Listen to Episode #6

S1E6 – From Hospice to Thriving with Dr. Al Danenberg

About our Guest

Dr. Danenberg goes by “Dr. Al”. He is a periodontist and was in private practice for 44 years. He incorporated ancestral nutrition & lifestyle with his leading-edge laser protocol to treat periodontal disease.
 

Dr. Al consults with patients all over the world (virtually via Zoom or Skype) regarding animal-based nutrition, lifestyle, oral & overall health, and the importance of a healthy gut and immune system.

He also includes his Unconventional Cancer Protocols since he was diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer in September 2018 and was given only 3-6 months to live.

Dr. Al rejected all chemotherapy and is thriving today. In June 2014, Dr. Al received the Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (CFMP) designation as well as the certification as a Certified Primal Health Coach.

In 2015, he was appointed to the faculty of the College of Integrative Medicine and created the college’s integrative periodontal teaching module.

Then, in April 2017, Dr. Al earned the designation of “ADAPT Trained Health Professional” from Kresser Institute. In July 2017, Elektra Press released his book, “Crazy-Good Living”, which is based on ancestral nutrition and lifestyle. On April 14, 2020, Dr. Al was appointed the Chair of the Periodontal Committee for the International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine (IABDM). He also created the Certification Course offered by the IABDM, which will bestow the designation of Certified Biological Nutritional Dental Professional after successful completion of the program.

This is the first certification of its kind. In August 2020, he published two mini-eBooks on Amazon for download: “Better Belly Blueprint” and “Is Your Gut Killing You?” In November 2020, NutriSense offered Dr. Danenberg a position on its Advisory Board, and in January 2021, Dr. Al became a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Revitin Natural Toothpaste.

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Podcast Transcript

Hello, and welcome to The Natural Evolution, produced by Rebel Health Tribe, our radio show focused on providing you with inspiration, education, and tools for true healing and transformation. I’m Michael, and I’ll be your guide on this adventure, as together, we explore the very nature of the healing journey. Well, welcome everyone. Here’s another episode, this time with Dr. Al Danenberg. Dr. Al, thanks for being here with us.
 
Dr. Al Danenberg:

Thank you for the opportunity. It’s always a pleasure.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. This one’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ve talked about this a little bit in previous webinars and things that we’ve done, but never really honed in specifically on your rather remarkable healing journey. Many of our listeners might be familiar with you and your journey, but for those who aren’t, I’d like to give a little bit of an introduction. There’s a lot of things I could get into. I’m going to keep it narrowed down here a little bit.

Dr. Al Danenberg is a periodontist and a certified functional medicine practitioner, certified primal health coach. June, 2014, you received this certified functional medicine practitioner designation, as well as certification as a certified primal health coach. You were appointed to the faculty of the College of Integrative Medicine and created the college’s integrative periodontal teaching module. Things took a little turn in September of 2018, when Dr. Al was diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer, and given 3 to 6 months to live. We are recording this in March of 2021 for reference, so that was about 2.5 years ago.

After a great deal of research and consideration Dr. Al rejected chemotherapy and took his knowledge of ancestral nutrition and immune health and created his own unconventional cancer protocols. Dr. Al has also recently published two mini e-books on Amazon for download, Better Belly Blueprint and Is Your Gut Killing You? You’ll be able to find those there. He is currently living in Charleston, South Carolina, if my Intel here is correct.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Absolutely, and it’s a beautiful place.

Michael Roesslein:

All right. I’ve heard that from many people. Well, that, I know, cuts your, your bio a little short, but I think people will understand that you were a periodontist and then got into functional medicine. Before we came on air, we kind of discussed your transition a little bit. So if you want to go back to your first life-threatening health crisis that I didn’t even mention there.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Sure. Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

We can start there and take your evolution from periodontist, to functional medicine, to cancer protocol designer, to where we’re at today, I think would be great.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Absolutely, yeah. I am almost 74 years old, so there’s a lot we can go back to. But in the early 70s, I got my dental degree and practiced and specialized in periodontics, which is the specialty of treating gum disease. I basically was trained conventionally and treated periodontal disease very conventionally. Deep type of cleaning under the gum, surgical procedures where you cut the gum and treat the bone. Eventually, I progressed to eliminate all that surgery and did almost exclusive laser surgery, which actually did not involve cutting the gum, and in fact, it actually gave the patient a better result. We could regenerate bone, they could go back to work the next day. And that’s what I was doing. That’s my conventional approach to treating gum disease.

So at the age of 59, I basically am the typical standard American guy eating a standard American diet thinking I’m healthy, exercising four or five times a week, but basically just aerobic stuff, and I have a stroke. So I have a stroke at the age of 59, and I will tell you, very interestingly, how this happened. I woke up one morning, it was actually a Saturday morning. My grandson was, I don’t know, maybe 5 years old or so, he was sleeping in bed with me and my wife, because my daughter and her family were staying with us because they were transitioning to another state, Portland, Oregon, as a matter of fact. And generally, it was a Saturday morning, I would ask my grandson, “Would you like to go to breakfast?”

