Dentists: Unexplained Pain, Tooth Loss and Bone Problems May Be Linked to COVID-19 Vaccine

Before business owner and busy mom Alana Parker experienced severe oral pain and facial swelling after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, she had good dental health with never so much as a cavity.

When her symptoms progressed and an ulcer had grown to the point where the bone was protruding, causing her to lose large fragments of her jawbone, Parker knew she was in serious trouble.

“I was begging them to pull my tooth out but there were no signs of it being decayed,” Parker told The Epoch Times, noting she was passed back and forth between a dentist and endodontist trying to determine what was wrong.

It wasn’t until Parker found Alabama orofacial pain and dental sleep medicine specialist Dr. Amy Hartsfield that she felt she was on the road to recovery.

Hartsfield, a private practice dentist in Homewood, Alabama, obtained her specialization from the American Board of Orofacial Pain and the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine after practicing 14 years of general dentistry.

Parker isn’t the only patient she’s seen with severe facial pain issues. Since the vaccines were rolled out, Hartsfield has seen an exponential increase in patients with head and facial neurovascular and myofascial pain, including headaches, toothaches not caused by the tooth, osteonecrosis of the jaw, sleep issues, tinnitus, and oral and facial autoimmune conditions.

“I’ve seen patients with no previous history of health issues [who] have perfectly healthy teeth and now have pain syndromes associated with these healthy teeth,” she said. These types of injuries affect both the nerves and blood vessels.

Dental Issues and COVID-19

In her research, Hartsfield discovered an array of health issues the COVID-19 vaccine spike protein can cause, many of which are related to immunity and blood microclots.

She also discovered that this is the first time polyethylene glycol (PEG) has been used in a vaccine. The use of PEG has become increasingly controversial since it can cause a number of serious immunological reactions, including anaphylaxis, which can be life-threatening.

The vaccine has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier, circulate throughout the bloodstream, and has been found in most organs, all with the potential for serious health consequences.

Since the blood supply is important to all areas of the body including the bones, microclots can have a detrimental effect on bone health.

Microclots and Orofacial Bone Loss

There are tiny capillaries that feed the bone, and with microclots occurring in the orofacial area, you’re going to start losing bone density around it, Hartsfield explained.

Cheryl Alverson, 79, came to Hartsfield after having all of her lower teeth extracted due to a massive recurring infection that caused extensive bone loss.

Hartsfield immediately ordered multiple blood tests, including several specifically related to blood clotting.

“They showed I had microclots all through my body,” said Alverson.

Hartsfield explained that microclots can interfere with bone healing after extractions. What happened with Alverson typically only occurs in patients who have been on osteoporosis medication or had radiation therapy, neither of which applied to Alverson.

Alverson had received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and a subsequent booster shot before her issues began, and she had not been infected with the COVID-19 virus prior to seeing Hartsfield.

She had good teeth but spontaneously had pain in her lower left jaw. Shards—or a piece of her mandible—broke off out of her gum tissue, she said.

Parker’s case started only a few months after she had received the COVID-19 vaccine.

With Parker, there was a “dying off of the bone,” said Hartsfield.

Parker’s bloodwork showed extreme inflammation across multiple body systems—and with four loose teeth and not enough energy to drive a car, Hartsfield built a team around her of five specialists and put her on a protocol of medications and vitamins to support her recovery. (pdf)

Microclots not only interfere with bone health but can affect the nerves, which also rely on capillaries for survival. Without adequate blood supply to the nerves, they too will develop problems, said Hartsfield.

A Surge in Facial Pain

Birmingham, Alabama-based endodontist Dr. John Collier told The Epoch Times he’s seen an “unbelievable amount of increasing facial pain” in the last couple of years.

He refers his patients to Hartsfield if he determines the pain is not caused by the patient’s tooth.

I had a patient with tremendous facial pain, implants, and an implant allergy, said Collier. Hartsfield is the “detective who goes through all the layers of what’s causing this,” he said.

