Very Dental: I Can See Your Crack From Here with Dr. David Clark

[00:00:01] This is a production of the Very Dental Podcast Network. This is the Very Dental Podcast. Welcome to the Very Dental Podcast, where you'll find entertaining and relevant conversations with visionaries, clinicians, and your friends in the dental space. Now, here's your host, Dr. Alan Mead.

[00:00:29] Very Dental people, welcome to another episode of the Very Dental Podcast, recorded live in Chicago. This is kind of exciting because this guy was on the show early and often. And this guy changed the way I do a lot of dentistry. And we haven't had him on for a while. There's been a lot of stuff going on in his life. Dr. David Clark, Dave, welcome back to the show. Well, thanks for having me, Alan. Yeah. So, let me tell you where I was last night. Okay. This is a great story.

[00:00:59] So, I was up at the Pacific Dental Conference in Vancouver. Okay. And I was doing this lecture in front of, you know, we'll pilot people because people are pretty excited about this new way of thinking about composite, cracked teeth, all this stuff. Stuff that we deal with every day. And it's funny because a lot of dental education, I like to call it Dental Disneyland. Yeah. You go, it's amazing, it's beautiful. And you go back to your office, you don't do any of it. I mean, you're inspired. It's kind of like Disneyland.

[00:01:26] There's only so much that the shot in the arm does for you because you get back and reality smacks you in the face. All the charts you left on your desk are still there and it's still a total mess. No, it's a perfect way to describe it. Yeah. And so much of the CE I have taken is that. Yeah. It's so inspiring. You're like, I'm not going to do this. Yeah. Or I don't understand this. Or I'm just... Thank God all the people that I would have done full mouth rehabs on didn't get those because I don't have the follow through. Thank God.

[00:01:56] They didn't really need that. But if I was listening to the courses I was taking, you're going to spin down a lot more teeth, son. So thank God those didn't happen because I just didn't have the gumption. Yeah. So what brought us together all these years ago was microscopes. And that's how we met, the Academy of Microscope Dentistry. Mm-hmm. The most popular lecture that I still give is the epidemic of cracked teeth. Why things break, how we can re-engineer cavity preparations to actually splint teeth when they're

[00:02:26] cracked or keep them from breaking. And the cavity preparations that are taught in dental schools are essentially from 1890. Mm-hmm. So anyway, so back to the story. So the most popular lecture is cracked teeth, right? Anyway, so I'm in Vancouver doing this, but... Canada's a little more loosey-goosey with rules. Mm-hmm. And so the guy up there, I think it was Bruce, one of the guys that runs a show up there, he goes, Hey, David, we want to do the cracked tooth lecture, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:02:53] And he goes, why don't you call it, I can see your crack from here. I can see your crack from here. That's so good. That's so good, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Set the hook, man. Of course they're going to show up for that. It's a little inappropriate, right? Yeah, yeah. But it's Canada. And the guy says, oh, do it, Dave, because it's going to be great. Yeah. It's great. So I said, and that's what we called the lecture, right? Okay. And so people kind of laughed about it or didn't get it, right? Yeah. Anyway, but the cracked tooth lecture is one of the most important things we still talk about. It all comes back to looking at things with a microscope.

[00:03:23] Anyway, so then the California Dental Association said, hey, Dr. Clark, we'd like you to do the cracked tooth lecture and everything like that, right? And so I said, well, it was kind of funny, Canada. Yeah. So instead of saying the epidemic of cracked teeth, it was, I can see your crack from here. Okay. Right? Anyway, so I took that in the title and the California Dental Association called up the day before it was going to go to print and they said, this is vulgar. Yeah. How dare you do this? Giant red flag.

[00:03:53] You're a horrible person. They were so angry at me. That's so funny. Because I just didn't even think about it. Then I called those dudes from Canada. You're killing me. You're killing me. You put that idea in my head. That's so good. And now I'm ostracized. Yeah. I still like it though. I still like it. Yeah. Anyway, I'm not going to use that title. Only in Canada. Okay. So anyway, I'm given the lecture in Canada and this young dental student comes up. She's a D2, D3 and you know, like 600 people in the room. She comes up and she starts talking. She goes, Dr. Clark, this is amazing.

