Category: Dental Health

Articles by dentists on esoteric healing and dentistry

Breaking free of the uncomfortable comfort

by Rachel Mascord, BDS, Sydney and Warrawong.

This has been an extraordinary week in my life…a point of endings and new beginnings that have left me raw and vulnerable in a way I’ve rarely allowed myself to experience before.

I submitted my resignation this week. This has been a momentous step because it is the first time I have left a job with no other job to go to. I had held this position for more than 16 years, and a very comfortable nest it became indeed. My comfort in this job lay in the “security” of its tenure, but an uncomfortable and damaging comfort it was. The price I was paying was high; its coinage the toleration of a constant level of low grade disrespect and the sort of subtle abuse that people learn to cope with, in some way or another. After all, it is quite the normal thing in this world…isn’t it? It is an abuse that does not mark the flesh, but rather more insidiously leaves its bruises deep and unseen upon the heart and the being.

Leaving it has felt like I imagine the baby bird must feel as it extends its wings for the first time, surrendering itself from the edge of the nest that has held it safe for so long…

Never have I allowed such a level of open vulnerability in my life. Never have I allowed such a level of surrender, never have I stated that I trust myself so deeply and all of the resource that comes, innate, rich and sourced from deep within me.

Continue reading “Breaking free of the uncomfortable comfort” →

How Connective Tissue Exercises helped my neck and back pain

I am a dentistry student and in the course of my work, I started developing pain in my neck and back that stayed until the next day, even from working just short periods of time with patients. As a dentist, I have to work in an area that is small (and moving) which asks for precision and attention to detail whilst working with the instruments in the person’s mouth. To be able to see it all, I often find myself going out of the preferred ergonomic position – which is with back and neck only slightly bent – bending and turning my back and neck in all directions. This is the worst position to be in for your back and neck, as it puts a huge strain on the spine and the muscles around it. Even when knowing this fact, not wanting to cause harm to my patient can drive me into going into such a position anyway. Combine this with a little nervousness and tension about treating my first patients and this developed into neck pain. Continue reading “How Connective Tissue Exercises helped my neck and back pain” →

The effects of holding back on my body

You may think that our lifestyle is just what we eat, how much we exercise and whether we smoke, drink alcohol or use drugs, but I have come to understand that there is a deeper level of lifestyle, or livingness, which includes my whole way of living, that has an effect on how I feel and the health of my body.

One of the things that affects me is holding back.

What is holding back?

Holding back, for me, is to not follow through an impulse that is true and from my heart, and instead not doing it or doing the absolute opposite.

Holding back is not doing something my WHOLE BODY is telling me to do.

It is like feeling extremely joyful, wanting to jump and celebrate and totally go for it, and then being nice, courteous and polite and moving slowly instead.

I have been holding back for most of my life, and through the teachings presented by Universal Medicine and Esoteric Healing sessions, I have come to understand – and have now an absolute knowing for myself – that holding back has an effect on my body. A big one. Continue reading “The effects of holding back on my body” →

What is True Health?

By Rachel Mascord BDS (Hons), Dentist, Five Dock, Sydney.

For most of my life health was something that I pursued, thinking that I did not have it, and that if I did have it, my life would be nothing short of amazing and I would be able to sit back and cruise through anything, free from all worry and care.

From the time of being a very little child I was sick, almost all of the time. I had bad croup as a baby that developed into very bad asthma as a 4 year old. This caused a lot of alarm in my family. My mother wanted so much for me to be healthy, that health started to feel like that elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – a prize somehow beyond reach.

What did I think health was? What did I imagine it would bring me? Somewhere along the way I had developed a sense that it meant I would be very robust and tough, able to withstand anything that life threw at me – a sort of Superwoman-like capacity to handle life and its physical challenges.

As I got older and able to fund my own pursuit of that elusive health notion, I entered a rambling journey that had me engaging with many and various doctors, and when that failed, through the strange world of alternative therapists. I ate bizarre foods, juiced undrinkable concoctions, grew my own wheat grass and supplemented myself, took on eccentric practices…yet health eluded me and I became sicker and sicker. In my version of what health was, my body became my enemy, a dysfunctional mass of tissues, deeply flawed and wrong at its most fundamental level. In pursuing this notion of health I entered into a war against myself. Continue reading “What is True Health?” →

Dentistry IS Stressful

by Dr Rachel Hall, B.Ch.D (Uni Leeds UK), LDSRCS(Eng), MACNEM, Dental Surgeon, Brisbane, Australia

