mercury fillings......anyone know more?

[Angeliz]

i had a root filling this morning(have four filling from years ago) and now am getting paranoid about mercury! Are fillings automatically the ones with mercury in? Anyone know more on this as i have just looked on the net and scared myself more!!! I read a link the other day and think a few people are knowledgable in this area! Please reassure me! ( i will hope to have another baby and thats what worries me most!) . I am not sitting shaking in fear, just a bit confused! Any info would be more than welcome

[Jimjams]

Jasper will be able to tell you more- had very brief chats with my SIL dentist about this. Basically some holes aren't suitable to be filled with the white stuff (if they're large maybe??) and then you need to use mercury amalgam. I think you tend to get mercury on the NHS and more of a choice if you pay extra (assuming the hole is suitable).

Agree with ks that removing the fillings can be dodgy. I think if the filling stays in the tooth where its meant to be then you don't really have a problem, you start to have a potential problem if its breaking down.

I had a dodgy cowboy dentist when I was pregnant with ds1- he fiddled a bit with one of my fillings- out a glass coating on top or something (and had to kind of file ot or something first of all). It's hurt a bit ever since. SIL looked a bit horrified at the time when I told her, and given his problems now I do tend to wonder if it contributed. Jasper any idea whether that procedure would have freed mercuy? Not a major concern I just have a vague curiosity.

As you're not pregnant now I wouldn't worry- I suspect that this is like many things- the potential for damage is there but the numbers affected are probably very small.

And remember we used to be allowed to play with mercury in school! Used to be my favourite science lesson.

[Mog]

Angeliz,
On another thread I mentioned I might have to have root canal treatment. What was it like?

[Jimjams]

Mog- dh (the world's biggest wuss) recently had root canal treatment and he was fine. Hardly complained.

[jasper]

my goodness you lot are well informed!
Angeliz, do a search on mumsnet as this has been discussed quite a lot before.
If it is any help, I work with mercury every day at work,(inhaling the vapours when I drill out old fillings) and am not REMOTELY convinced there is anythig to worry about, and as you can imagine I have looked into this more than most.

I would have no other material in my own mouth for big fillings on back teeth (of which I have plenty) and have had silver fillings place while pregnant.
A couple of years ago I took part in a study assessing whether dentists showed any signs of mercury poisoning compared to a matched group who were not similarly exposed to mercury . The results showed no difference.

[Angeliz]

thanks all for answering and you have all reassued me! As has been said, they aren't sure about the alternatives anyway so..........and i also remember playing with mercury at school! As for the treatment Mog, i swear it didn't hurt a bit> I was in there for half an hour and as long as you keep your eyes shut,(i opened them at one point-big mistake), you'll be fine! The most painful part was actually trying to get an X-ray! (trying to close me mouth on that little machine! I have had a stinking headache since, but i guess that is only normal after what they've just done! 4 ibuprofen and 2 glasses of wine have numbed it a bit.DP is getting up to dd just incase you all gasped there Thanks all for replying, i dont think i would have given it a second thought if i wasn't thinking of another baby and also that this is the fifth!!

[Angeliz]

filling that is, not potential baba!

[Angeliz]

ks it was ,as i remember, in a cup and you had to put something in and pull it out dry!!!(can't remember what!)..Unless Jimjams and i both were some kind of wierdos together in a former life and assume it was real

[robinw]

message withdrawn

[Jimjams]

You used to get given a petri dish of mercury to play with. Someone would always drop one and it would be in hundreds of tiny balls all over the floor then everyone used to scrabble around picking it up and making all the small balls go back into one big ball. Ahhh happy days.

Mind you we also used to do blood typings in science lessons- they stopped that a few years below me.

And we burnt a peanut - has to be bread these days.

I must be old.

[Jimjams]

oh yuck- I remember the spitting one as well. yeuchh. Now you just get a test tube of salivary amylase- not so exciting.