[00:04:22] You know, we're not learning any of this in our dental school. I said, well, you know, it's not worth. This is a story you've heard before. Yeah. And I said, here's what you need to do. I said, go back to your school, show them your models, take, you know, show them the copy of the lecture, talk to a professor that has interest. And I said, they may listen to you. I said, cause the world doesn't change by committee. The world changes when one wacko, one or two wackos just stand up and say, I'm not going to do that anymore. So she goes to the school. She's at Case Western U. Oh yeah.

[00:04:52] Good school. Yeah, it is. She goes back there, talks to one of her preceptors who talks to another dude who talks to the head of restorative dentistry. Guess what I did last night? I talked to the whole school. You were in Cleveland. Yeah. And it was real cold. And she, and she orchestrated this whole thing. That's cool. Her name is millennia. Okay. I like that. Third year dental student. And she was, I, and, and, and I said, how does it feel? You just said, you just disrupted the paradigm. At Case Western, no less, which is like, I mean, that's like, that's serious.

[00:05:20] And so, you know, the message is that, you know, little people can make huge changes. For sure. You just stick with your guns. I love that. And, and, and I, I, and I think it was so cool that happened. So anyway, so, um, so what's new with the world of microscope enhanced injection molded of composite dentistry? Yeah. And I think the biggest change that we've understood with Bioclera is we've been through

[00:05:49] three different generations of, of, of, of, of technology. So let's back up to the stone ages or what you'd get in a dental school today. Yeah. Piece of flat mylar. Yeah. Here's the thing that's crazy. We have $100,000 cone beam machines, right? $150,000 lasers. Yeah. But if we're going to fix a front tooth, they hand you a piece of flat mylar and they say, here, build a tooth. You can do this. Yeah. Yeah. We got it backwards. Yeah.

[00:06:15] We need all this technology on the first touch of the tooth, not the last touch of the tooth. What an interesting way to put it too, because the, the, I mean, there's a lot of people training in different modalities in dentistry that are like, they're kind of almost uninterested in dealing with teeth. What a pain, you know, let's just get past the teeth. If we can just do the full arch implants or whatever. And you're saying we need to pay attention to the first time that the bird touches the tooth. First touch. I mean, and no one, no one's talking about that.

[00:06:45] Right. Why not? It's not sexy, I guess, or it is sexy. That's a problem. That's not even true. Yeah. But like, like on, I'm telling you, I know people who it's like, oh, let's just get past these teeth, these pesky teeth. And then we can start fixing things. Oh my God. No, thanks for me. I liked my teeth. Thank you. It's wild. And I think that, I think there's a lot of things that have sort of pushed the sort

[00:07:11] of, I don't know if I can say the, the continuing education landscape that way, but maybe a little bit. I mean, you have to, you have to have heard that from places where like, you know, as soon as you can start learning implants, just do that. That's, you know, just because you've got a half a million dollars in debt from dental school, you got to start, you got to pay that off somehow. And you know, like these, you can't fix teeth. I mean, that doesn't pay anything. That sort of thing. It's, it's kind of wild. And I have to say that might be a little bit dramatic thing, but not a lot dramatic, honestly.

[00:07:40] So, so the kind of the update, cause it's been a little while since we hung out is one of the things we've understood. I'm going to fix that by the way, but go ahead. Okay, good, good, good. So one of the things we've understood about as we, as you've created all these possibilities with mylar matrices is that mylar is an interesting materials polyester, like the disco suits that you and I used to wear, right? Out of polyester. Used to wear. Are you kidding? You can see me tomorrow. Yeah, there you go.

[00:08:06] So when we went from 50 micron to 75 micron, it was about two to three times stiffer. And we were a little bit nervous when we went to 75 micron mylar because we thought where we're going to have open contact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, here's the deal. If you have a contact, when you start like a black triangle or a class or there was a contact, when you drive the matrix through the contact, it doesn't matter how thick it is. If you can get it through, it pushes the teeth apart. You build up kinetic energy on either side of the tooth. And then as when the matrix comes out, the teeth slam back together.

[00:08:32] So we, when we moved from 50 micron to 75 micron, we were, you know, we waited a couple of years to make sure that it was going to happen. And so, but here's the miracle. When you take this 75 micron mylar, it has all these shapes. It has what's called a second moment of inertia or a moment arm. So flat mylar has no strength because it's flimsy. But if you put corners on it like an I-beam, it becomes infinitely stronger and stiffer.