While Collier can’t say whether or not his patients’ conditions were caused by the COVID-19 vaccine, he’s confident that stress from the pandemic and the country’s toxic political environment are contributing factors.

“There’s a lot of clenching and grinding and a lot of muscular pain,” he said.

Likewise, oral surgeon Dr. Doug Denson from Birmingham, Alabama, who has also sent patients with facial pain to Hartsfield, said it’s impossible to say for sure whether it’s COVID or the vaccine causing the symptoms he’s been seeing.

“In my opinion, correlation does not always equal causation … again, there have been some odd symptoms since the pandemic started. It’s just impossible to tell the exact mechanism or cause,” he said.

Still, Denson noted the uptick of unexplainable pain symptoms in a significant portion of the population affected by COVID immediately after the pandemic started, specifically trigeminal neuralgia, which is sudden, severe facial pain.

Hartsfield has also seen an increase in neuropathy of the trigeminal nerve, as well as major issues related to inflammation and cytokine storms.

Increase in Inflammation and Cytokine Storms

Cytokines themselves are small proteins released by cells in the body, including those of the immune system where they coordinate the body’s response to fight infections and trigger inflammation.

Hartsfield isn’t the only practitioner who has noted an escalation in inflammatory abnormalities and cytokine storms since the onset of COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccines.

Denson has also seen an increased number of patients of all different ages with inflammation of the tongue and hyper-inflammatory responses, including osteomyelitis, an infection of the jaw that is very difficult to treat because the blood supply to the jaw is not great.

These maladies would typically be seen in older individuals rather than in a younger, healthy population.

Dr. Liz Kivus, a periodontist practicing in Alabama, told The Epoch Times she has also seen a marked increase in inflammatory symptoms, such as gingival inflammation, since COVID-19 and the related vaccines.

Kivus further noted an increase in lichen planus, an inflammatory condition of the skin and mucous membranes that often results in an itchy rash that can affect various areas of the body, including the mouth, arms, legs, trunk, nails, and scalp.

We see this when patients’ immune systems are broken down, said Kivus. Patients have even said, “I’m too uncomfortable to brush my teeth and to eat.”

After seeing so many patients with unexplained issues since the pandemic and when COVID vaccines were released, Hartsfield believes it’s important to consider a patient’s vaccination status.

Consideration of Vaccination Status

“I have to screen these people to see if they’ve been vaccinated, when and how many times, and then I see if I can treat them,” said Hartsfield.

Most practitioners are not asking when the patient had COVID or when the patient had their vaccines, she said.

Hartsfield attributed some of her knowledge as coming from highly publicized critical care doctors who were “canceled” during the pandemic, including the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium.

She also studied the information released by Department of Defense whistleblower Lt. Col. Theresa Long, M.D., MPH, an aerospace medicine doctor and Army Brigade flight surgeon who reported the unusual diagnoses and alarming trends after the introduction of COVID-19 vaccinations.

“When you ask the whole population to have a mandatory vaccine that has more side effects than any other vaccines in history showing in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, you will definitely see injuries,” said Hartsfield.

She noted that some patients and practitioners do not consider whether the patient’s ailments may have resulted from the COVID vaccine, while others come into her office knowing that their health issues directly relate to taking the vaccine.

It is really sad, she said. I just had a 25-year-old man in my office stating he has been gaslit by a number of practitioners when he mentioned his head and ear pressure had started within days of taking the vaccine, said Hartsfield. He was reluctant to tell me he thought his health issues were from the vaccines because other providers made him feel crazy.

Parker, who to this day still has elevated C-reactive protein and some orofacial pain and swelling, attributed her symptoms to a short-circuiting of the immune system and microclots.

“I’ve been chronically ill for nearly a year and unfortunately my two 12-year-old girls have seen me sick over and over—I think that has been alarming for them,” said Parker. “It’s been a journey—I don’t feel that it’s going to kill me but it was touch and go there for a while.”

“I hate that we haven’t been able to openly talk about it because I had the resources and freedom to receive treatment,” said Parker. “I can’t imagine people that do not have the resources to treat it.”