Mercury Amalgam Dental Fillings Are Dangerous to your Health

Ah the dentist. A great place to spend a lot of money fast even with insurance. This however is one place you should not cheap out. While mercury amalgam fillings may be cheaper than the white plastic fillings or the ceramic inlays never get the mercury amalgam fillings put in your mouth. Pay up for the fancy materials. These are more aesthetically pleasing and make your teeth less temperature sensitve to hot and cold liquids. Plus they don’t contain mercury which is toxic! Think about fluorescent light bulbs. You cannot throw them in the trash because they contain mercury yet somehow it is ok to put mercury in your mouth?

It is a known fact that mercury is a dangerous substance. There is no safe mercury exposure regardless of what someone may tell you. Mercury is a potent bio accumulative neurotoxin. That means it affects the nervous system and brain the most and builds up over time. While there are well known cases of people getting mercury sickness from industrial exposure to mercury vapors, ingesting mercury salt remedies, making felt hats back in the day or eating contaminated fish like in Japan what I want to touch on here is being exposed to mercury from dental amalgam fillings.

Mercury sickness from dental amalgam is controversial and not openly discussed in the dental community however it is very real based on literature, journal research and even personal experience. In fact there are plenty of dentists who still use it due to low cost knowing there are potentially harmful effects on the patient. They want to make money and protect their livelihood. Many won’t talk about it for fear of lawsuits or loss of license. Others are more honest and don’t use it. These mercury amalgam fillings are not allowed in several European countries like Sweden, Denmark and Germany. What do they know we don’t or are not willing to admit up to? Recall that in the past people thought that asbestos and smoking were safe too.

Mercury toxicity from amalgam has known to be a problem since the 1920s. One of the articles posted here was written by a German scientist in the 1920s who became exposed to mercury vapor in the lab but also measured mercury release from fillings concluding that both were dangerous. The use of mercury fillings is banned  in some European countries such as the Nordic ones. In the USA dentists are luckily moving away from these restorative techniques and replacing them with ceramic and plastic composite perhaps for health reasons, available alternatives at similar costs or fear of lawsuits. However some dentists are still using it and many people have mercury their mouths, therefore this post as a warning. There are also plenty of sites purporting dental mercury amalgam is safe yet those same people will admit that mercury is released from these fillings. Why? Because it can be measured. How can it be both released and be safe at the same time? A quandry indeed. I will present evidence to you and then you can do your own research and reading. I am not looking to sell you anything. I am just looking to warn people and help them make the right decisions.

Environmental Impacts

Not only does mercury impact the body during life but also after death in that the mercury needs to be disposed of safely. One cannot just throw it in the trash just like one has to safely dispose of fluorescent light bulbs that also contain mercury.  If one incinerates dead bodies with mercury fillings the mercury vapor goes into the atmosphere, comes down with rain and then bioaccumlates into small organisms, fish and then back into people based on what they eat. However here we don’t care about dead people only living, breathing ones. So let’s assume you excrete all the dental mercury that is released as proponents say,  how do you feel about being the one that puts a toxic substance into the environment? Putting a toxin into the environment that may bioaccumulate in places where you live, breathe and in the fish you eat? That’s not very eco is it now?

Exposure depends on number of fillings and time

The amount of dental mercury exposure will depend on the number of fillings, surface area exposed, length of exposure time, other metals dental work in the mouth and medical conditions. The more fillings and the more time the more exposure you will get. Exposure could vary from 5 to 50 micrograms per day.

The real issue isn’t how you are 60 days after the filling is put in it’s years later! Sure you will feel fine a month or two later. The thing is this is a bioaccumalitive toxin sort of like a bathtub slowly filling with water. It’s not a problem at first but soon enough you find yourself up to your neck in water. That’s the way mercury builds up in your body slowly but surely. Dentists will say it comes out and it comes out via urine and breathing. Yes some does come out but not all every day and that’s the rub so it keeps building up until you have problems years later. Five to ten years later you may find yourself with some of the symptoms on the list below. Better not take the chance today. Once that mercury is in your body it’s hard to get out, especially from the brain.

How does the mercury get into your body if it is bound in the amalgam?

This is the claim that many have made is that since the mercury is bound to other metal like silver it is safe. That’s only partly true. Here is why. Mercury has a low melting point. If you’ve ever seen it in the high school or college chemistry lab it is liquid metal not solid at room temperature. The heat of your body at 98.6F/38 C is very warm in your mouth. It causes it mercury to slowly vaporize from the filling just like water evaporates from a mud puddle but more slowly. You then breathe this vapor into your lungs where it enters the bloodstream and brain. Studies say up to 80% is absorbed. You also swallow some in saliva. Some is absorbed and some is eliminated.  It does seem to find a way to get into the nervous system and brain. There it binds tightly. Once there it also demyelinates neurons (removes the electrical insulation like on an electric cord) and kills astrocytes (cells that feed neurons). These are the nerves cell you use to think with! It kills , damages them and kills the cells that feed them. The half life estimated for mercury in the brain is on the order of many years or even decades.

