I think it is related to a kind of sensitivity to some metals used in dental fillings. The last period of having these symptoms started for me a month ago after I got a temporary dental filling using a product called 3M ketac molar. A few hours after the dental work when the anesthesia wore off I got a moderate headache that lasted until the next day, a bit of nausea, brain fog, muscle twitching in the face, post nasal dripping, and pressure in the upper front gums, upper front palate, behind the nose, between the eyes, forehead and front scalp. The headache and nausea cleared by the next day, but the other symptoms remained.
A few years ago I used to have a similar set of symptoms caused by the mercury dental fillings (I replaced it with resin composite ones and I was free of symptoms after that), but that only used to cause symptoms for a day after eating a food very acidic and hot (like using lemon juice in hot foods). Now the temporary filling is producing symptoms 24/7, too bad.
Symptoms dynamics. Muscle twitching seems to increase around bed time. The brain fog clears a bit in the evening around 7-8pm to 11-12pm, may be related to cortisol cycle? I noted some symptoms of high cortisol the first few days after the filling buy I'm not a normally stressed guy, nor my life is stressful at all, like something was chemically interfering with my normal cortisol level. As someone posted in another comment, calcium also seems to increase symptoms, no idea why.
Another thing that produces me similar symptoms is eating a full can of 200gr of tuna in a single meal. May be because the mercury content?
The symptoms with the temporary filling also increase when eating acidic foods, I think it should be related to and increased amount of metal ions released. There are some papers about that for glass-ionomer dental fillings.
The main components of the 3m ketac molar are lanthanum, calcium, aluminum, silicon and fluoride (google for the paper "Inorganic elemental analysis and identification of residual monomers released from different glass ionomer cements in cell culture medium"). From those components I think the most conflicting one could be lanthanum, because the leaching could be several orders of magnitude higher than what is present in normal food, while the other elements are more probable to be already in similar amounts in daily food intake.
Now, the following is pure speculation, as I'm a software developer and not a doctor, but it may be related to lanthanum interfering with GABAa receptors? Mercury and lanthanum both augmented the GABA-induced current, while zinc and copper decreased it. Google for the paper "GABA receptor-channel complex as a target site of Mercury, copper, zinc, and lanthanides".
Things I tried that "somewhat" decrease de symptoms (but the never go away completely):
* Increase protein intake to have more phosphorus in plasma that can bind the lanthanum and aluminium ions.
* Avoid calcium (dairy). Don't know why, but it helps.
* Increase magnesium, B6, B9, B12 and sun exposure to increase the methylation.
* Increase zinc and copper intake to counter-balance the lanthanum effects on GABAa receptors.
* Aerobic exercises.
I have an appointment with the dentist next week to remove the temporary filling, I hope to get my brain back after. I will report back how it goes.
- Francisco
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