything from a thick paste to a drinkable beverage with the consistency of kefir. That said, I tried both kefir and yoghurt and did not like either as much as coconut milk. The pearl powder has to be medicinal grade and is often called Margarita pearl powder. It is very fine, but as mentioned, when I took it daily, I did notice a tiny bit of blood so I only use a tiny amount now and then, not daily. 

This paste or spread has additional culinary potential. It can be used as a spread, a dipping sauce, a filler in crepes, substitute for syrup for pancakes, garnish for baked beans or enchiladas, base for a soup with your choice of ingredients, pasta sauce, or beverage!