You are also exposed to new mercury when you brush your teeth, eat, chew gum, drink hot liquids like coffee and tea or drik acidic thinks like soda pop. Finally if you have other metal dental work like bridges or gold fillings they can work together creating a current  like in battery thus leaching more mercury ions off even faster. Basically any kind of you mechanical agitation causes it to come off. This in turn you ingest and breathe in. Some of that is absorbed into the bloodstream and in the gut whereas some is eliminated.

One other theory out there is that gut bacteria may be able to methylate inorganic mercury into organic methyl mercury, which is very dangerous. So you swallow mercury from your teeth and once it gets to the large intestine some can be converted to a more dangerous form that is then reabsorbed. Methyl mercury is in what is in large bioaccumalitve fish that we are told not to eat like sharks, swordfish, whale, dolphin, tuna etc.

Here are some of the symptoms of mercury poisoning  that have been documented. Most are nervous system related. The reason is mercury is fat soluble and nerve cells are made of fatty insulation so they can conduct nerve signals like an electrical wire. Mercury destroys and disrupts nerve cells.

• Nervousness/jittery feeling/restlessness
• Fine motor tremor in hands
• Irritability/over emotional/easily angered/bad temper
• Lack of confidence/fear of public speaking/exaggerated feeling of what other people think/ timidness
• Social withdrawal, spending time alone
• Depressed mood/blues/negative view
• Reduced motor skills/clumsiness/reduced sports ability
• Headaches/migraines
• Impulsiveness or rash decision making
• Overly excitable
• Memory loss/ Loss of long-term memories
• Difficulty concentrating or focusing unless it is quiet when studying or working
• Bleeding gums, mouth sores (canker sores), gingivitis, dental pockets
• Difficulty sleeping at night
• Nights sweats/hot and cold cycles where it’s either too hot or too cold repeatedly
• Superstition/Paranoia
• Lethargy/sluggishness/lack of energy/seems like thyroid issue (selenium depletion impacts thyroid hormone levels and metabolism)
• Strange reactions to normal things like multi vitamin/ multi mineral supplements or fish oil /DHA due to mineral imbalance.
• Need for lots of sleep to feel refreshed.
• Tooth loss around the fillings or the site of the filling itself

These symptoms make sense as they are neurological symptoms, due to fat/brain oxidation, mineral imbalances, selenium depletion and lack of DHA in the brain/nerves. This is the same list as for Mad Hatter’s Disease or the Danbury Shakes if you look closely. Those guys used mercury to make felt hats back in the day and got really sick from being exposed to the fumes. This should make you think. Hmmm. Both involve being exposed to mercury vapor one just happens to be in lower doses but over longer periods of time. From there comes the saying as “mad as hatter”. Just like in Alice in Wonderland.

Testing for Mercury Levels is easy and painless. If you have mercury fillings you can run a simple test to see if you are exposed

• Get a hair metal test. These are relatively affordable as in $140 USD on Amazon and other places online. A company called Doctor’sData and other labs do these tests. Essentially you cut some of you head hear or pubic body hair if you are bald. (Don’t use armpit hair as it is exposed to anti perspirant that contains aluminum if you use that). Put it into an envelope and send it in. A month or so later the test lab will send you a mineral and toxic element analysis based on that hair sample. The reason we test hair is that hair is formed from cells that are fed by blood. When the hair grows it keeps with a mineral signature  of what was in the blood during the time that the hair grew. The hair is kind of like a human tree ring. It only tests what is in the blood stream not what is stored but it is a good indicator of current exposure levels. So if your amalgams do not emit mercury why do we see elevated levels of it in the hair of those with fillings? Think about that one unless you eats tons of fish or work with mercury.
• Have your doctor run a mercury test. Mine clipped my fingernails and toenails and sent them in for testing.  We did this after I showed my doctor the hair metal test that was off the charts. They came back off way over the reference range. I did this to validate the hair test results I got in the mail. I recall coming in at close to 300% over the maximum range on the test. The hair test was no mistake.

What does this have to do with money given this is a money site?

A lot! Going to the doctor is expensive and time consuming. You can easily spend thousands of dollars visiting doctors treating symptoms and taking medicines when the root cause of the health problems is on the tip of your tongue.

What to do if the test comes in positive

• First of all don’t get more or new mercury amalgam fillings. Duh.
• Get the mercury fillings taken out and replaced by a dentist and replaced with ceramic inlays and plastic composite fillings. There are metal free dentists out there and normal ones will also do the job. The metal free ones are better and safer.
  • Stopping input is the best step to solve mercury poisoning. This won’t be cheap but do one tooth at a time if you can only afford to do so based on insurance. The less exposure the better. Get them ALL taken out! I did mine over several sessions.
  • The new materials are much better looking too cosmetically in that they are white and color match the teeth instead of silver. So not only will you be healthier but have a better smile.
  • Plus there will be no metal taste and less temperature sensitivity when dealing with hot or cold liquids. They look and feel great.
  • If your dentist refuses find another dentist. They are lots of them in every city.
  • Then you wait for the mercury to clear from you system over time.

