Mercury fillings (technically called amalgam fillings) have been the subject of much debate because of the toxicity of mercury. However, the American Dental Association says mercury's toxicity is negated by the other minerals it is combined with: silver, tin, copper and possibly other metallic elements. My concern is not whether my flashy fillings are slowly poisoning me. What convinced me to have them replaced was when my dentist told me the life of a mercury filling is only supposed to be about 10 years. Mine are at least twice that old.
I brushed him off, but then he showed me pictures. Today's techno-dentistry uses a penlight-sized camera to take pictures of my teeth. The images are projected onto a computer monitor that swings around over my chair. Now I can see exactly what my dentist sees. Pretty cool. So I got my first look at those metal fillings I've had since I was a kid. You can see that they've cracked over time and even contracted. That is allowing seepage around the corners, which is bad news. (Those aren't pictures of my teeth, by the way. They're part of a press kit from the American Dental Association.)
So I gave it a shot. I had two replaced with composite fillings in December, and I can tell a huge difference. The teeth with the old mercury fillings are highly sensitive to cold, but I have no feeling at all from the composite fillings. That's proof enough for me.
Another cool thing about my dentist is that he offers sedation dentistry. That means if you're terrified of dentists, you get to take a pill that induces short-term amnesia so you don't remember the visit. That's a little too freaky for me. Instead, I take the gas and the portable CD player with my choice of music. Dentistry has come a long, long way from the days of the spit basin.
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