[00:08:59] So the last generation of these BT matrices, which stands for black triangle, but they're also for peg laterals, diastom, and closure and everything are unbelievably easy to use. Yeah. They're for dumb guys like me. Okay. But they, I mean, they literally, they are, they're shockingly stiff for a mylar. Shockingly stiff. I mean, like a mylar is just this floppy thing. It's like really stiff. It's kind of. It's stiffer than steel in some ways. Yeah. But it is a magic to have that happen. So here's the next thing we figured out. It was like when we were doing bioclip, whether it was a class two or, or an anterior,

[00:09:29] sometimes the x-rays will look great. And sometimes we'd have a little blip of an overhang. And I'm like, okay, I could use a bigger wedge or I got to do this or I got to do that. Here's what we didn't understand. I know it's hard to believe, but this is all I do. And so I think for the past 20 years, when you take this mylar, that's more curved than the tooth, all these bicarbonate matrices are always more curved than the tooth. There's a capture zone. Yeah. Like with endo, you have a capture zone with the gutter perch at the end of it. There's a capture zone of the edge of the matrix that comes in at some core of acute

[00:09:57] interface, like 10, 5, 20 degrees. Yep. And what we've discovered is you drive that matrix into the attachment and you're going to release the hemidesmosomes. Remember the hemidesmosomes? I do. I do. They're like little suction cups. Yeah. And that's the, when you pack cord, that's when it goes in easily. Yeah. And then if you jam on the cord, then you're displacing the attachment. The ligament. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:29] You're going to have a matrix all the way to the ligament every time. Mm-hmm. Drive your matrix and hold and count to 10, whether it's the new evolved matrix in the posterior. Interesting. Or the black triangle matrix. It'll go two millimeters deeper. If you have a contact, it will stay down there. Okay. But you got to hold it for 10 seconds. Interesting. Because you're literally gently retracting cord. Okay. And then when you drive it down there, that, that, those, those little hemidesmosomes seal the gingival margin. Okay. So the matrix is a couple millimeters subgingival. Mm-hmm.

[00:10:59] And then people go, ah, you're going to have a biologic width violation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you drive it down there and it stops at the ligament. You don't even need anesthetic because it doesn't cut. I mean, I get everybody numb, but you drive it down in there, you inject some mold and it's literally a perfect margin. I mean, like 20 micron margin. Nice. Every time. Yeah. See, that is one of the things too, because like you're teaching someone something new like this and you got to be able to teach it so they can do it consistently. Yeah.

[00:11:28] The same way every time. And that is sort of the difficulty. That's interesting. So you've, this is something you've, you've kind of. It's going to take 15 years to figure out how to seal the infinity edge of composite. Interesting. Because if you take a look at extracted teeth. Yeah. Every margin, if you think it's a margin with composite is either open. Yeah. Or an overhang. Yeah. So there is no such thing as a flush margin. Yeah. Like with amalgam. Yeah. You look at all these extracted teeth. So like 3M 25 years ago said, take the composite past the margin. Yeah. Take it past the bevel. Yeah. Well, in dental school, that's the F word, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's flashing. Yep.

[00:11:58] Yep. So what we've discovered is that infinity edge is the perfect margin. We always go past the bevel. Mm-hmm. And when the matrix is HD, and it has more curvature in the tooth, and it displaces hemidespensomes and goes to the ligament, the x-rays are perfect. Mm-hmm. And if you don't do that, you have overhangs everywhere. So what's, a lot of people are selling, when I first invented injection molding and patented, I have a patent on injection molding composites, which I haven't enforced. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But when they buy these little slap on jigs and you squirt the composite everywhere, they

[00:12:27] have overhangs everywhere. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it says trim the gingival margin. Mm-hmm. Would you like to have your gingival margins trimmed in approximately, Alan? That's one of the things that you taught me way back. I'm like, here's the thing. The reason that this works is because you're injection molding and you use the matrix to make it so, finish the composite where you can access the composite easily. Right. That's what you need to do. And don't touch it anywhere else. And that's the thing. That's, dentists have a hard time with that.

