Beyond Vanity: How a Full Mouth Restoration Healed Dental Trauma, Part 1 | E064
In this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast, host Toréa Rodriguez shares a deeply personal story about her lifelong struggle with dental issues stemming from a cleft lip and palate birth defect. She opens up about the shame and trauma associated with her dental history, including the intense grinding of her teeth and a traumatic root canal experience. Toréa discusses her journey towards healing, both physically and emotionally, and the monumental decision to undergo a full mouth restoration. Through this process, she uncovers layers of subconscious shame and guilt, ultimately transforming her relationship with her smile and gaining profound self-compassion. Stay tuned for Part 2, where Toréa interviews with Dr. Kelly Blodgett, who played a crucial role in her dental transformation.
In This Episode
00:00 Beyond Vanity: How a Full Mouth Restoration Healed Dental Trauma, Part 1 | E064
02:03 The origin to Toréa’s dental journey started at birth
03:51 The onset of teeth grinding due to stress
05:18 A root canal gone horribly wrong and the onset of dental trauma
07:31 Could the root canal be the root cause of some of Toréa’s health issues?
12:27 The unexpected question that uncovered a life long experience of shame
14:42 The five-year journey of preparation for the corrective dental procedures
18:23 The core emotional & PTSD healing that took place alongside it
20:51 Focusing the healing through dental work
22:53 Beyond the vanity, how self-confidence and self-healing leads to greater expression
Resources Mentioned
Want to learn more about the transformation process Toréa used in this episode? Get on the Waitlist for the announcement for this year’s cohort of Deep Transformation!
Website: https://www.torearodriguez.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torearodriguez/
For full show notes and resources: https://www.torearodriguez.com/wowpodcast/e064
Transcript
Toréa Rodriguez 0:00
Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness. I am your host Toréa Rodriguez, and I've had a lifelong fascination with the natural world, and its impact on our well being. For over a decade, my work as a functional practitioner has been exploring how our relationship to our environment, to our thoughts, beliefs and emotions can have a profound impact on our physical and mental wellness. And because of that neurology, and brain based rewiring is a core focus of my practice. I am passionate about helping people not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves. They've been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you liked what you hear today, I would love it. If you would leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. Because we never know how much we can impact others when we do. Let's start today's adventure, shall we?
Toréa Rodriguez 1:10
Hey, welcome back to the Wildly Optimized Wellness Podcast and today I've got a two parter, because I wanted to share a story of of my own personal transformation around an appearance topic, we don't really talk a lot about this in our society. Instead, we are cultured to be hypercritical of our appearance, especially as women and as much as I have tried throughout my life to really become friends with and accept a certain part of my personal experience. It just was one of those things that I always carried some shame around. And so today, I wanted to share my story about this, give you a little bit of insight and then part two, I'm going to bring in a special guests that was part of this process.
Toréa Rodriguez 2:03
So you know, I never really thought about telling the story to people because most of my life I felt like talking about my smile was a little bit vain. So I abstained from talking about it, I never really wanted to talk about it and as a baby, I was born with a cleft lip and palate birth defect. And whether or not this has anything to do with my lifelong struggle with dentistry, I have no idea. But, I can tell you that major surgery entered my world when I was just two and a half years old. So it also is the source of some of my most clear memories, which is very young for most people, was the whole ordeal around that surgery and whether or not it had any physical structure relationship, I'm not really sure. But I was always conscious in grade school and even in kindergarten, I have a little scar that I had on my lip, right. So by the time I was at the age where permanent teeth were coming in, this is where I first started to notice that things were not going as expected with my own Dental, right, I had an adult tooth come in completely sideways. So instead of being flushed with the other teeth, it came in 90 degrees sideways. And despite the efforts of the dentist of the time, we use Crow's out retainer, that tooth never came into alignment. I don't know if we didn't opt for braces due to financial costs at the time or what the reasoning was, it sort of was just kind of left in this mediocre state. My parents are no longer with me now and so I grew up as an only child and that kind of record is kind of lost. So I don't really know what the reasoning was for why we couldn't get that tooth completely straight.
Toréa Rodriguez 3:51
So fast forward to college and my adult years after all of that this is when I first became aware of grinding, so I would just grind my teeth and it became a lot worse after college. That was a really stressful time for me. I was starting a new career. I was paying off college debt. But I also had an adult dependents. So my mom was fully dependent upon me and she was living in assisted living at the time. And so I thought it was just this giant ball of stress that I had going on. And so did the dentist and so we got a night guard and we kept going and I kept grinding my teeth and the grinding continued. And my teeth started to show wear so I could really see like I could go through the pictures of my time during college then shortly after college and then the years afterwards and you can actually see the wear on the teeth they're getting shorter and shorter and shorter. And one crown led to a few crowns which lead to a root canal and this is where my dental trauma started. So most people hate going to the dentist of course they do. Who wouldn't hate it if you were subjected to pain, loud and scary noises and let's just face it, some of the flavors of those stupid numbing agents and polishings are just horrific. So it's not a pleasant experience for most of us and I wasn't too keen on that dental experience to begin with.
