Let’s Be Clear!
We live in a time of information overload where truth, theory, and marketing all blur together. But what if your health didn’t have to be confusing? What if it could be clear, simple, and connected— starting with your mouth?
Connecting the Dots Between Oral and Whole-Body Health
In this column, we’ll spotlight vital health truths hiding in plain sight – concepts forgotten, dismissed, or never shared or taught. Concepts researched and proven by doctors way ahead of their time who figured out the connections between health, nutrition, our body’s innate biomechanics and structure.
We’ll connect the dots between your mouth and your entire body and empower you with tools to reclaim your health. Yes, we will provide dental and oral solutions for medical conditions!
As a Doctor of Dental Surgery with decades of experience in biological and integrative dentistry, I’ve spent my career connecting oral health to systemic wellness.
Why This Column Matters, From My Heart to Yours
I’m honored that I was asked to write this column, and I look forward to helping you, guiding and entertaining you, by sharing some life hacks that can really make a huge difference in your beauty, longevity, vitality and quality of life!
If you have any special subject requests for articles, please let us know and I’ll be happy to accommodate with simple logic and down-to-earth common sense…. As a mom, a doctor, a professional!
The Mouth-Body Connection: You’re the Healer
My goal is to help you connect to what’s going on in your mouth, as well as in your body through your mouth, thereby helping you understand that you are your own healer/physician and ultimately your own creator!
We are created with all the tools enabling us to comprehend the whys of how healthy or how sick we are. As well as the tools to self-regulate and heal ourselves. Such innate wisdom has been lost. Our goal is to help guide everybody to understand that this is feasible.
Wisdom We Forgot: The Pioneers in Dental Healing
In the past there were doctors, actually dentists, who did an amazing job of this. I will quote a few of these often, notably Dr. Weston Price, Dr. Al Fonder, and Dr. Royal Lee.
These dentists brought forth a wealth of information, and data, and science, and research that have been totally omitted from academia, training establishments, schools and the current mainstream way of life.
Let’s Reopen the Dialogue, With You at the Center
It would be my goal to bring this back to you or bring this awareness to you. In my book “SMILE. It’s all connected! Whole health through balance”, I went about this in great detail very systematically.
However, just like SMILE was a compilation of conversations and answers to questions asked by my patients over a period of four decades of practice, I’d like to write these articles as feedback from your community on topics that you are more interested in. Therefore, please let us know what you have queries about.
Dentistry is Not Just Teeth, It’s Early Detection
The mechanics of dentistry are not that difficult to understand. It’s usually basic common sense. You have disease, you fix it… Sadly with a common concept of ‘drill, fill and bill’, and as a field of healthcare that is often underestimated. It shouldn’t be!
Sometimes physicians that I have referred mutual patients to for health tests or queries that were missed by their primary care docs, tell their patients: “What does she know? She’s just a dentist. She’s not a doctor”!
Yet, as Dr. Al Fonder once said, we are Dental Physicians. We don’t just fix teeth, we detect systemic issues, track chronic inflammation, and help patients long before symptoms show up elsewhere… to name a few!
The Mouth as a Mirror to the Body
We are the ones that actually see the patients the most often. We see trends, connect dots…We are the ones that actually put our hands on them, or in their mouths. WE TOUCH THEM! We see demonstrative signs of diseases long before anyone else does. More than 90% of systemic contagious diseases and disorders show signs in the mouth before they show up in/on the body as they can actually start in the mouth then carry through to the body and vice versa.
Multitudes have obvious telltale signs, for example, systemic diabetes, cancers such as pancreatic and blood disorders/ leukemia, oral cancers, heart and kidney disease. Dental hygiene and Oral appliance therapy can reduce symptoms of Dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis and even eliminate Obstructive Sleep Apnea.
Wouldn’t it be more interesting and fun if we can also make this into an interactive forum to where many a time you’ll be told,
“OK pick up a mirror. Look into your mouth. Look at your face. Look at your neck. Look at all these things that are actually very obvious to those who know and maybe not as obvious to those without training.”
Let’s return this innate wisdom to all and make these signs and knowledge obvious again! To ALL!
We’re looking forward to seeing how this movement in the United States can become widespread as we connect and share this movement of WellCare, self-care and prevention as opposed to maintenance of sick care! It can only do well.
Remember, there’s a lot of disinformation, that magic word again, or fear amongst the uneducated to discredit the good steps of progress and its momentum to help children in particular.
Don’t get bogged down by one little detail, one thing. Look at the overall picture because it’s always the children that come first. It’s always the children that we all do this for, those of us who go into Medicine and any healthcare field. We always want to help people. And our children are our future adults!
Reclaim Your Power—One Smile at a Time
It is not our intent to discredit people, but to help people. My mission is simple: to help you see what others have missed and help you re-connect your own dots to achieve whole health through balance.
Through this column, I’ll simplify complex health topics, introduce life-changing insights, and empower you to take control of your well-being, starting with your smile.
Again, have a topic you’re curious about? Send it in, I’ll do the deep dive, so you don’t have to.
I’m Dr. Claire Stagg and I look forward to being of service to you, the community of Miami and abroad.
Remember: It’s all connected! Just as we all are!
–Dr Claire Stagg