It is true – being a dentist is stressful. Most patients dislike coming and are themselves stressed or anxious and this often comes across as rudeness, aggression and irrational behaviour. Everyone has high and often unrealistic expectations of what you can do with their teeth and hence the results you can achieve. No one seems to appreciate or understand how hard it is to fix a tooth when you are leaning over craning your neck, ruining your posture and straining your eyes just to be able to see it. Add to that battling a sea of saliva and tongues and lips that seem to develop superhuman strength as soon as you come anywhere near them and the process becomes near on impossible. Continue reading “Dentistry IS Stressful” →

What does it mean to be a ‘holistic dentist’?

by Dr Rachel Hall B.Ch.D (Uni Leeds UK), LDSRCS(Eng), MACNEM, Dental Surgeon, Brisbane, Australia

I have worked as a holistic dentist for the last 12 years, and recently I have been pondering what it truly means to be a holistic dentist/practitioner. Is it purely a philosophy that influences how one works or views patients and their conditions or is it something more? Is it having a bag full of different ‘holistic healing modalities’ to use on clients? I have tried numerous ‘alternative’ modalities: homeopathy, NLP, EFT (emotional field therapy), kinesiology, bio-resonance therapy etc but I found that none of them offered my patients or me what I was looking for. In 2004 I went to my first heart chakra workshop, and it was here that I met Serge Benhayon and was introduced to the teachings of Universal Medicine. What Serge presented made so much sense; more sense than anything I had ever learnt or heard from other practitioners, science or medicine. As such, not once did I doubt what was being presented by Serge and Universal Medicine and I could feel how amazing the esoteric healing modalities were in my body. Through the esoteric teachings I now have a new appreciation for what it truly means to be a holistic dentist. I now realise it’s not about the bag of tricks or ‘alternative’ healing modalities I have acquired, it’s not about regurgitated information and knowledge that I’ve stored in my mind but instead I have discovered that it is about how I live every day, in every way. Continue reading “What does it mean to be a ‘holistic dentist’?” →

Life, Stress and Dental Problems

by Dr Rachel Hall B.Ch.D (Uni Leeds), LDSRCS(Eng), MACNEM, Dental Surgeon, Brisbane, Australia

 

“Stress is a reaction people have when excessive pressure or demands are placed upon them, and arises when an individual believes they are unable to cope.”

At one time or another, we’ve all dealt with the effects of chronic stress, from migraines and backaches to anxiety and depression. We all know that stress can impact the immune system – how often do we happen to get sick or catch a cold when we are stressed or run down? But what is not commonly understood is that stress and our response to it can also impact on the mouth, teeth, jaws and gums as well as our overall emotional and physical wellbeing. It is not possible to point to a particular dental problem and say it’s caused entirely by stress but like the rest of the body, the mouth can be affected. Continue reading “Life, Stress and Dental Problems” →

Sugar and Dental Decline

by Dr Rachel Hall B.Ch.D (Uni Leeds), LDSRCS(Eng), MACNEM, Dental Surgeon, Brisbane, Australia

I graduated from dental school having been told that due to advances in preventive care most of my career would be spent replacing failed fillings, doing routine maintenance and cosmetic work as the need to treat dental decay or perform root canal treatments and extractions would be greatly reduced. However, 20 years later I find that I am performing more extractions than ever before, doing more and more root canal procedures and dealing with rampant dental decay and gum disease in all ages. Anecdotally I feel that dental disease is actually on the increase and appears to be more widespread, severe and aggressive. Dental decay rates in children in Australia have increased progressively since the 1990s according to a study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (1,2). It is well documented that poor socio-economic status and poor oral health are linked, and the statistics do speak for themselves (3). However, it is not just the financially disadvantaged who are presenting with increased prevalence of dental problems, it is happening across all levels of income and background.
Why is this? We all know that sugar consumption is linked to dental decay (4,5,6,7,8).

Continue reading “Sugar and Dental Decline” →

Responsibility and Dental Health

by Dr Rachel Hall B.Ch.D(Uni Leeds), LDSRCS(Eng), MACNEM, Dental Surgeon, Brisbane, Australia

Dentistry has always aimed to focus on prevention of oral disease rather than solely treatment alone. We all know that too much sugar causes tooth decay and that to maintain the health of our teeth and gums it is important to brush and floss regularly. Our role as dental professionals shifted from drillers and fillers to health care educators where we told our patients how to clean their teeth and advised them to cut down on sugar. However, this culture shift needs to be taken further as despite our efforts, rates of dental decay and oral health issues are again on the increase. Continue reading “Responsibility and Dental Health” →