[00:12:56] It's the inverse of what we're doing now. What's so funny, because it's like, no, but we got to polish it. I'm like, well, if you look at what composite looks like when it's cured next to mylar, it's about as smooth as you can get it. Well, it's the gold standard. Exactly. How to measure polish. Exactly. And I just laugh a little bit because you're just like, who cares if it's tall? Chop it down. Yeah. I mean, like, that's, like, and I do, you know, if no one's ever taken courses with you, it just, they could look at it and go, well, that seems like a sloppy way to do it.

[00:13:25] I'm like, well, yeah, except, you know, cut it down where it's easy to see it and touch it and get it out of there. Yeah. And then you don't have to, you don't have to polish it approximately. You don't have to do, you don't have to finish your anything. It's done. And people like, and that's the same thing with the infinity bevel. I love, I love what you always said. Where's it in? Don't know. Don't care. Don't care. That's what you've always said. I'm like, that goes against everything you learned as a dentist. You need to know where your margin is and be able to point at it. I'm like, no, I don't want to know where it is. I don't, I just want to know that I can't see it.

[00:13:53] I want to know that it's smooth as silk and I can't see it. And these are all things that stick with me for years and years, but I'm just like, so you're essentially taking a lot of those processes and you've then improved upon them. Yeah. You don't get to rest very much. Your brain doesn't let you just go, yeah, you're good. So let me tell you the Italian story about this. So there's this guy, Marco Marlino. Okay. Yeah. I met Marco at one of the summits. Yeah. Unbelievable. They come, he's a guy they call Los Manos de Dios. Yeah. The hands of God. Guy can just. Not wrong. Check his social media out.

[00:14:22] He does things that no one else can do. I agree. Anyway, so Marco was at the alumni summit for the bike. We have an alumni summit every couple of years. We have them coming up in April. And so Marco came over and he was talking about the ability to go much deeper subgingively than we've ever had before. So we're redefining the concept of biologic width, which has been grotesquely oversimplified and people treat it like a religion. They don't even understand it. But they don't maybe understand it. They sure like to yell about it. Oh, they sure do.

[00:14:50] And the other guy's an idiot for sure. That's the story. I remember, okay, I got to say, I remember our friend, Dr. Cotomy on Dentaltown years ago was basically saying, I'm not sure I really believe that biologic width is what you guys believe. And of course, you know, you know. He's a stupid antidote. But he's also the guy, remember for a long time, he wouldn't let anyone use anything but amalgam to close his, because, and he got some pretty amazing results.

[00:15:18] He's one of those guys that can do things that no one else in the world can do. But I do remember the guys who are all the big restorative guys, he'd come in and fight with him on Dentaltown. And of course, he can't really fight with John. I mean, John's that guy. I just remember vividly going, I thought I knew what biologic width was until Cotomy decided to comment down. I'm like, I'm not so sure about that anymore. Isn't that funny? I mean, it's like, he's sort of a force of nature that way. But that's interesting. So anyway, back to the Italian guy. Okay, let's hear it. Right? So anyway, so we talked about an infinity edge margin that has, that's maybe 20 microns.

[00:15:48] The body doesn't even know it's there. And so if you take a look at most crown margins, even gold, but like an average zirconia crown margin is open by two, three, four, 500 microns. And the cement is deteriorating and there's cytotoxins. And so you put a margin deep with a crown, it's going to be pussy and purple. Yeah. Gum's not going to look good. And so, yeah, I understand, but the Italians have done some studies and they've taken, you know, basically composite near bone level. And if you have an infinity edge margin and the body can't feel it, it's not much different

[00:16:16] than the CEJ, which is like a little bump. Right? And so Marco says, you have to understand that when we go deep like this, he goes, enamel is not a special. Enamel is not a special because the hemidesmosomes are like little suction cups that attach to enamel. And, and so he says, all the hemidesmosomes need is something that is a smooth, hard, and the clean.

