Hidden fires in your mouth? (If you’ve had a root canal or wisdom teeth removal, read this)

The hidden health time bomb no one told you about, client stories —and my story. Here’s what you need to know.
Nutrition Letters, April 2025

Last month, one of my clients shared something about her health history that would’ve seemed like no big deal to most people:

She got a root canal.

Small, right?
Nothing life-threatening. No dramatic emergency.
Just a dental procedure after an accident that damaged one of her teeth.

At first glance, you wouldn’t think this had anything to do with the reasons she came to work with me:

• High cholesterol
• Hormone chaos
• Unpredictable energy and sleep

Her diet? Solid.
Her detox and nourishment systems? Needing a little tuning, but nothing alarming.
Her hormones? A bit stress-worn, but fixable.

Even without these tweaks, she should have been feeling pretty good — like most resilient healthy bodies.

But her labs told another story.

Her cholesterol was beginning to act strange—heading toward worrisome territory.
Her blood sugar was slipping into pre-diabetic patterns.
Her body was starting to spiral downwards, and more and more problems were accumulating.

 
The Hidden Fire
Most Doctors Miss

Here’s what most people (and most doctors) don’t realize:

Virtually all root canals are NOT sterile.

Even the best dentists can’t fully sterilize the tiny microtubules inside your tooth.
The standard procedure goes like this:

1. Remove the infected pulp.
2. Disinfect the canal space (usually with chemical sterilizers like sodium hypochlorite).
3. Fill the canal with a rubbery material called gutta percha.

But here’s the catch:
Somewhere deep in those microscopic spaces, bacteria always survive.
And bacteria LOVE dark, warm, moist environments.

They thrive.
They grow.
They quietly leak toxins into your bloodstream—day after day, year after year.

At first, your immune system rallies.
It handles the invaders.
But then the attacks keep coming... and what should have been an acute problem becomes a chronic inflammatory burden.

And anything chronic?
It quietly burns through your body’s resources — your nutrient reserves, your energy, and your stress capacity — so that everything your body does becomes harder and more expensive, like monetary inflation.

Your Body:
The 5-Legged Table Analogy

Your health is like a five-legged table.
When one leg—like your immune system—starts to wobble under chronic stress, the other four pick up the extra burden.

Short term? No problem — works like a charm.
Long term? Not so good — more & more legs weaken.
And eventually, the whole table structure can't even safely support a glass of water.

This slow collapse shows up as various symptoms:

• High cholesterol (like my client)
• Arthritis
• Cognitive decline
• Mood instability
• Fatigue
• Gut issues
• Grinding teeth
  ... or all of the above.

Where you collapse first often depends on your genetic predisposition.
Look at your family health history—what did your grandparents and parents struggle with?
That’s often where your body will send out its first SOS.

For my client, it was cardiovascular risk.
For me, personally?
It was joint autoimmunity and devastating energy crashes.

Different body systems.
Same root cause: chronic, invisible inflammation.

Quick Aside:
The Cholesterol Myth
(And What Your Body Is Really Telling You)

Most doctors see high cholesterol and immediately treat it like the problem itself.

But cholesterol isn’t the villain.
One of its prime functions is to put out fires in your body, like firefighters.

So the real problem of most high-cholesterol isn’t “You have too many firefighters!”
It’s “What's causing all these fires?”

If you only treat cholesterol without addressing the source, you’re just ripping fire hoses out of the hands of your first responders—while the house keeps burning.

And just like my client, your accumulation of more and more symptoms you've never had before speeds up.

How We Actually Solve It
(for Real)

Here’s what I did to fix my own hidden dental infection (AKA root canal)—and what I guide my clients toward, too:

(1) Cone Beam CT (CBCT) Scan

• A 3D scan that reveals infections hidden deep inside teeth and jawbones—things that regular X-rays miss entirely.

(2) Ozone Therapy

• Ozone gas is a natural super-sterilizer—killing bacteria, fungi, and viruses far more effectively than chemical disinfectants used in conventional dentistry.

