Dr. Katie To: From Growing Up In Vietnam To Building Her Own Legacy

Written in partnership with Digital Nod

Dr. Katie To is one of the leading figures in Wellness Dentistry. She’s been named Best Cosmetic Dentist for three years in a row and named in Benco’s Top 40 Under 40 Dentists list.

Today, she runs Dr. Katie To Center for Integrative Wellness and Cosmetic Dentistry in Katy, Texas. Dr. Katie To explains that wellness dentistry is a medical practice that combines the worlds of biological and cosmetic dentistry.

Dr. Katie found Wellness Dentistry after she started having skin problems and trouble sleeping. Her primary care physicians couldn’t point to anything that might be a cause. She felt constantly irritable and lost sleep, leading her doctors to conclude she might be undergoing stress.

“I kept feeling fatigued. Some simply chalked it up to me being a new mother,” Dr. Katie shares.

It was later discovered that Katie had high-level mercury and lead toxicity. She had ten times the limit of mercury and five times the limit of lead in her blood.

It turned out Katie had been in constant contact with mercury over the years, from dental school and in the course of her practice, where she had to remove it from the patient’s mouth through unsafe methods and breathe it in the process because the nose masks don’t protect against mercury vapors.

With that discovery, Dr. Katie found herself at a turning point where she had to decide between quitting dentistry altogether and switching to a mercury-safe/mercury-free office. She decided on the latter.

“That’s when I found my biological holistic wellness dentistry,” Katie recalls, adding, “You put a suit on like you’re in a nuclear plant and you cover the patients and take the mercury out and dispose of it.”

In addition, Katie says there’s also a special mercury filter that helps safely clear out the mercury vapor from the office. So instead of breathing mercury in, it’s trapped and eliminated.

According to Dr. Katie, even her patients can tell that her practice is focused on wellness. For instance, Katie’s practice is one of the very few dental offices that would first check a patient’s blood work before carrying out a surgical procedure.

She recognizes that dental health can have an effect on many other parts of the body, something that other practices don’t incorporate into their practices.

This method is very important to follow because the blood work can show how healthy a patient is and how ready they may be for the dental procedure. Typically, healthier patients recover quickly, and vitamin D is directly related to teeth and bone. A patient with low Vitamin D may have a longer recovery period.

Dr. Katie recently announced she’s starting her podcast in January, called The Wellness Dentist Podcast, With Dr. Katie To. The goal of the podcast is to provide a platform where dental patients can come in and tell their stories of how biological dentistry changed their life.

“I think it’s a good place for the public to learn more about wellness dentistry and also dentists to learn about a different way to practice dentistry,” says Katie.

Moving forward, Dr. Katie says she’s driven to pursue professionalism in her career. For her, dentistry is a calling, something she can use to improve society and the lives of other people.

“I believe that I have a calling and a talent to share. My calling is to be able to help people to do what I do. And that way they can find a passion for dentistry again,” she says.