[00:16:46] I like that. Smooth, hard, and the clean. Mm-hmm. And that's exactly what the mylar finish is. Mm-hmm. So the hemidesmosomes don't know the difference between enamel and the mylar finish of composite because enamel is not a special. Mm-hmm. Let me hear it. Enamel is not a special. Yeah, you have to put the E in front. A special. Yeah. That's, that's, that's wild. And of course, coming from him, I, I, I, I believe it because, you know, like I said,

[00:17:14] he's, he's amazing and he's, that's really funny. Yeah. So he's. So here's the deal. So we have, we, one of the exercises we teach at Learning Center is bone level carriers, right? So we have a special naniform and you're going to be one to two millimeters in the bone. We have to go commando, no wedge. Mm-hmm. The matrix is just going to seal the gingival margin because the, what seals the gingival margin of Bioclear and any of, you know, the anatomic mylar is the matrix going into the attachment. Mm-hmm. But with bone level decay, we have to pack the cord, release the ligament. Yep. And then take the infinity edge one millimeter from bone. Okay. Okay. And it's literally a perfect margin.

[00:17:43] It's one of our favorite exercises in the advanced posterior. Mm-hmm. They take the tooth out. It's literally nine. They're blown away. It's literally nine millimeters deep. Yeah. They take the explorer across it. You can't feel it. So here's the deal. If you don't have a ledge, if you don't have cement that's deteriorating, in theory, you could take composite. To the bone level. To the bone, yeah. Because the periodontal ligament won't reattach to composite any more than it would attach to enamel. But then it does kind of its own little crown or anything, but there's no inflammation because the hemidesma cells just go, they reattach to the composite because it's smooth, hard,

[00:18:13] and clean. And clean, yeah. But he's got this big old Italian voice, so you'd have to be there to hear it. No, we've had him on the show. He's amazing. Really? It's really cool. That's really cool. I mean, like, so, and he, you feel like this is, this is specific to what generation of the, of the posteriors and the, this is. Well, and actually this is the interiors too. This is the, what generation, all this stuff. But before we went with the stronger mylar and before it had the shapes that it currently

[00:18:40] has, we were unable to drive it to detach the hemidesma cells. Okay. And so it was inconsistent. And so what we're able to do now is leaps and bounds from what we were able to do as far as like the integrity of this. And so you take an x-ray of this and it's like unbelievable. That's very cool. And it's so beautiful. And then when you see all these ledgy, overhangy, crappy composites you see from people kind of squirting around the teeth without, it's all about the gingival third. It is all about the gingival third. And it's funny because people have it opposite.

[00:19:09] They're like making this, like these little wax up as you just squirt this flow into a thing. It's great because the occlusal half looks real pretty, but the gingival half is completely uncontrolled. I was just going to say like the whole thing, you just, you want it to, you don't want to polish where you can't get to. You just want to finish and polish where you can. Yeah. That's kind of the whole thing. So that's what we've really discovered in the past five years. It's cool because like the story is you're in, I mean, I wonder what in five years,

[00:19:39] what else you're going to come up with? Because I know that's kind of the way you are. Or you're constantly kind of thinking in re. But on the other hand, so I don't know, it's been, I don't know when the last time I was in Tacoma. I mean, it was before COVID. So it's been more than five years. And I'm thinking to myself, so what's different at the learning center? What would I not recognize or what would feel different at the learning center now? Well, we've got some amazing faculty. And so it's really fun to see these incredible, really gifted clinicians that I can just kind

[00:20:09] of walk away. And, um. Did you ever think you'd get to that point? Uh, no. Yeah. No. But I think part of it is that being a crazy inventor, you develop habits and thought processes that are not very streamlined. Mm-hmm. And then when someone else learns something, this is interesting. If you're going to learn, if I'm going to share something, I'm going to try and teach you something. I can't like, I can't take my hard drive of information and just copy and paste it onto

[00:20:39] your hard drive. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the way that we learn is really interesting. We store all of our thoughts and memories on proteins. Mm-hmm. And so if I tell you something, it has to be processed. Mm-hmm. It has to be stored on a protein. And invariably, it's distorted from when I gave it to you. And then when you, when I ask you, hey, what did I just say, Alan? And then you read, you pull up that protein. Mm-hmm. And then you read from that protein. Then it gets reinterpreted. It's interpretation. That's the difference. So every time you, so what happens is learning is really messy.

[00:21:08] And so until we completely streamline back there and turn it into like a total recipe. Mm-hmm. I mean, it is, one of the things, it is literally bootcamp. Mm-hmm. You drive the matrix, you hold it for 10 seconds. This is how you make an incisal embrasure. We have all these, we have everything is cookbook now. Okay. It's not a subject to an artist's interpretation. Yep. I mean, and the thing is, like Dr. Charlie Regalado, another guy, hands of God, right? He's unbelievably artistic. Mm-hmm. The rest of us. Yeah. But that's.