Toréa Rodriguez 5:18
And then when my root canal was performed, this was when the dental trauma happened. So I'm a person who happens to burn through the the local anesthetic, I later found out that it has to do with a red hair gene and my dad had red hair, and, you know, that kind of thing. So it is an interesting, dynamic, but I burned through that local aesthetic pretty quickly. Right? And so on that particular day, I had had several rounds of it while he was working on that particular tooth. And the dentists in question was really close to having the procedure completed when I let him know, hey, this hurts, I can feel it. And his decision in that moment, he opted to rush the procedure, and said, Let's just get this over with and finish the drilling procedure, and nerve removal without any anesthetic. And I was screaming, I remember gripping onto that chair, I was screaming and crying in the office that day, and I vowed I would never go back to that dentist. In fact, I vowed I was not going to go to any dentist and even routine cleanings became a very anxiety provoking event and when I was in the office, any minor vibration or sound or any bit of uncomfortability would shoot me through the roof in kind of a panic. And so I really only went when it was absolutely necessary. And I think there were several years where I didn't do any cleanings at all. Because I was wary of any dentist. I didn't want any dental procedure. Because I knew that I was going to experience extreme anxiety, extreme fear, I would use everything I can think of outside of requesting Xanax or just being gassed out to be calm even for the cleanings. Now granted, this was kind of coupled with a little bit of a fear of general anesthesia because I was two and a half when I went through that surgery and that experience also produced a fear response. So here I was stuck with all of this, like dental trauma, and I would choose to avoid as much as possible.
Toréa Rodriguez 7:31
So when I became a functional medicine practitioner, and like most of us, we come to this profession due to our own health crises, I was sleuthing to discover anything and everything that may have contributed to my autoimmune diseases at the time, the migraines I was experiencing, I even looked into like jaw alignment and the clenching and the grinding. And how was that having an effect on the headaches, and I knew that the grinding of my teeth wasn't really helping the dental situation. And so, over time, though, I was pleased to discover that through my own healing and got rehabilitation that the intense grinding had subdued, didn't go away completely, though, not but just not as intense, right. And then, one day, I learned from a colleague about how root canals can feel over time, and that they can develop some pretty gnarly infections in the site in the job, whether it's upper jaw, low, dry, it doesn't really matter. But sometimes you can get these really gnarly infections. And they remain hidden because there's virtually no pain in the mouth. Right? Yet that kind of infection can easily overwhelm the body with inflammation, immune system imbalance, you name it. So this is when I learned about Dr. Kelly Blodgett, in Portland, Oregon, about five years ago, and at the time, he was educating a lot of people on the dangers of root canals, he still does that to this day, because we're canals can pose a danger to overall health in certain cases. So I got up the nerve to hop on a plane and go see him and establish myself as a patient. I wanted to see what was going on with my root canal and see if I can improve my health even more. And I was pleased to discover that my root canal has a bit more time left on it and there isn't a big infection. And eventually, though, it would need to be addressed. So this is where things got interesting because what actually unfolded that day in the office was completely unexpected. And so one of Dr. Blodgett's assistants was conducting a new patient interview, we had a private room to talk through my entire dental history where I got to explain what happened with that root canal and be really candid with each other. And she simply asked, Do you like your smile?
Toréa Rodriguez 9:56
That hit me with a ton of bricks because when somebody asks you a simple question and your body responds through this, like intense emotion. So yeah, I completely teared up and completely broke down. And I told her how my entire life since my adult teeth came in, I had been ashamed and my smile, a shame that I hadn't had the means to get the teeth straightened, ashamed that they weren't grinding down further and further, a shame that I kind of felt like I had old horse mouth at this point. And, you know, I was in my mid 40s. And I didn't know how to stop the grinding. And I even mentioned to her that when I was in grade school, the other kids would notice my scar from the cleft lip surgery and tease me about it and how I felt ashamed about that, too. So it was all compounded on my face. And that day in the office, a spotlight was shown with a lifelong dance that I had with shame and guilt. And I decided in that moment that I wanted to change it, I didn't want to live this life of shame anymore, which is interesting, because I used to always think that thinking about how we looked was more of a vain thing to a vain state of being like it wasn't something that we should be focusing on is how we looked that is kind of my thinking at the time. And I was trying really, really hard to be okay with my smile, but I was still laced with a shame and guilt. But I decided in that moment that I wanted to change it. And I also knew that this was going to be a monumental project. And so by this time, the erosion of my teeth over the course of the last decade, it had accelerated, like I said, you could see the progress and the pictures. And now I was down to Denton, which is one of the materials that's underneath the enamel on most surfaces on most teeth. And so to make things worse, my jaw was having to over extend just to make tooth contact when chewing food. So my TMJ was getting worse, I was having minor jaw displacements that would occur pretty regularly. And I pretty much woke up with a sore face from exerting more muscular pressure, just to get my teeth to rest to touch in the night, even with the use of a night guard. That's how bad it was.
