It is unfortunate to realize that many dentists still place mercury amalgam fillings. Additionally, it remains common practice for many dentists to place large mercury fillings as a “core” under crowns and bridges. Even worse, dentists often leave an old, existing mercury filling in a tooth and just cover it with a crown or bridge!
How dangerous is mercury under my dental work?
A crown or bridge may seem to be “sealing” a mercury amalgam filling from your mouth. Even though the mercury filling is hidden from view, it is not “sealed” from leaking into the rest of your body. The mercury travels through your tooth into the pulp (the collection of nerves and blood vessels inside your tooth) and into the jawbone, where it is taken up by nerve tissue and enters the bloodstream where it can then be carried throughout the body to be stored in the tissues and organs.
How can you tell if I have mercury under my dental work?
At this time visual inspection is the best way to determine if there is any mercury filling under the crown. We can also rely upon the dental history given by the patient, past clinical notes, x-rays, clinical examination, and EAV Assessment to help us determine if mercury is present.
Because it is not always possible to know with certainty the presence or absence of mercury under a crown or bridge, additional diagnostic information may be obtained from an EAV Assessment. This evaluation of the metal restorations can also help to determine what metals may have been used in the fabrication of the crown or bridge and if they are negatively impacting the patient. This test will give us the best idea of the toxic metals that are present.
If you have an old crown or bridge and you had many large mercury fillings existing prior to the crown placement, the chances are very good that a mercury core filling still remains under your crown or bridge. Every one of our dentists has very many times found mercury under existing crowns or bridges that patients’ previous dentists had not documented.
It is unfortunate, but many times the only way to truly know that the mercury is gone is to remove the existing crown or bridge in order to directly inspect it. If you suspect that you may have mercury under your dental work, contact our office to schedule an evaluation.