[00:21:37] Need a recipe. Yeah. So we have recipe-ized really gorgeous bio-clear with very simple fundamental things that, you know, there are below average dentists, there's average dentists, and below average dentists. We want to be able to create a recipe for anybody who cares. Yeah. And will work hard, can get to a point of pretty amazing bio-clear. So I think one of the biggest changes is we're a lot better at the discipline of teaching. Yeah. Interesting.

[00:22:05] People walk out of there and they have confidence. They are not confused. Yeah. That's cool. And the other thing is, is that, well, I mean, okay, so the recipe thing is funny because that's another thing when you take CE from a personality and there's a lot of dentists out there that can do amazing things. Oh. And they're amazing. With rubber band and duct tape. Exactly. But the problem is, is that that might be just them. And that's not going to be helpful for me. No, they see things that we don't see. Exactly. Exactly. So anyway, do you know Artie Volker?

[00:22:35] Of course. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Artie's a funny guy. Yes. Anyway, so Artie's a good guy. If you're ever going to do the New York meeting, do it with Artie. Oh, he's the best. Oh, he's the best guy ever. Oh my gosh. Fantastic. We did that a couple of years ago. Artie took me all like, I don't know New York. I mean, I'm just a kid from Michigan. We go with Artie. You won't miss anything. It's fantastic. Oh, he's the best. Anyway, I have a funny story about Artie Volker. So anyway, so Artie is an Archie Farty guy, right? And he teaches a lot of artistic stuff. But I said, you're going to teach Bioclear?

[00:23:05] And he loves doing Bioclear. He does. And so he puts on another hat and he's teaching the recipe-based Bioclear intro to Black Triangles or something. So he's talking to one of the doctors in the class. And he says, you know, the way I normally teach this is a very artistic approach. He says, but the way David's having me teach this, this is very just recipe-based. This is the number. Do this. Do this. And he goes, so he asked one of the doctors, what do you prefer? And the doctor said, I want a recipe. Yeah.

[00:23:38] So anyway, so it brings me to the next story is I had a little heart attack the other day. Yeah. So I heard about that. Yeah. I remember. You know, it's really funny. I was here and Tanya was, I was talking to Tanya. She's the one who told me about it. I'm like, I had no idea. Yeah. Right. So I want everyone to get a cardiologist. Number one. Number two, I had almost no warnings. No warnings. Because half of these heart attacks are, you're going to get some angina pain. You're going to get warnings. The other half, you're just going to drop dead. Yeah. There's two different kinds of heart. I was the drop dead guy. Yeah. Right.

[00:24:08] I wasn't overweight. But that's the other thing. Your risk factors, I don't know about other stuff, but I mean, okay. The classic heart attack is the 40 year old kid who's been fat his whole life. And like essentially until a couple of years ago, that was me actually. The story. But, but you're not, you're not that person. So number one, everybody needs to get a cardiologist. It's the number one cause of death. Yeah. And just because you're in perfect health doesn't mean squat. That's frightening, but sure. Yes. So what I didn't understand was that if you have family history, which I have, like two of my uncles and my grandpa died of a heart attack, you're super high risk. Yeah.

[00:24:37] So I'm just, I came home. I was in Spain doing a bike course. I came back Sunday night watching football. I had a heart attack and I was dead. My heart stopped for 32 minutes. Wow. And my wife got me to the emergency room and they started CPR within three minutes. Wow. Cause it would have been six minutes. I'd be in a wheelchair drooling. Yeah. Yeah. And you don't want to come back after six. So they actually. No, that's right. No, so no, seriously. Six minutes, you're done. Yeah. So they got CPR started within three minutes. Mm-hmm.

[00:25:05] And, um, but it was such a massive heart attack that my heart was trashed. Mm-hmm. And they couldn't get my heart started. Mm-hmm. So after 20 minutes, everyone stops. Cause at 20 minutes, they got other stuff to do. Yeah. They have other patients. And so they went to my wife and said, uh, he's not coming back. You need to make plans. Oh my God. Your husband's dead. Oh my God. She's running around. I was like, I'm a. They're working on the chart. You know, they're like, oh, this is all his. Oh my God. That's awful. And she kind of gave him the evil eye. And so they kept banging on my chest. They shocked me nine times.

