First off, you have to understand what the dentist means when she says you can't cure them with diet and what WAP people mean when they say you can. You cannot rebuild what has already decayed. You can stop more decay from happening and make a protective coating on the cavities that you already have. When you accomplish this, it will protect your teeth and your health, but it will not be pretty. It will be black. As you introduce more nourishing foods into your diet, the color of the cavities will get darker. This is a good sign, but freaks a lot of people out. When the decay has arrested, it will be black.
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This is not what most people think of when they are talking about curing their cavities. Your dentist wouldn't consider them "cured" when this happens, though if it does, she probably wouldn't consider your health to be at risk. She would just push you to get the fillings done for cosmetic reasons. In my experience, though, many mainstream dentists do know that sometimes cavities do stop growing. My daughter's dentist seems to think that the color sometimes changes, but he doesn't know why. Sometimes it happens when there's a drastic change in diet.
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You have to decide what you want for your health and your body, and that is not your dentist's decision to make. Your dentist is going to tell you that you should get them filled as soon as possible and will inform you of the risks of not doing so. That way, if something goes wrong, you can't sue her. She'll tell you that the cavities will get bigger, and fixing them will be even more invasive. She'll tell you that you may need a root canal or may lose the teeth altogether if you don't do it now. She'll tell you that you'll need antibiotics or risk a brain infection. All of these things can happen if the cavities continue to grow, so if you want to fix them with diet, you need to be pretty dedicated.
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Diet is certainly a treatment option. It might not look great, but it's IMHO, it's better looking then amalgam and a whole lot safer. We have been fighting decay in my daughter for over a year, and the progression of the cavities have been minimal. We have not completely arrested the growth of the cavities, but they are growing very slowly. It's harder to fight tooth decay in young children because it's hard to convince them to eat all the special foods. In a dedicated adult, the progress should be much quicker, weeks or months. Thankfully for us, the affected teeth are baby teeth and will fall out sometime in the next 5 or so years.
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I would say that diet is an excellent option if you are unable to afford non-amalgam fillings at this time. You can go on and see how things go, and if you decide later that you want to get them filled or not. If you can't see the cavities, they may or may not actually be there. Some dentists misdiagnose cavities, and somebody else might have a different opinion. They will cause pain before they become a problem for your overall health.
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As far as talking with your dentist is concerned, she is highly educated, and she certainly isn't going to believe that you are going to be successful. You are not going to convince her because you do not have a Doctorate degree and years of successful experience treating cavities with nutrition. The only thing that you're going to convince her is that if she wants to remain your dentist, she has to respect your right to choose your own medical care. She'll probably leave the appointment expecting (or hoping) to see you back in a few months for a root canal.
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The agreement that you are likely to reach is a "wait and see" approach. You can tell her that you have been reading about slowing and maybe even stopping the progress of the decay (Don't say curing, because she'll think something different) and building secondary dentin with a nutrient-rich diet, and you want to give it a try before you do something more invasive. She will likely want to see you sooner than you otherwise would (3 months or so). The actual evidence of the cavities failing to live up to her doom and gloom predictions will be what convinces her that what you're doing is OK, and then she'll only believe that you were lucky, not smart.
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In my own experience with my daughter, I know she has the cavities. That's why I took her to a dentist when I did. It helped to hold him off because she was under a year old at the time, and they would have to put her under GA to fix it. He understood my concerns with GA. He had us come in 3 months later and claimed that it had progressed significantly (almost none in my opinion) and again recommended that we put her under to fix them. We came in 3 months later, and the entire mood changed. He said that he couldn't see any progress, admitted that the change in color meant the decay was slowing, and recommended that we come back in 6 months instead of 3. I think he's finally starting to realize that we've been successful... or at least lucky. Hopefully, these teeth will last her a few more years until she gets some new ones, and if they become a problem, we'll have them pulled before putting her under. We keep going to this dentist because he says that he can pull a baby tooth on an awake and squirming child in just a few seconds... not something he likes to do, but I'd rather have that than GA. We'll keep up with the diet and hope that it never comes to that.