And he and I would go to breakfast, just the two of us. So I turned to him this Saturday morning and I tried to speak to him and I can’t speak. It comes out garbled, and I’m thinking, “Oh my God, I must be dreaming.” But I wasn’t dreaming. And then I thought, “I must have a very dry throat.” I got up, went to the bathroom, drank some water, peed, came back to the bed and I tried to talk and I could not get any words out that were intelligible. So my wife starts to wake up, she’s an RN, and she realizes what’s happening and she immediately takes me to the hospital and I’m having a stroke.

Okay. So my doctors, conventional medicine guys, saved my life. They put me on seven medications to take for the rest of my life and within maybe 8 weeks or so, I’m okay. My speech is back, I never had any muscular issues, and I went back to a work and I’m working. So I’m asking my doctors what caused my stroke, and they didn’t really know. They thought maybe the carotid artery was congenitally twisted and that’s how a clot form. But they said, “Just eat a healthier diet and exercise and you’ll be okay.” What does that mean?

SO I’m doing some research at the age of 59 now to figure out what a healthy diet and lifestyle meant. Here I am, a trained dental professional, don’t get any of this information in dental school, and I’m trying to research nutrition and lifestyle. I have to go to the organizations that I think might know. So I go to the Cancer Society and the Heart Association, Diabetics Society. I’m looking for answers on how they recommend their chronically ill patients to get healthy. So I kind of incorporate all these diets and lifestyle, and from the age of 59 to 66, I may have lost maybe 3 or 4 pounds and I’m still on my seven medications. I’m feeling okay. Basically, I’m 5’7″ in height and I weigh about 187 pounds, so I’m a little chunky too.

So at the age of 66, doing well, but still on seven medications and not losing very much weight other than 3, 4 pounds, I find a course at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health for healthcare professionals on nutrition. I’m thinking, “wow, this is a 5-day course. It’s given by four or five medical people that have some reputation,” and I’m thinking, “this is going to just confirm everything I’m doing is correct.”

I take this course, and actually what’s beautiful, is that it has nothing to do with what I’m doing. It had everything to do with a paleo lifestyle, and I learned that, for the most part, everything I was doing up at that point was wrong. After the 5 days and I’m just absorbing all this information, it just makes so much sense to me, I call my wife and I say, “I’ve got some ideas from this course. I’d like to integrate it in what we’re doing.”

Then when I get home after 5 days, she and I literally bumped heads, and she said, “Okay, I’ll give you 30 days. Let’s see what happens.” So I clear out all of the non paleo type foods in my freezer, refrigerator, pantry, and I fill seven bags of groceries to take to the food bank and I have no food in the house. My wife and I now start to understand how to shop organically and healthy meat and whatever. So as paleo, I’m going to eat meat, nose-to-tail, I’m going to eat vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, and that’s what we started to buy. And from the age of 66 to 68, amazingly, I lost over 30 pounds and I got off of all seven medications.

Michael Roesslein:

Wow.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

That blew me away.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. That’s pretty significant right there. I think that could be a podcast and it would be a pretty significant shift in journey. Your wife’s an RN, you said?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

So is mine, so I know that’s like having one of those around the house. But she was probably trained conventionally with diet then.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Oh, of course.

Michael Roesslein:

The low-fat, don’t eat any fat, and lots of whole grains and brown rice.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Absolutely.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, that’s what I learned in grad school, myself. I have a Master’s in Exercise Physiology, and the nutrition course I took was all about starving yourself, a million servings of whole grains, don’t eat any fats, and if you have to, eat the polyunsaturated oils that you can fry the food in. It was literally backwards to what I later learned.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

It’s a backwards thing and it’s still prevalent today, or course. That’s unfortunately the concept. What I was doing now, I knew in those 2 years from 66 to 68, something was really happening in a positive way, but I didn’t understand it. That’s when I started taking courses, got my certification in primal coaching and functional medicine. But here’s the most important thing, I think. I started putting the dots together and figured, if I could integrate this way of eating and lifestyle with my periodontal patients, I would be able to get much, much better healing and maybe even other chronic diseases that they had would be reduced or prevent other chronic diseases in the future for them.

So when I started integrating this, very, very few patients were interested. Because I’m a conventional periodontist, people are coming to me to please take care of their gum disease. If I started to mention food, nutrition, they just walked away. As a matter of fact, there was one situation in the early days when I was doing this, this guy, I was explaining to him, because he had some serious medical problems, that I could take care of his periodontal problems, but nutrition would really help with this and could even help his chronic diseases that he presented with. He shook his head, yes. Everything, yes. And when he walked up to the front desk, he told the front desk he would not make another appointment, he would not come be coming back to see me. He wanted to see a real periodontist that didn’t talk about nutrition. He just wanted to have his gum treated. So, obviously I didn’t make the point well enough to have him understand the significance.

Over the time, I think I got it back together again. But my point is, in those years that I started to integrate this new way of living and eating with my periodontal treatment, the periodontal patients that accepted this got significantly better results and were very impressed with their overall health improvements. So that’s what I started doing.