What to eat and supplment with after removal

• Take a selenium supplement or make sure your multi vitamin/multi mineral has it. Selenium binds with mercury and will help to detoxify you. Selenium is a component of several detox enzymes in your body. 100 micrograms of selenium yeast per day is fine. You can buy it at the drugstore, vitamin store, muscle man shop, mass market chain, supermarket for about five dollars. Don’t ever take more than the recommended dose as you will get sick.
• Take a normal multi mineral/multi vitamin daily to get your mineral balance right which may be off. I mean Centrum, One a Day, Nature Made, Costco brand etc.
• Take fish oil i.e. DHA/EPA pills daily with meals. Make sure they are molecularly distilled to remove impurities. You can get these at mass market stores, drug stores for ten to twenty dollars depending on size of bottle. This will help rebuild damaged nerve cells.
• Take vitamin E (fat soluble) and vitamin C (water soluble) pills to help detox.
• Eat healthy and drink foods full of anti-oxidants like orange juice, fruit, coffee, tea etc.
• Eat lots of fiber rich foods like fruits and veggies to help the body move out those toxins.
• Drink plenty of water to help your kidneys flush things out.
• You will also need to eat protein in the form of meat or plant protein to help build enzymes
• Buy a water filter like PUR or Brita or fridge door filter. You don’t need any lead from old pipes in some cities, especially when detoxing. Drink that water not stuff straight from the tap. A fridge filter also works well.  See the example of Flint, MI where water was full of lead.
• Don’t smoke tobacco. Cigarettes often contain cadmium, arsenic and other nasty toxic elements from the ground the plants grew in. I don’t know about marijuana or vaping but best not to smoke anything.
• Avoid exposure to other heavy metals such as lead which is found in some cosmetics, at shooting ranges in the air as bullets are made from it.
• Don’t eat a ton of long lived fish as they accumulate mercury. By this I mean no big fish like shark, swordfish and tuna. Stick with smaller fish and ones that don’t live long like salmon, anchovies etc.

If you want to accelerate the detox process you can try the following later after removal

1. Eat some fresh cilantro leaves with you food. Cilantro contains a thiol or mercaptan that attracts mercury. It does this by containing sulfur which mercury is attracted to. The agent is could be gamma-Thionodecalactone based on the chemical analysis that was done in a journal on cilantro leaves. Of the fifty chemicals found only two compounds were found that contained sulfur (named thio) and this is the only one that looks like it could be fat soluble. The compound is supposedly able to bind mercury from the brain which means it can cross the blood brain barrier. This sounds right based on looking at the molecule which seems to have a structure similar to vitamin E and fats. (Don’t do this with fillings in your mouth btw, only months later. ) Go very slowly and with small amounts. You may feel things or remember things better from long ago. This will mobilize mercury then your body has to be able to grab it. If it doesn’t work well you get a tasty pad thai, curry, taco or burrito.
2. You can also try chlorella which is an algae that binds toxins including metals in your gut. It doesn’t really get absorbed by your body but stays in the gut like fiber and will help you push out mercury when you go #2. Some people say it cause stomach upset. Not sure about that but it doesn’t taste all that great, like seaweed.
3. There is no need to chelate with a real mercury chelator unless your doctor is working with you. That is dangerous and can lead to problems if you use DMSA. They will create further mineral imbalances and it is not certain they are able to enter the brain. Let your body do it’s job.

I will post several scientific articles you can read so you can make up your own mind. Or you can search on your own with Google. It’s all there. Be informed. Don’t be afraid of scientific journals and articles. But the experiment was done on rats and monkeys. Sure, as you are not allowed experiment on humans. Those other mammals are pretty similar to people though biochemically so what applies to them likely applies to you. A monkey and rat brain are made of the same materials as yours but yours is bigger.

The Genetics of it All

Some people are more senstive to mercury due to a gene variant called APOE4. One has two copies of this gene. No copies helps you process oxidants like mercury faster. One copy means slower processing and two copies means very slow processing.

This gene has a strong link to Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. There are simple tests like the one on 23 and Me that will tell you that you have this gene variant. They don’t know what causes Alzheimers yet but it is likely due to oxidation of brain tissue. Guess one thing that oxidizes brain cells and kills them? Yes, mercury. Do you want to take that chance?

So often people wonder why one person was more strongly impacted by dental mercury than another. The answer is in your genes. If you have the unlucky gene combinations you need to be careful and it is even more reason to get the mercury amalgam fillings taken out as you don’t want to get accelerate early onset Alzheimer’s disease.