(3) PRF Therapy (Platelet-Rich Fibrin)

• Using your own blood’s growth factors, PRF fills the cleaned-out site, encouraging natural bone and tissue regrowth.
• Why it matters: Without PRF, empty spaces left behind after tooth extraction or cleaning are prime real estate for bacteria to recolonize. This is how we fill those spaces once and for all — using your own tissue.

Special Note on Wisdom Teeth

Maybe you don't have any root canals, but if you’ve ever had your wisdom teeth removed, I highly recommend starting with Step 1: a Cone Beam CT scan.

Why?

Because wisdom tooth extractions often leave behind ligament remnants—small fibers that can create hidden pockets for bacteria to grow, similar to what happens with root canals.

Don’t guess. Get the data. Your future health could depend on it.

Where to Go?

Like many of my clients who don't live in major well-known cities — Toronto, Vancouver, New York, or Austin Texas, there wasn’t a single dentist offering this level of care in the entire collection of maritime provinces I lived around.

So I traveled to the nearest option in Toronto to work with Dr. Kevin Trager at Quantum Dental in North York.
Professional. Kind. Patient. Knowledgeable.
Their whole team—from the receptionist to the management to the surgeon—took care of everything with a level of thoroughness I wish every medical experience had.

For European clients, I highly recommend Dr. Lammers in Germany, another excellent clinic for full biological dental care.

And for those in the US or other parts of Canada—there are more and more options. (Just reply to this email or reach out to [email protected] if you want vetted recommendations.)

While you're setting up the appropriate appointments and taking care of these root canals once and for all, I've listed my top recommendation to support your body today while you wait (see the P.S.).

Healing Is Possible
—But It Takes a Plan

Fixing the dental infection was Step 1.
But just solving the infection isn’t enough — if you want resilient, thriving health for life.

We also need to ask:
Why was the tooth so vulnerable in the first place?
Why was the body struggling to keep up with the inflammation?

That’s where the real magic of functional root-cause medicine and nutrition work comes in.

And that's what I guide my Health Foundation Program clients through step by step:

The 3 Pillars of True Recovery

Nearly every case I see comes down to one or more of these root causes

1. Nourish like mineral deficiencies, blood sugar spikes, or indigestion

2. Detox – sluggish liver, dehydration, toxic buildup, or sleep issues

3. Mind like nervous system stress, emotional load, lifestyle, or movement habits

It’s never just "fix the tooth" or "take a supplement" and move on.
It’s about creating a new foundation that can withstand life's obstacles—with strength, ease, and resilience.

It's all about meeting the root cause, not giving you band-aids or scary-sounding diagnoses.

The Big Takeaway for You

The best time to deal with hidden fires is BEFORE the whole house burns down.
Not every practitioner knows how to spot these hidden burdens.
Not every dentist knows how to fix them the right way.

It often means traveling.
It means investing.
It means choosing the hard path today so you don’t lose years—and decades—tomorrow.

And in my experience?
The cost of doing nothing is far higher than the cost of fixing it now. I've seen the cost of delay compound to as much as 10x.

Choose healing today over tomorrow.
It's always worth it.
It’s happening every day—and it can happen for you too.

To your success,

Isabella Thor., NTP
Functional Practitioner & Hormonal Weight-Loss Coach
Will to Live Nutrition

P.S.

While you’re waiting to find the right support, the best thing you can do is help your body right now.

Start by replenishing your mineral reserves—the foundations that your detox, energy, and healing systems rely on.

I recommend ordering BEAM Minerals (electrolyte-balanced, fossilized-plant-derived fulvic and humic minerals) to lower your toxic burden and increase how much nourishment actually reaches your cells.

It's a small step, but a powerful one.

This is the recommendation I trust personally and with all my clients, take a look at this short blog post here (it also includes my client discount code) to learn why it's so powerful.

P.P.S.

Every day you delay healing, hidden stressors like dental infections chip away at your resilience.

It’s not about fear—it’s about opportunity.

The sooner you lighten the load on your body, the faster you free up energy for pursuing your dreams instead of just managing ever-worsening symptoms.

Whether it’s a past root canal, hormonal chaos, or chronic fatigue—you can rebuild and I can help you.

You just need a plan that meets your body at the root, not at the surface.

And if you're ready to start uncovering your root causes, you know where to find me.