I wrote a book, I started lecturing, I was doing consultations everywhere in the world, and I got somewhat of a name for myself. And actually, I was asked to speak at the Paleo f(x) meeting in Austin, Texas in April, 2018. So here I am. I’m thinking I am the senior poster boy for a healthy living and diet, and I’m going traveling from Charleston, South Carolina, to Austin, Texas in April, 2018 to speak on the subject of paleo and health and gum disease. I am generally traveling with a bag that I put on my shoulder and I have to transfer planes in Atlanta. And you know, Atlanta is a big airport, lots of concourses. I generally like to walk by having enough time between flights.

So I’m walking, and while I’m walking, the bag on my right shoulder really starts to hurt my shoulder, which is very unusual. I can’t figure out what’s happened, but I’m thinking I must have torn a ligament in my right shoulder. I get to Austin. I do my speech. My shoulder is a problem. I’m living with it. I get back home. The shoulder is still a problem. And then the pain starts to go to my back, and then it starts to go to my chest, and by August of 2018, it’s difficult for me to take a deep breath. I’m a wuss, but I’m not figuring out what’s going on. It’s a long time now for a muscle pull or a tear.

I call my physician and I go in and he jokes around a little bit and he says, “Well, obviously you’re hurting. Let’s take some blood work.” So we can do it general CBC, which is looking at the blood cells, and then a complete metabolic panel. And so, he’s looking at chemistry, he’s looking at blood cells, and he also does a CRP, which is C-reactive protein that looks for inflammation. This is when all hell breaks loose.

Everything looks good after the tests come back, except the C-reactive protein, and it’s highly elevated. Normally, my C-reactive protein is less than 0.5. This was over 5.5, saying that something is wrong, systemically, with inflammation. Doesn’t say it’s chronic or acute. Doesn’t say where it’s coming from. So he orders an MRI.

Michael Roesslein:

So the myeloma doesn’t throw off immune markers in an extreme-

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:15:04]

Michael Roesslein:

Myeloma doesn’t throw off immune markers in an extreme way like some cancers?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Well, there are no immune markers yet because we’re not even thinking anything other than a torn ligament or something.

Michael Roesslein:

Okay, gotcha.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

So the MRI is going to help him see what’s damaged, what ligament-

Michael Roesslein:

Looking for a tear, or a…

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah. So we have this MRI and he calls me, and again, he starts to kid around a little bit and he said, “Did somebody beat you up? Did you fall down some steps?” And I said, “Of course not.” He said, “Well, let me tell you what I see on this MRI. There is a vertebral compression fracture. There is a hairline crack in your pelvis. There are several broken ribs, and there is a soft tissue mass measuring a little more than two centimeters on the side of your spine.” Then he gets very serious and he says, “I think you have either lymphoma, leukemia, or multiple myeloma.” Now wait a minute.

First of all, these are three cancers. Second of all, I’m the senior poster boy for healthy living. What the hell is going on? I’m not feeling bad except now I can’t take deep breaths. I’m just thinking I tore something in my arm or shoulder area. And he says, “We need to get you to an oncologist.” I don’t know any. He recommends a guy that I still go to, he’s phenomenal. Then they do a bunch of other tests. Now they’re looking for antibodies. They’re looking for cancer in the skeleton. So we do a PET scan. We do a soft tissue biopsy of this mass, and after all of the tests are done and read, I meet this oncologist for the first time, and my wife and my two adult children come. Now, I know the diagnosis is a type of cancer, and a ton of bricks has already fallen on my head.

I know my life is over as I know it. Now, I’m not saying I’m dying, it’s just that it can never be the way it used to be. So he shows me all the tests and I look at the x-rays and I look at the results and he says, “You have, IgA kappa light chain multiple myeloma with enumerable lytic lesions throughout your skeleton. That means I have this multiple myeloma, specifically of a antibody called IgA. In addition, I have holes throughout my skeleton, like a person with severe osteoporosis. That’s why the bones are cracking, and it’s just a twist that would crack it, which I had no idea.

Michael Roesslein:

Hey, if you’re enjoying the show, make sure you head over to rebelhealthtribe.com/kit. That’s K-I-T, and grab the RHT starter kit, which includes a sampler of four free videos from our professional master classes and webinars, the RHT Healthy Sleep Guide, the Wellness Vault Coupon Book, which will save you money on all of our favorite health-related tools and resources, a Professional Product Guide, and a coupon for 15% off your first order in our shop. That’s rebelhealthtribe.com/kit, K-I-T, and you’ll get all that delivered right away. Also, if you’re on Facebook, we’ve got a fun, engaging, and supportive group over there as well with thousands of health seekers just like yourself. Just search for Rebel Health Tribe, and you’ll find us. Thanks for listening, and now back to the show. I want to take a step back between a first call where he thought you might have one of those three forms of cancers, and then this meeting where you find out the actual diagnosis, how long was it in between those two?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

About a week and a half.

Michael Roesslein:

What was that week and a half like?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

It was devastating because I knew that cancer is a killer, and I already knew in my mind I would never do chemotherapy. Now, it wasn’t even presented to me the options of treatment, but I knew in my own mind, and my wife knew my intentions also, that I would not do chemotherapy. I will tell you this, and this is a totally different subject, but I just briefly mentioned it to you earlier. The only thing that kept me going was that I am not a religious person at all. I don’t subscribe to a religion, although I was born in a religion, grew up with a religion. I’m not an active religious person, but I am highly spiritual. What that means to me is that I believe in the soul. I believe we are here for a purpose. I believe the soul inhabits this physical body that we have.