Toréa Rodriguez 12:27
So Dr. Blodgett drew up a plan for full mouth restoration project, which is what this required and, yeah well, that plan at the time was completely unattainable from a financial standpoint, insurance would only cover so much because most of what was being proposed was deemed elective in the insurance eyes. And so even though it would have prevented further dental destruction, it still wasn't going to be covered. I was pretty much gutted. When I saw that, I was like, Oh, I don't know how we are going to do this. But it was something that was so important to me, that my husband and I finally decided, okay, let's just start a savings account, it's going to take us some time. But let's just start a savings account. So we put money in that savings account for a five years. And don't get me wrong, we didn't sacrifice everything to put into that account. We wanted to balance it with life and travel and things that brought us joy. But we also treated it kind of like a retirement account. And it's one of those things that you do because you know that in the end, your payoff is going to be totally worth it. Nobody wants to spend a lot of money on dental work until you realize that it's time to change a whole lifetime of shame and guilt that you were living in from before. And someone think that, you know, it's as simple as saving up the money and executing when you were ready. And sure that's part of the story. But what I didn't realize I would be uncovering in that five year process of saving up that money were all of the limiting beliefs that I had amassed all of the emotions that had I'd been like tucking away and trying to shove down and all of the behaviors that had shown up as a result of my dental history. And so trust me, I did a lot of like, okay, focus on your strengths and appearances at everything, trying to kind of bypass a lot of this, you know, and leading up to this moment, but none of it really moved the needle with the inner turmoil inside.
Toréa Rodriguez 14:42
Because I used to tell myself that I shouldn't show my face on camera or social media because my smile is not great. I had a it took a lot of willpower for me to start a video podcast for me to get on camera to talk in front of people. All to get on stage. Even when I was in my previous aviation career I was teaching and would be on stage and it would take a lot of willpower to just get over my shyness. I used to call it shyness, but really, I was ashamed, right. And I would routinely pass up invitations to speak on other people's podcasts that were recorded with video because of that, and I used to tell myself that I'd never have a pretty smile. So therefore, I never be viewed as pretty. Yeah, I used to always think that I'd never be viewed as pretty because of my smile. And so I should just tone down my expression of happiness. And that is what I used to do. I used to tell myself, Hey, you gotta learn to love the parts you hate. And trust me, I definitely did a lot of self acceptance work and forgiveness around how harsh I had been on my own physical appearance, my smile, my body, my hair, you name it, there are a lot of areas around body dysmorphia that I made a lot of progress in, but not really, with the smile. And now I know that it's okay. Right, I used to really think that a lot allowing myself to be vain and to have concerned about it was kind of a selfish thing to do. And the difference now is that I'm able to not gas my light myself, not bypass those emotions, I can really work through it in a different way. Because before I was trying to positive mindset my way out of it. And that doesn't always work. Right? I used to tell myself that it was ridiculous that I was saving money for such a thing, because only movie stars and uber rich did those kinds of procedures, and how vain Could you be like, this isn't an insight of sort of what is going on in my brain. So instead, I started doing a lot of subconscious work to release the immense amount of shame and guilt that I was carrying. I did a lot of parts integration work to start loving my parts, all parts of myself, right, including the parts that were ashamed of her smile. I used to tell myself that I shouldn't tell his story. Because what would other people think of me putting focus on physical appearance, it gets really layered when we start to muck around with our subconscious. And I used to tell myself that it was selfish to even think about correcting my smile. And I'm sharing all of this with you, because this is the kind of mind fuckery that we can get wrapped up in when we are not intentionally being focused on what is going on in my subconscious is driving these behaviors and these feelings, right? If we don't shine a light on it, if we don't do the inner work, this is the kind of stuff that can eat us away inside. And because yes, I could have totally deceived up, not said a thing, not really worried about I completed the procedure and moved on. But I would guess that if I hadn't done the subconscious work, right, I could have moved on. But I would have carried all that baggage forward with me, right, I still would have felt shame or guilt on my smile because I spent money on it or something, it would have still been there and that's my point.
