Have you ever noticed that most dentists have a kind of “bricklayer” mentality? Â They peer into your mouth, examine your teeth and gums and then proceed to clean, drill, fill, or straighten your pearly whites like they are somehow separate from the rest of your body! Â Â Â A contractor installing pavers in your driveway or a mason building a brick and mortar wall around a courtyard approach their work in basically the same way.
The person installing the pavers doesn’t think of whether the bricks match the facade of the house and the mason doesn’t consider whether the brick wall blends appropriately in style and taste with the courtyard’s landscaping. Â That’s the landscape architect’s job!
The human body simply isn’t put together this way, as you may have already noticed! Â The teeth and jaw should be viewed as the primary archway into the body temple much the same as the Gothic arch identifies the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral but cannot be considered separate from the architecture of the entire structure. Â Â The traditional practice of looking into a horse’s mouth and examining the teeth and gums reflects in a practical sense the correlation between dental health and the vitality of the rest of the body.
For this reason, it is essential to find those dentists that are true architects and not bricklayers. “Architect” dentists facilitate wellness of the entire body through the methods and techniques they employ, not just a cosmetically beautiful smile.
It is with this thought in mind that I interview potential dentists for myself and my family. Â By the conclusion of each consultation, it is extremely easy to determine whether a particular dentist follows a bricklayer or architect philosophy. Â Bricklayers tend to focus only on the speed and results of treatment.
Architects talk about results too, but are much less concerned about speed and more interested in the effects of treatment on the patient’s physiology.  Architect orthodontists, for example, thoughtfully consider the effect of moving teeth and widening of the jaw on the cranium, spine, and neck.   Architect orthodontists usually won’t consider the overly forceful , painful “crank the key” appliance as an option for widening the palate.   They prefer lighter, more functional appliances and consider widening the jaw to be an orthopedic rather than an orthodontic issue.  In other words, widening the jaw is a gentle procedure to be accomplished within the context of the entire skeletal system.  It isn’t just a jaw problem to be treated in isolation.
Architect general dentists eschew amalgam fillings and instead do blood or muscle testing to determine the appropriate composite material for a patient’s unique body chemistry. Â Â Only bricklayer dentists use flouride treatments on children or insist on annual x-rays despite the negative cumulative effects of radiation exposure on their patients.
One bricklayer dentist I used to go to once insisted that I get an x-ray for a cavity despite the fact that I was pregnant.  My response?   “Give me my dental file please!”  I walked out of that office, dental file in hand and found an architect dentist who would fill my cavity with no x-ray required.   A few years later I read a study linking dental x-rays during pregnancy with low birth weight babies possibly from radiation exposure to the woman’s thyroid.  An architect dentist doesn’t need a study to tell him/her that a dental x-ray on a pregnant patient is a bad idea.   Only bricklayer dentists need a study for something that should just be plain common sense.
One architect dentist I talked with amazed and wowed me with his discussion of one of his patients who had a severe case of Tourette Syndrome which completely resolved with appropriate treatment of a jaw misalignment (within the context of the cranial bones, of course)! Â Â This same dentist also completely resolved a severe underbite in one of his adult patients with no surgery, after many a bricklayer dentist before him recommended only surgery and said that any other approach “wasn’t possible.” Â Â If you get silly answers like “it can’t be done” from a bricklayer dentist, or “dental x-rays have about the same amount of radiation as walking to your car on a sunny day” (all the while they are strapping a thick, lead vest to your chest), get out of there!
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Thank you! A MOST helpful post!
I know this is an old post, but was wondering if you’d heard of this treatment and, if so, what you thought of it:
Sarah, there is a lot of truth in what you are saying but it is based on an individually dental health. The x-ray schedule is good for a person who has mastered their home care and isn't experiencing dental disease and visits their dentist on a regular bases. A lot of the excess x-ray taking is because we live in a suet happy society that is alway looking to point fingers when all they have to do is look in the mirror. Almost all dental disease is preventable by a proper diet and eating schedule, good home care regiment and regular visits to the dentist.
I follow a lot of what my Dad taught me when I was a kid about health in general (he is a retired MD) and he always said to allow a full set of dental xrays only once every 10 years. I permit bite wing xrays every 5 years or so, but a full set only every 10 years in keeping with his advice. I know that dental xrays expose you to much less radiation than they did when I was a kid, but I still try to keep with this advice as much as possible.
Sarah, what is your opinion on dental xrays in general. You said not every year but how often/ if ever should they be done?
Here’s more info on dental x-rays that may help. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/hidden-dental-x-ray-danger/
Hi Paula, Dr. Behm is probably the most experienced architect style dentist in the Southeast USA. He is listed in the Holistic Dental Assoc. link above.
Thank you for the information! I am in need of a good Architect dentist for my 10 year old son. Do you know of one that you can refer?
Thanks Paula B
One thing I've noticed over the years is that personality has no bearing on whether a dentist is an architect or a bricklayer. I've met some amazing architect dentists who are a real pain in the neck to deal with and the nicest bricklayer dentists you would ever want to meet. Conversely, I've met jerk bricklayer dentists and really easy to work with architect dentists as well. Ideally, find one you can work with that espouses your holistic approach to wellness.