I believe that we have designed our purpose in life. Now this is really controversial. I don’t know if your viewers are going to accept this or not, but this is what I believe. I believe in reincarnation. I believe that we’re here many times, and I believe this is one of many times that I’ve been here. Now my learning, my teaching at this moment, what I need to learn in this lifetime, I believe has to do with this cancer. I am thinking I am going to beat this because of that. But even if I don’t, I know that if I die, I am meant to die with this knowledge, and I’ll come back in another body in another time with another lesson to learn. Now, this gave me great solace and determination that it’s not all over. It may be over physically as I know it, but it’s not all over as far as my soul was concerned. That helped me definitely along this path. So-

Michael Roesslein:

That was right away? [crosstalk 00:21:18]

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Right away. Instantaneously.

Michael Roesslein:

Didn’t even know what the cancer was yet, you just knew there was cancer, and oh man, a lot of things are going to change right now, and this is pretty scary.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

This is what helped me.

Michael Roesslein:

This is how I’m going to…

Dr. Al Danenberg:

I never was in denial, and I knew that whatever is going on, it was something that I literally predetermined before I incarnated in this life.

Michael Roesslein:

I hold a similar belief that I chose this life.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Correct, and it’s very satisfying to know that and believe that with your entire body, your soul, so that you’re not in a denying or, oh my God, I’m a victim. How could this happen to me type of framework. That never happened to me, which is good. So when I got to the oncologist and he gave me this diagnosis, I didn’t even know what multiple myeloma was other than dental school.

Michael Roesslein:

From what I know of those three, multiple myeloma is the one I wouldn’t want.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

I’m not calling upon any cancer gods to throw cancer at me, but out of those three cancers, I believe multiple myeloma has the most severe, the lowest prognosis.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah. So here is what he tells me. He says, “This is incurable, number one.” That blew me away because I didn’t know that it was incurable. Number two, I have three to six months to live. Wow. Now that really removed the rug off under my feet. I was at that moment devastated knowing that this is really the end. This is the end. Now he said, “Three to six months to live if you do nothing.” And he said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Tomorrow, you’re going to start chemotherapy. You’re not a good candidate for stem cells, and because of the pain in your chest, because you can’t breathe well, we’ll do radiation that will at least give you no pain. It won’t treat your multiple myeloma at all, but at least it’ll take care of the pain.”

So I’m asking him, I’m thinking, “I need to ask you George, the important questions and get answers before I walk out of this office.” And I’m thinking, what are those questions? And I asked him, “Why am I going to have chemotherapy if this is incurable?” So he tells me, “Well, actually chemotherapy is going to put you in remission, and when you’re in remission, you’ll feel fine. And then the disease will come back.” And I said, “Well, if the disease is coming back, still, why am I doing chemotherapy?” Well, you’ll continue to go into remission over a period of time. It’s just that we’re going to have to use more caustic chemotherapy drugs each time because the previous ones won’t work any longer. Then my next question is, well, what’s going to happen to the quality of my life? Now my new quality of life is everything to me. Longevity means nothing.

I’d like to live as long as possible, but if I’m going to live in a degenerative and degenerating state, I want to die before that starts. So he says, “Well, your quality of life is going to go down.” Then in my cheeky kind of question, I say, “Well, eventually these chemotherapy drugs are going to do what?” He said, “They’re not going to be effective.” And I ask him, “How am I going to die?” And he says, “Well, patients with multiple myeloma generally die from one of three things. Either they get an infection, and because the immune system is so terribly damaged, it can’t get rid of the infection and antibiotics don’t work anymore. The second is a situation with kidney failure. Because of the multiple myeloma, the plasma cells will damage the kidney to the point where your kidneys will fail. Then the third reason would be you bleed to death because of anemia, because all the malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow push out the red blood cells and you really are not going to have much of a red blood cell count any longer.”

So these are the three reasons are the ways I would die. None of this sounds good to me, and I’m certainly not laughing at the moment when I’m talking about-

Michael Roesslein:

Is there a door number four?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah, please. Is there a door number four? No, there wasn’t. So I’m thinking, okay, I need to pull my head together. I look at my wife. She knows what I’m going to say, and I tell George, I said, “It does not make sense to me to have archaic caustic drugs coursing through my blood that will kill my immune system, greatly damage the immune system, which is already damaged, and maybe we can restore it, maybe we can’t. Then my quality of life is going to go downhill. So I totally reject chemotherapy. I’ll do the radiation on my chest because I’m a wuss, and the pain of breathing deeply is very-“

Michael Roesslein:

I’ve had one cracked rib. I didn’t have multiple, and I know that when I had one, taking a deep breath, or coughing, or sneezing, or laughing, or anything that created pressure in my torso, I became much more conscious of.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Oh yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

And moving around like a baby for a solid, probably close to a month.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah, but you healed.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah, I was healing, but I just remember thinking one little rib can cause this much discomfort.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Right, and it was right under my sternum area, so it was really quite intense. So, I’m telling George I’ll do that, and I need to do some independent research to figure out what I can do in an unconventional way. I need to figure out what is being done that makes sense. Now, oh my God, there’s so much stuff out there to treat cancer. Some of it is traveling all over the world, which I couldn’t do anyhow, and it would cost more money than Fort Knox has to treat this, because it’s not covered by any kind of insurance program. A lot of it is just very unique to this company or that company. It’s not really being duplicated. So who knows? If you eat healthier, no matter what you eat, if it’s not a standard American diet, you’re going to get better. Even though you still may be eating junk, it’s not as junkie.