Toréa Rodriguez 18:23
So about 10 months ago, the day came where we had the funds and the timing was right and some of you seen have seen this kind of play out on my Instagram account. And in part two of the story in the next episode, I'm going to be joined once again, because he's been on my podcast before, once again with Dr. Blodgett to talk through the whole process, why we chose the methodology we did. And what could have happened had I chose to ignore that situation. So we'll get into the though the logistics of it in the next episode. But as I was going through the process, this is where some of the core emotional healing was taking place. And by having the dental work as a focus, I was able to uncover all of these different layers of the subconscious shame that I wasn't even aware of. Right? That each time I used to smile, a grin with teeth, that it was always laced with this feeling of being ashamed or shy. And my immediate response was to change my facial expression and shut it down. That each time I used to laugh and was having fun, I would shut that down by closing my mouth and hiding my teeth. And the day that we've put the temporary front veneers into place. I was texting with a friend and I used an emoji with teeth for the first time. The first time since emojis have been in existence. This is how deeply embedded this stuff can get into the subconscious. And in all these years that we've had these emojis to express ourselves I would always avoid the ones showing teeth how crazy is that that was really a wake up call as to like how embedded this was, it was also the day that I realized that certain muscles in my face were not used to being used. Right. And so, I have an acquaintance in Santa Cruz, who does a fantastic acupuncture practice. And she also does buccal massage, right and works on the muscles and the cheek. So I went to go see her to help me like, hey, I need to like wake these muscles up and activate them so that I can smile. Because you know, those times when you're laughing with friends, and you're having a good time, and your face hurts from smiling so much. Yeah, that was me for a few weeks, like my face, or because these muscles just weren't quite used to being used.
Toréa Rodriguez 20:51
But here's the deal, at the end of the day, I don't regret one iota, all those dollars, we saved up all of those things that we decided not to spend our money on. Because we were spending our money on this, I don't regret the months that it took, and the hours. I don't regret the months that it took and the hours in the dental chair. I don't regret any of it. Because it gave me an opportunity to completely rewire my PTSD response from that horrible root canal. It helped me reshape my entire experience of the dentist office, one from filled with anxiety to one of being relaxed in the chair when the drills are going when things are happening, all without any drugs other than the normal anesthetic, and maybe a few herbal allies, and I'll share that stuff with you in the next episode. But it allowed me to shift from the smile that was laced with shame to a smile that's now laced with joy. Like there's no dimmed facial expression as a reaction, like I get to feel and express true joy. And this is happening for me later in my life. And I'm sure it happened at times when I was younger. But it was also immediately backed up with that, like, Nope, we gotta shut it down, right. And that doesn't happen anymore. And I cannot express the feeling of freedom, that that has allowed me. I don't think that vanity as a form of selfishness anymore, right, or being full of oneself that sometimes vanity is an invitation to self compassion, and loving all parts of yourself. Let me say that again. Vanity can be an invitation to self compassion and loving all parts of yourself. I got to experience photoshoot recently without self consciousness hanging over my head. That was wild.
Toréa Rodriguez 22:53
But moreover, this whole experience has given me the capacity to have so much compassion for people who fear what might happen if they express their true selves. Right? And none of these shifts were overnight. But they were intentional. They came along with doing inner work, the same kind of inner work that I teach my clients, right, because we've got to be intentional about these kinds of changes. It doesn't just happen through osmosis as much as I try to find ways that it can it does it. But I'll tell you, every time I go through something like this, it helps me define the kind of work I love to do with clients, to help them transform their lives to free them from the emotions that keep them trapped, or these limiting beliefs that keep them stuck, does not mean that they have to go invest this much of money to be able to make these kinds of transformations unless it's warranted for the situation. But all of these techniques are the things that I was doing behind the scenes, while Dr. Blodgett was doing his process, kind of in the front of the scenes, right. And it helped me gain clarity on how I want to show up in the world. And for that, I'm forever grateful to the past version of myself, who was in Dr. Blodgett office willing to admit her lifelong shame to a complete stranger. And also grateful to her in that moment for deciding that it was time to make a change, knowing that it was this huge project and a monumental undertaking. So five years later, here we are, and I, I can't tell you the number of compliments. I've gotten not about the teeth unnecessarily. But the compliments about how I've shifted and how I'm showing up and that is quite the reward. So in the next episode, we're going to dive into some of the nitty gritty on the process with Dr. Blodgett himself. We're going to dive into some of the things that I use to work through that PTSD and shifting my relationship to dental work in general. So stay tuned for that because it's going to be out very soon. and see ya.
Toréa Rodriguez 25:02
Hey, thanks for joining me for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your wellness, you can check out my website torerodriguez.com. Want to have a peek into what it's like to work with me? Check out the Wellness Curiosity Collective or any of my other programs or retreats. And if you found something helpful in today's episode, don't forget to leave a review hit that follow button or share it with a friend because they're gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, See You Outside.
