PSA: For Chronic Infections, Check Teeth
If you have a chronic infection, consider getting your teeth checked. Teeth in poor health can serve as a kind of reservoir for pathogens, letting them lie dormant before they reactivate and wreak havoc on your health.
What does this look like? Chronic low-grade infections that flare up periodically, usually after the immune system is stressed (stress, insomnia, other illnesses, cold or wetness etc.), your teeth deteriorate, the pathogens enter new areas or grow.
How do they survive? Either in necrotized tissue, form biofilms in cavities, root canals, periodontal pockets or stick around in dental abscesses. Some of these are quite visually obvious, others aren’t. Biofilms are a sort of slimy extracellular matrix with bacteria embedded within them, and are much more resistant to antibiotics.
How long do they last? If left untreated, months to years, though the affected teeth may not be painful for all, or even most, of the infections’ duration.
Which teeth are affected? Any tooth, but teeth in poor health are likely to be affected. Severe cavities, broken teeth, gum disease and other injuries to the mouth, e.g. failed dental work or partially erupted wisdom teeth, can all cause openings for bacteria to enter. The damage need not be visible.
How are they treated? Typically through extraction or root canals. The bacteria may not clear out on their own, as the damaged tooth provides them a safe haven.
Intended mainly for OP but I post publicly still fwiw.
Thanks! What coincidence: I went to the doc yesterday because once again my chronic palate inflammation as been flaring up more strongly than usual in the past 1-2 months or so. Since ages, I seem to have fragile mucous membranes and some other skin/pseurasis-type issues e.g. on the head; while the latter are under control with medicinal shampoos, the palate inflammation seems to be more of a constant, although at varying intensity.
I had seen docs many times many years before that, but I also simply have gotten used to having inflammation and latent pain there as nothing can seemingly be done about it. The main worry is the broader risks from long-term chronic inflammation.
But yesterday, for the first time, a doc told me that before anything else: “go to see a dentist as very first thing—bacteria something something”. I didn’t want to take her seriously; rather good tooth hygiene—though indeed relatively strongly withdrawn gum.
Long story short: If you happen to have good links (or other sort of info that doesn’t take you too long to provide) I’d be keen to know more details about anything you write in your post thus. I should admit, despite the amazing parallels of what you write, my hope is a bit limited, as I still guess (i) my irritated/fragile mucous membranes are somehow a rather fundamental issue, and, at any rate, (ii) gum being somewhat withdrawn can barely be changed.
I don’t really know much more than this. It’s been a while since I heard about this, so I chatted w/ Claude to see if I wasn’t misremembering, and Claude said I was not. It linked to a few articles and papers on the topic, which support what I said. Here’s one on tooth abscesses from the mayo clinic, another on undiagnosed fevers occasionally being due to dental infections, and one on oral biofilms which can cause chronic infection. I don’t know how helpful this is to you, as it doesn’t seem obviously related to your inflammation, but it’s all I’ve got atm.