So I just don’t know. I don’t know what I needed to do, but I did a lot of research, and I came up with a bunch of ideas and I started them, and we can go into the details in a moment, but they worked. They amazingly worked. I tweak them constantly. I even got involved with an integrated physician originally who put me on 70 supplements a day. I gave into it. I thought he knew what he was talking about, but he really didn’t understand diet. He definitely didn’t understand the microbiome on the supplements. Some of them were natural, but most of them were synthetic. Here’s the other thing that’s interesting about supplements. Each supplement has, if you look at the label, inert ingredients. And those inert ingredients-

Michael Roesslein:

Fillers, preservatives, anti-caking agents. Things that make your pill not turn into a rock.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Right. But you know that those damage the gut microbiome. Well, that’s one supplement. Multiply those by 70. I am taking a truckload of-

Michael Roesslein:

Full meals of pills.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

… junk that is damaging my gut. And it just didn’t make sense to me. So I stopped all of that and continued with my others, and I did very well. So well that fast forward to August 2018, I’m still seeing my oncologist. My chemistries are okay. My antibodies are not getting worse. They’re not getting better. The soft tissue mass that was the mass of malignant plasma cells had not been checked yet, but it wasn’t causing symptoms. So I’m thinking pretty good. So August of 2018.

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:30:04]

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Good. So August of 2018, I’m standing in my bathroom and brushing and flossing my teeth, which I kind of know how to do. And I need to throw my dental floss in the trashcan. So between my diagnosis in 2018 and 2019 now, I’ve had a couple more pathological fractures. So I know I have to be very careful, but I think I’m going to throw this dental floss in a trashcan. My feet are planted on the floor, I twist 90 degrees to the left, simple, anybody can do it. I twist 90 degrees to the left, my right femur snaps in half and I crashed to the floor. When I crashed to the floor, I break a couple more ribs and I fractured my right humerus in half. And I know that they are probably broken in half because when I’m looking at what I see as my body on the floor, my right leg and my right arm are in angles that I could never move them to. And I’m riving in pain and I’m screaming for my wife and she’s in the other room.

What going through my mind very rapidly is I’ve lived beyond my prognosis because it’s been a year since my diagnosis, and I was only given three to six months to live. And I know that people that I knew in the past that had just a fractured hip really go downhill and die very rapidly. And here’s my right side of my body with my major bones are crushed and I’m thinking this is over and I’m ready to die and I want to die. I verbalize that to my wife, eventually to EMS, it gets to the house, I’m telling them, look it’s over for me and I have no problem. I’m ready to die.

Well, they take me to the hospital. They fix my right leg because the right femur is snapped in half and it’s ready to perforate the femoral artery, I would have bled to death. They couldn’t do that and not be sued. So they fixed my right leg, they don’t do anything to my right humerus, but you don’t do anything for the ribs. And I pretty much reject any other treatment in the hospital. And they sent me to hospice to die. And at the end of August 2019, I am laying in a hospice bed, I’m catheterized, I am heavily on narcotics and other drugs, bedridden, miserable, and I’m ready to die.

So here’s what happens [crosstalk 00:32:41]-

Michael Roesslein:

Make a blog post around then?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Oh yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. You’re still writing blog posts.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

As soon as I was diagnosed I wrote a blog post about my mortality without even knowing my diagnosis yet. That’s when I knew that I had cancer, but I didn’t know what it was.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah I knew then [crosstalk 00:33:00] know about hospice. And I was like, I don’t think this guy’s going to go out that easy.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

So I didn’t. But here’s why I didn’t. Fate has a way. So this is now the first week of September, 2019. And there is a hurricane coming to Charleston that first week of September of 2019, it’s called Hurricane Dorian. It’s literally moving at one mile an hour, but it has an 187 mile an hour winds and it’s scheduled to hit near the hospital area in my city. So the hospice hospital is ordered to evacuate all their patients and they don’t know where to send me, my wife as a nurse scampers to get a hospital bed into the house and they transport me to my home. Now I’m still in hospice. I’m still catheterizing and heavily drug with narcotics and all other crap. And I’m in a hospital bed and the hurricane comes through and of course the power goes out for 12, 16 hours or whatever. Hospital beds are electric, so the hospital bed can’t move, I can’t move. There’s no light. There’s no air conditioners over 90 degrees in the house because it’s over almost a 100 degrees outside. It’s terrible.