[00:25:34] And they had told her, he's not coming back. You need to make plans. Wow. Anyway, at minute 32, they got a pulse. Oh my God. And miraculously, I came back. The survival after 32 minutes of CPR is less than 1%. Yeah. Right. Oh my gosh. And with a decent brain. Yeah. I'm hoping it's a decent brain. Yeah. So I'm the luckiest guy in the world. So I want everyone to get a cardiologist. Wow. And there's some tests that they can perform. Okay. And if you, and, and, and, and don't, don't worry about what insurance pays. Mm-hmm. There's a whole bunch of tests. You can email me.

[00:26:02] And you ought to, you ought to have my brother on. You should have my brother on. He's a metabolic cardiologist. Yeah. Actually, why don't we, because he'll tell you the recipe. Yeah. Yeah. You can, everybody can afford three or $4,000 to have some of these tests. Yeah. Yeah. The insurance companies won't pay for it. Yeah. Yeah. If they would have run these tests, they would have said, oh my God, your CAC score is a thousand. You're going to die. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the kind of thing where you have angina. Yeah. It just, all of a sudden, one day it just goes, bam, and you're done. Okay. So, the classic heart attack thing, that's for half the people. Yeah. The other half, you can smoke cigarettes, and you're just fine. Eat all the bacon.

[00:26:32] You can be, on the other hand, you can just be a total vegan, and you're still going to drop dead if you've got the bad genes. Yeah. So, have my brother on. I will, for sure. I'd love to. And he's going to tell you the simple, we're going to have an alumni summit. He's going to say, how modern medicine almost killed my brother. I love that. How modern medicine almost killed my brother, and what you can do. Followed by, I can see your crack from here. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, anyway, so I was supposed to lecture at the Greater New York meeting, and it was on Tuesday, and then I was supposed to lecture on Wednesday or Thursday.

[00:26:59] So, I came out of my coma, basically, two days later, and went like, I got to lecture in New York, right? And I got to go to this lecture. They go, dude, you're not going anywhere. You're dead. You're actually dead. You've got a catheter in your thing. You're not going anywhere. And I said, call Artie Volker. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Call Artie Volker. Yeah. Because I've never, ever bailed out on a lecture. And he went out with one day notice. Yeah. I'm sure he did great. Oh, he did great.

[00:27:30] Talk about a hometown crowd, too. I know. He had to reorganize his whole life. You know, I might have been at the New York meeting that year. Maybe that's when I talked to Tonya. Because I remember she was pretty wigged when I talked to her. Oh, yeah. I feel bad. They weren't sure what was happening. I don't remember. Here's the thing. Yeah. I mean, the people around me was just awful. I feel bad that they went through that. Had to go through it. Yeah. Because, you know, I was out of it.

[00:27:53] And so everyone wants to know, when you were gone and you were dead, what did you see? What did you see? Nothing but darkness. Nothing but darkness. I was hoping you'd say it was like, no, I saw a new design for a wedge or something like that. No, all I saw was darkness. So apparently I'm going straight to hell. I didn't see the light. That's wild. I mean, what? Oh, my God. So, okay. I do have to ask. What did they have you do after they got you rehabbed and everything like that? I mean, are there?

[00:28:23] Okay. So they put in a stint. Mm-hmm. Okay. And, you know, it's really cool. It's nickel titanium. Mm-hmm. And so it's a little mesh of nickel titanium. They came in through my femoral artery and they stuck it in there and it's like that long. Mm-hmm. And it was in the Widomega, the lower end to your descending. Yeah. And then, so then it's a, they fix your plumbing problem. Okay. But then you have other sort of like. So they don't hand you a pack of Marlboros after that is what you think. Yeah. So they, you could, you know, but they, no, but they, the stint goes in and then it fixes that problem.

