From Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients
by Susan Stockton...
About six years ago I made the eye-opening discovery that my
chronic health problems, which had eluded resolution for
many years, had their origin in -- of all places -- my
jawbone. I would never have deduced this had it not been for
a fortuitous chance finding: the complete disappearance of
bladder problems of one year duration within days of having
an abscessed tooth removed. When I reported the
"coincidence" to my dentist, he was surprised and
incredulous. He shouldn't have been, for he considered
himself to be a "holistic" practitioner. That same dentist
would later, despite his lack of understanding of focal
illness, unknowingly help me to learn more about it by
creating the conditions that triggered the full expression
of a long silent jawbone disease -- osteomyelitis (a.k.a
cavitations and a dozen or so other names). This disease is
actually quite common, though infrequently diagnosed, and is
perhaps the most common source of focal conditions in the
body. A "focus" is a walled-off area of concentrated toxins
and necrotic (dead) and/or infected tissue.
A jawbone cavitation is simply a hole or pocket in the bone.
It is not readily visible to the eye and generally causes no
local discomfort, though it can be the hidden cause of
facial pain syndromes (hence one of its names, NICO -
Neuralgia Inducing Cavitational Osteonecrosis). There are
many possible causes, chief of which is trauma to the jaw,
especially the trauma of tooth extraction.
I'd first encountered the word, "cavitation" about seven
years ago in the writings of Dr. Hulda Clark. She'd
described it in her books as "a bone infection resulting
from an incompletely extracted tooth" -- i.e., an extraction
where bits of infected bone were left behind. That
description didn't resonate in me then, despite the fact
that it was exactly what had been silently going on in my
jawbone for many years. I guess I thought if I had an
infection in my jaw, I'd know it: Surely there would be
pain, inflammation, tenderness -- and my dentist would find
the problem in the course of my routine check-ups. WRONG!
Osteomyelitis of the jawbone is not characterized by the
usual signs of infection -- it most often is a silent
condition. And it's one that dentists are not trained in
school to recognize. In fact, they're not even taught that
the condition exists. This is a somewhat perturbing state of
affairs, for the jawbone cavitation is not a new disease. It
was described in 1848 by Thomas Bond in the first oral
pathology book. He wrote about a jawbone necrosis that
existed independently of abscessed teeth and gums. In 1915,
Dr. G.V. Black, the father of modern dentistry described the
condition as "chronic osteitis."
Jawbone cavitations are exquisitely described in an eye-
opening book entitled Death and Dentistry written in 1940 by
Martin H. Fischer, medical doctor and professor of
physiology at the University of Cincinnati. Citing the
research of Frank Billings and E.C. Rosenow (early 1900s),
Dr. Fischer speaks of "infarctions induced of
microorganismal emboli" that have broken into the general
circulation from a peripheral focal point in the jaw or
tonsils. This "metastasis" of microorganisms is the cause of
a surprising number of conditions. According to Fischer
(p.8,9): Embolic infection that has struck the heart valves
will be endocarditis; the heart muscle, myocarditis; the
pericardium, pericarditis; if all are struck, it is
pancarditis. Involving the skeletal muscles, the same
pathological background will give rise to myositis; when
their tendinous junctions are struck, fibrositis; and when
the synovial bursae are affected, bursitis or tenosynovitis.
The process in the joints is arthritis; and in the nerves
and ner ve ganglia, neuritis. In the brain, this is
cerebritis, and in its coverings, meningitis.