Michael Roesslein:

You have [crosstalk 00:34:27] broken bones.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Of course, bones are another issue. So life is miserable. The hurricane goes away. The power comes back on. My wife gives me some tough love, which is really the turning point in here. She says, look, you’re not a victim. You’re a survivor. You have done well with your unconventional cancer protocols, now you had this terrible accident. Let’s get you back on the cancer protocols and let me get a physical therapist in and see what we can do. She gets a physical therapist, eventually he helps me get sitting up in bed, eventually sitting at the side of the bed, eventually walking with a walker and finally the catheter comes out after 30 days, which is terrible. And then I’m starting to wean off the drugs, especially the narcotics, which is very, very difficult.

I start to rally and I’m rallying and I revoke hospice and the next month October, I’m doing so well I can actually physically go to my oncologist and he’s amazed that I’m still alive. So I’m out of my oncologist in October 2019, he tells me that there’s a new immunotherapy drug that was recently approved by the FDA, not chemo, but a drug that supports the immune system and assists in killing malignant plasma cells. So I incorporate that into my unconventional cancer protocols. And I’m doing that and let’s fast forward to May of 2020, he wants to get a new PET scan. So I had the original PET scan, showed lots of cancer, I had one in 2019 showed a lot of cancer-

Michael Roesslein:

Innumerable, correct? Was the term they used.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Right. Innumerable lytic lesions, but the PET scan also, they inject you with radioactive glucose. So the glucose is eaten up by the cancer cells and it glows on the x-ray. So you see all these spots of cancer cells. So I have that one in 2018 and another one 2019, and now I’m getting my third one May 8th 2020. So when it’s read that evening on a Friday, he calls me up at home and he tells me to get my wife on speakerphone. And he says, I’m going to read the radiology report. And the radiology report says no active cancer cells visible throughout the entire body.

Wow. Now I’m floating eight inches off the ground. My wife is screaming and crying and everything. But as soon as I come back to earth, I’m realizing that the PET scan only shows moderate to advance the clumps of cancer cells, can’t really pick up all the little ones that might be there. So I’m not in remission, I have not cured cancer, but I have a clean, clear PET scan, which is amazing. And my oncologist was totally surprised.

Michael Roesslein:

And that was about seven months after your fall or eight?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

So actually, yeah, so the fall was in August and this is now in May of 2020-

Michael Roesslein:

Nine months.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

And then fast forward to today, I am now absolutely thriving. I walk outside a mile a day, weather permitting. I do modified exercises in the house, basically pushups, modified pushups, and squats that I can do. I do a little bit of dumbbells to curl a little bit for biceps and help my arm. And I am amazingly well. Now I have lots of limitations, I mean, because of my right leg, that was literally split in half. It was shortened by an inch and a half. So I had all my shoes got lifts so that I could walk straight. I can’t fly in airplanes because I can get crushed too easily. I’m still very, very fragile, but I’m doing quite well. Absolutely amazing. And my oncologist again is amazed.

Michael Roesslein:

That’s amazing. And that call that you got, what was that like to hear? About the clear scan.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Well, I’m thinking because of what I’m doing, maybe getting less cancer cells but I had no idea, no perceived thought that I could have a clear PET scan. I was amazed. I was giddy. I was tickled. I was crying. My wife certainly was crying and my oncologist was, I mean, you could hear it in his voice that he was just stunned. Of course he knew it and he’s reading it again because he’s already known it. But for the first time hearing it, I actually had to say, George, wait a minute, read that again, read that again because I want to make sure he really said what I thought I heard. That it said no active cancer cells throughout the entire body. That was amazing. And of course I’m thinking the reason is I have these unconventional cancer protocols that are all designed by me to do one specific thing and that is improve my immune system and make it as robust as possible to fight and help heal my body.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. With cancer that’s incredible. With cancer, I mean, a functional, healthy, on-point immune system… We all have cancer cells, they spawn within the body in-

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Every day.

Michael Roesslein:

Every human being, every day and a well-functioning immune system will see them, recognize them, destroy them. End of story. And so it’s an immune-

Dr. Al Danenberg:

And there’s another part to that too. And that is the cancer cells, mitochondria are smart enough to sense or something in the cancer cell senses the cell’s ability to function that has decreased to the point where it cannot become a healthy cell any longer. So it commits suicide, apoptosis. So either the cancer cells kills itself or it is killed by macrophages and neutrophils that are thrown out by the immune system, the innate immune system-

Michael Roesslein:

Multiple levels of dysfunction that actually allow it to grow. The apoptosis is shut off for dysfunctional and the immune system is incapable of handling it.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Right. And then it becomes a malignancy, that’s when you have full blown cancer

Michael Roesslein:

With multiple myeloma, I’m sure you’ve done a lot of research into it. Are there known specific contributing factors or things maybe from your previous career? Because I know in dentistry you’re exposed to quite a bit of stuff. I don’t know [crosstalk 00:41:36]-

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Absolutely. Again, I am [inaudible 00:41:40] and I need to know answers. So once I’ve gotten the diagnosis and I’m on my way with my cancer protocols, I try to do some research as to why I could have gotten multiple myeloma. Here I am, eating a paleo diet, paleo lifestyle. [crosstalk 00:41:56]-

Michael Roesslein:

Healthiest you’ve been in your life.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah. So how could I be this healthy and get cancer? Well, obviously the cancer started way before it just didn’t manifest yet. So here’s what I found. There was an article, a Brazilian article, that was written studying the male population in my cohort. So ages 65 to 75 year old male dentists compared to the general male population, 65 to 75. And it showed, it’s observational, but it showed that those male dentists 65 to 75 at the time had a higher significance of cancer, specifically multiple myeloma than the general male population of that age group. It didn’t suggest the reason, but it made the observation.

