Homeopathic Dentistry

If you are one of millions who are educating themselves on the mercury amalgam controversy and are reading up on the subject, such as my  Homeopathic and Biological Dentistry site, you are already aware of the danger of amalgam fillings in your teeth. A large portion (50%) of this amalgam is made up of mercury, which is one of the most toxic substances known. While many countries have stopped using this material to fill cavities, the American Dental Association has still not taken the step of banning the use of amalgam, even thought it certainly deserves that fate.

Use of mercury to fill cavities in your teeth reminds me of the story of Marie and Pierre Curie who discovered radioactivity. As the story goes, they discovered this substance that they showed to their friends at social gatherings. They brought a vial of that substance and – as a type of party trick – showed that you could see that vial with your eyes closed! Today we know that this was a deadly trick. This was a radio-active substance that penetrated the closed eyelids easily and, reaching the retina, caused nerves to fire which caused the impression of ‘seeing’ the source of the radiation.

Today, knowing of the deadly dangers of radioactivity we would never get the idea of bringing a vial of Radium to a party to show our friends whether they can still see it with their eyes closed – we just know better! The same has to sink in about the dangers of mercury in our mouths. The fact that it is amalgamated with some other metals does not mean that none of the mercury is released. There is in fact clear evidence that grinding your teeth or even exposure to higher temperatures causes mercury vapor to be released from the fillings.

This is a fact that a good homeopathic or biological dentist takes into consideration when removing amalgam fillings and replacing them with a composite. It is unavoidable that mercury is released when drilling out these old fillings, but with the right precautions the risk of ingesting these poisonous gases can be eliminated for the patient as well for the dentist and his assistant.

Other shortcoming of amalgam fillings include:

1. Amalgam is not bonded to the tooth structure, therefore has to be packed into undercuts which are drilled by the dentist into the tooth so the filling does not fall out. This weakens the tooth even more and causes cracks in the tooth deep inside the cavity.
2. Amalgam has widely different physical characteristics than tooth structure. Being a metal, it will contract and expand at a higher rate than the tooth structure. This constant “pumping” effect will cause the already weakened tooth walls to develop even larger cracks.
3. Since amalgam is not bonded, the microscopic gaps at the margins allow for leakage of moisture and bacteria under the filling. This over time will cause a large cavity to grow under the filling, completely undetected, until the damage is so extensive that the tooth will succumb to an expensive root canal treatment, or the walls will break off. In both cases, we are looking at extensive cost and effort to repair damage.

The following demonstrates how a state of the art dental practice, following the proper safety protocol, handles the replacement of amalgam fillings…

There are still, after overwhelming scientific evidence, many dentists that don’t see anything wrong, using amalgam to fill cavities. Amalgam is still the most commonly used material to fill a cavity after the clean out. It is a mixture of mainly the metals mercury, zinc, tin, silver and copper containing 50% mercury and only 20 to 35% silver. We know that gold and silver are inert materials that would not harm the body, and we might be fooled by the appearance of an amalgam filling – it sure looks like silver so it must be OK – but the high concentration of mercury makes it unsuited for implantation into our bodies.

I remember, many years ago, a friend bringing a vial containing mercury to school. Even as school kids we knew that this was dangerous stuff. At that time thermometers still contained real mercury and we had learned to be very careful if one of those broke. We were fascinated by that little sample of liquid metal in its securely sealed container our buddy had brought, and certainly the weight of it was real interesting. Nobody in his right mind would have gotten the idea though, to put this stuff into his mouth.

By today’s standard the situation in school, those many years ago, was very dangerous, but we just did not know better. Today we do and we would treat such a vial of pure mercury with much more caution than we did as school kids.

With amalgam, 50% of which is this liquid metal, we have to do the same learning. There might have been a time when we were not so knowledgeable about the dangers of amalgam and actually used it in our mouth. But now that we know what damage it can do we should avoid it like the black plague. Especially as we now have materials available that are much better suited for the repair of cavities.

Even historically the opinion about the use of amalgam was not undivided. For example, in 1843, the American Society of Dental Surgeons declared the use of dental amalgam a malpractice and forced its members to abstain from using amalgams.

The following video shows some more recent information about this material that many of us still carry in our bodies…