[00:28:52] But then you got to worry about other areas. And so, you know, they got, I'm on like the cocktail of seven different pills. Okay. And I feel great. Yeah. I feel fine. And you're, they probably, you're probably screened more often than the average too. What do they do to monitor you that way? Uh. Blood screens and stuff like that? No, with modern medicine, they just let you go. Good luck. See ya. No, they really do. So then you gotta, then you gotta become your own advocate. Which I am now. Yeah. So. Well, you got a brother that seems to be in on the deal too. Thank goodness. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:19] So, yeah, there's so, um, so I'll probably live to be 102. That's awesome though. Yeah. That's, I'm honestly, wasn't sure how that story was going to go when I had you on here. I'm like, do we talk about that? Is it, but no, I'm really glad you said that. That's a huge, I mean like, not only can you teach people to do amazing things with composite, you can also get a cardiologist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good tip too. But let me tell you something, when you come back from dead, I'm 65. I came back, I'm like, okay, what am I gonna do? Mm-hmm.

[00:29:47] Because if you don't change your life a little bit after coming back from the dead, it's a wasted opportunity. I think everyone should die once and come back and then look at your life. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. Seriously. But most people don't get to have that sort of opportunity. I mean, I had a little bit of that because I went into rehab when I was 30 years old. So I got sober a long time ago. Oh, that's a redo. It's like a mini death. Significantly less death. Oh, 100%. But you do, you're like. You're like the walking dad when you're addicted. Yeah, kinda.

[00:30:14] And the story is you're like, well, yeah, you gotta do something different now. Yeah. Like, you can't keep doing what you're doing. Well, life gave you a second chance. It did. It did. And early. Early, yeah. So, yeah. So I'm later in the game. So I came to and then you think, okay, everything that I was doing was just kind of a waste up until now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I'm gone, you know? And so when I came back and said, things are gonna be different. Mm-hmm.

[00:30:40] And the one thing that I've decided is my BS meter is set at zero. It's zero. You're taking none of that, huh? No. Because I used to let people just, you know, push me around or I'd be and, and, and, and, and, and I'd waste time on people that just didn't care. That's a huge thing. I'd waste time. So here's my new thing. If they care, then I care. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But if they don't care, whether it's a patient. Yep. Or a doctor that's asking me questions. Yep. If they don't care, I don't care. Next. Yeah, exactly.

[00:31:10] No, I'm with you. That's, that's a good way to do it. It's all about the delicate. Pretty good way to live life too, isn't it? It's all about the delicate art of not giving a rip. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. When that presents itself. But then you don't want to be jaded and not care. Because I come from a family, you know, my dad was just an amazing guy that reinvented deaf education. It was very much about, you know, kindness and goodness and everything. But the thing is, if you're full of kindness and goodness, the world just chews you up and spits you out. Yeah, kind of. It can, yeah. It can. Yeah. So then what you have to do is you have to kind of have to have your dukes up a little

[00:31:39] bit sometimes, but you can't have your dukes up all the time. Yeah. Because then you're not that kind, good person that we'd all like to be. Yeah. But on the other hand, people just abuse you and destroy you. Dental industry might be more so than normal, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that here. So then I, so it's just, I just kind of, I ration that now. Yeah. And I have zero tolerance for wasted time and wasted people in my life.

[00:32:05] I like how you put that, too, though, because it's not like, it's not like I have zero tolerance for BS and I come at them hard. I'm like, no, no. You waste zero time on it. Exactly. Because that's the right answer. The less time you waste on any of that stuff, the better. And I got to tell you, we live in a world where social media is everywhere. And that is a place where people can waste a lot of their mental energy and time. It's not worth it. It's a shit show. It's just doom scrolling. And it's a good lesson to learn, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a thing.

[00:32:34] I mean, let's be honest. Social media has its place. You can see a lot of BioClear from a lot of different clinicians on social media. But it's probably not the place to argue about stupid stuff. It's probably not, you know, like, I like to look at Marco's stuff. I'm not going to listen to someone, you know, berate. I'm not going to do it. It's not worth it. Like, yeah. I've learned my lesson a bit on that stuff, too. Yeah. So, yeah. David, this was awesome. I'm going to come out to Tacoma again later this year. So we'll have a good time.

[00:33:04] All right. I got to find out about this summit, too. Because I'm still an alumni. I still would qualify. Yeah. Because I think I'd like to see your brother lecture about how medicine almost killed you. There are some simple things that you can do to not die. But it's not part of mainstream medicine. Yeah. Interesting. So there you go. David Clark, again, thank you for being on. This is great. It's been too long. And we'll do it again soon. All right, buddy. Bye.