So I’m thinking, okay, I’m a dentist. I know what I did in those four years of dental school, two years of graduate school, what’s so different than the general male population. Well the two most significant things are this. First of all, a low dose radiation will cause a plasma cell to become malignant, it’s very susceptible to low dose ionizing radiation. And in dental school, low dose ionizing radiation are dental x-rays. So in my clinic, which is very unique in that day, in that era, we had a very, very large clinic and every four dental students actually shared a dental x-ray head and we had 120 dental students in the class. So there were a lots and lots of dental x-ray machines in the clinic that could be going on and off all the time and you don’t smell it or see it or feel it. You could see a little red light go on or green light or whatever it was, but who knew. And we didn’t wear badges, at least I didn’t wear a badge to identify if I was getting too much exposure to radiation or not. So I’m walking through the clinic, who knows the machines that are going on or off, how close I was, I don’t know. But over four years of dental school and two years of graduate school, six continuous years, it’s possible. I had an overdose radiation.

Number two, we’re taught, as unfortunately dental students are still taught today, how to place dental amalgams in teeth. Dental amalgams are mercury fillings, we literally, in those days, mixed the free mercury with a metallic powder. So we had a dropper bottle that would drip the liquid mercury into the powder and mixed it, or what’s called trituration, mixed it. And then it’s a slurry, it’s like a very, very thick soupy slurry. And it’s just too much excess mercury in this powder, so you get a piece of cheese cloth and you literally-

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:45:04]

Dr. Al Danenberg:

A piece of cheese cloth, and you literally wring out the excess mercury, throw it on the floor. So we’re throwing the excess free mercury on the floor. We use the thick dental amalgam material to put into a patient’s tooth. And then when we’re not doing anything with patients, we would play with the mercury in our hands like kids play with Play-Doh. Oh my God.

Michael Roesslein:

Was it unknown then like how toxic mercury mercury actually is, or did it like in general, did humans have the knowledge of how toxic it was and dentist just weren’t told, or was it downplayed or… They’re still doing it.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

I’m sure it was downplayed.

Michael Roesslein:

Like it’s insane. I have talked to a couple of dentists in other countries and they don’t use it, but here-

Dr. Al Danenberg:

It’s still taught.

Michael Roesslein:

Dental students are still being taught to make and use mercury amalgam fillings.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Right. Now they don’t make it the way I just said. Actually, these are today-

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:46:00].

Dr. Al Danenberg:

So it’s in a capsule. You literally twist the capsule. The mercury goes into the powder. It goes into a machine to shake it up and you never actually touch the mercury, but it’s still mercury.

Michael Roesslein:

It’s still vapor exposure

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Oh, of course. And the dental schools in my day in the 70s, the early 70s, late 60s, early 70s probably were the most toxic physical buildings in the entire country because I wasn’t the only one that played with mercury and threw the excess mercury on the floor. Every dental student in every dental school did it. And the free mercury, those little balls of silvery stuff dance around the floor and all of a sudden they disappear because they vaporize. So they’re in the air that we’re breathing. This is a pretty sick, sick environment. It’s amazing that every dental student isn’t dying of multiple myeloma today.

Michael Roesslein:

Well, you said that the statistics were pretty significant when they did this study.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yes. Yes. And I’m sure that people, dentists, that develop a variety of cancers, and they do, never put the dots together. I mean, they just don’t figure it out because they think that their disease started a couple of years ago, not 40 years ago. And I think that’s what happened-

Michael Roesslein:

Does the ADA still stand by the safety of the-

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Well, the Food and Drug Administration every year puts out a statement stating that dental amalgams have never been proven to cause chronic disease in humans. Now this recent paper the FDA put out this year has a qualification and says, but it probably shouldn’t be used for women who are pregnant or children under the age of something and something.

Michael Roesslein:

That’s a start. I have a bunch of them. I was the kid that was in the dentist all the time. Like my teeth were a mess when I was young and I still have probably seven or so. I had two root canals. I had those removed because they became problematic and I was having pain in my jaw and my gums around them. And I just had them removed. I was about to do the removal, go through the whole process for all the amalgams in 2016, or 15, when I moved from the Chicago area out west and basically had the funds to be able to move out west and live with my now wife and start a new life out here or do the not so cheap dental work removal. And I chose to move. And I know it’s a time bomb and I know it’s not contributing anything positive to my health.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

I wrote a paper of time bombs in dentistry in the mouth, and this is certainly one of them, but there are many others that people do not know of. And the reason it’s a time bomb, it doesn’t cause pain necessarily or swelling, but it is affecting the immune system 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So you’re developing this chronic systemic inflammation as well as the actual element if it’s free mercury getting into the system or whatever. And mercury is a neurotoxin. It’s 10 times more toxic than lead. And we’re dealing with issues that can affect the entire body.

Michael Roesslein:

Well just keep blaming it on me. At some point, I’m going to take care of it. It’s just so daunting when you have so many. If it was one, I would have done it years ago. And when it’s on both sides in both top and bottom of your mouth.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

They have to do it in sections and they have to do it carefully. And there are dentists that are trained and licensed, actually they get certified to when they know how to do it correctly. You would be much more harmed if you did it incorrectly. And they were all drilled out and right, I would leave them if you couldn’t have them done correctly.

Michael Roesslein:

Well maybe we’ll have another conversation around that. And when I’m going to have it done, I’ll come to you for a referral.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

I know the people. I will tell you this, because I know you have listeners that are interested. There are three websites specifically that are biological holistic type websites, where they have a page where you can put your zip code in, find dentists that are not necessarily guaranteed to be biological, but at least they’re members and you generally have the right concept. But there was one very specifically, the International Academy of Oral Medicine Toxicology that offers a certification course of dentists that goes through their program. And they’re certified in the knowledge of how to remove mercury fillings safely. And you can find a dentist that has that certification in your zip code area.

Michael Roesslein:

Is that the iaomt.org?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Correct.

Michael Roesslein:

All right. Yeah. I had that one memorized when I was looking into it myself.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah. That’s one, yeah.

Michael Roesslein:

Where I saw the video they have of like the image of the vapor coming off the…

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Right. They also, the International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine also has extremely good courses to get dentists to become competent in removing mercury.

Michael Roesslein:

Great. Good to know. Great resources. We’ll probably have to have another conversation on that. Thank you for sharing your story. It’s incredible. And I’ve had a front row seat because I always see your new blog posts. So I know there’s a lot more than just me that have been following around or following you along the journey.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Well thank you.

Michael Roesslein:

Just in leaving, I’d like to give a message to anyone that has a really scary diagnosis like that such as multiple myeloma or any other cancer and what would you like to say to them?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

First of all, I would not literally do exactly what that guy in the white coat says you have to do or else. I would take into consideration that, but I would also do independent research, especially on pubmed.gov to figure out what else is being done all over the world for your individual condition. Because there are a lot of things that can be done. And I’m not saying not to conventional oncology because conventional oncology is saving my life too.

But the important thing is if you understand diet and lifestyle and the gut microbiome, the newer research that is even being published in medical journals, even oncology journals shows that if you have a healthier, healthier gut microbiome, then even if you’re going to do chemo, chemo is more effective and you don’t have to have as much and your side effects, which actually could be more severe than cancer by the way, the side effects are greatly reduced. So I would do a lot of research on pubmed.gov. I would look into other integrative physicians to get other ideas and bring it to the oncologist and make sure that that oncologist allows you to ask questions. If that oncologist is so pigheaded and says, it’s my way or the highway, I would suggest find another oncologist. You want somebody that hears what you’re saying and helps you understand what they can do for you. And you help understand what you want to try to do for yourself.

Michael Roesslein:

Great advice. And there are more and more today I’m noticing integrative and functional practitioners getting into oncology. I think it was a little slow, the transition. I know when I was working with clients with functional health coaching and such, cancer was always too scary to me. Like it wasn’t a diagnosis or a condition I was looking to work with. It was something I would definitely find referrals out for. So what I’m seeing many, many more doctors are moving in that direction towards an integrative holistic approach and the results speak for themselves.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Cancer is scary because it’s known to be a death sentence and the treatment is very scary because it is very debilitating. And it doesn’t have to be that way either way. And I think that the extra knowledge and doing a little bit of independent research will give an individual more comfort to move in other directions or at least support it with other integrative concepts.

Michael Roesslein:

Good advice. And if people would like to follow along your story and your journey like I have been, where do they find that?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Sure. I’m at drdannenberg.com. It’s D-R-D-A-N-E-N-B-E-R-G.com. Certainly my website is available to anybody and everybody. I write a blog every week and it talks about the gut health and oral health and chronic disease and specifically my cancer journey. I do some coaching. I do coaching on a one-on-one virtual type coaching for an hour and a half. And I also do a 12 week coaching program.

Michael Roesslein:

Great. And we will have the links there in the show notes, or if you’re on our website, you’ll have a bunch of links below there where you can find Dr. Al as well. So Dr. Al, thanks so much. It’s always a pleasure to connect and chat with you. I’m really happy to hear how well you’re doing. It had been a number of months since we last talked so I was expecting and hoping for a positive update and I was glad to get one. I’m sure you’ll be writing a post about your next scan coming in a couple of months, regardless of what it shows. I’m sure that you will be-

Dr. Al Danenberg:

I’m trying to be very transparent.

Michael Roesslein:

Yeah. And I’ll look forward to it. I can’t wait to see and wish you the best.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Michael Roesslein:

And this brings us to the end of today’s episode, head on over to rebelhealthtribe.com backslash kit to access the RHT quick-start bundle, which includes four full length presentations from our RHD masterclasses, two downloadable PDF guides and a 15% off coupon, which you can use in our retail shop. If you’re on Facebook, come and join our Rebel Health Tribe group over there. And finally, if you liked the show, please subscribe, leave a review and share with your friends. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you again soon.

 

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