Dr. George: When You Have a Chance Changing Your Mercury Silver Tooth Fillings Makes Sense

Dear Dr. Meinig:

Your two articles on mercury silver fillings were most informative but they still left much unsaid. For example, you didn’t mention any specific disease conditions that have been traced to silver fillings nor the symptoms people have when one gets too much mercury. Even so, should we all rush out and have these fillings changed or not? – T. O.

 

Dear T.O.:

People who are in excellent health, have no unusual symptoms or illnesses don’t have to be in a big hurry about changing their silver fillings. However, everyone ought to keep in mind that mercury is an accumulative poison so the tiny amounts of it that are released from amalgams, day after day, do build up over a period of time. Therefore, it would seem the continual growing stress this inflicts upon one’s immune system warrants a plan to gradually replace silver amalgam fillings.

Those that have symptoms of a wide variety of illnesses, that no one quite seems to know the cause of, should be aware they could be suffering from mercury poisoning. The problem of such toxicity is that it doesn’t show up as a specific disease entity but can be the cause of a wide variety of symptoms and illnesses.

The most common beginning symptoms that are seen are tingling and numbness down the arms and legs, chronic fatigue, a metal taste in the mouth, irritability, anxiety, and other emotional upsets that are unexplainable.

The case of a 21-year-old dental hygienist that has come to my attention is a typical example of how these degenerative problems progress. Though loving her professional responsibilities, ever worsening fatigue and irritability overtook her and became more and more of a burden. Some days she was so ill going to work proved impossible.

Trips from doctor to doctor brought forth a diagnosis by one physician of multiple sclerosis, by another the need for a hysterectomy, and still another doctor claimed her problem to be endometriosis.

Fortunately, in each instance she sought a second opinion only to have the new doctor come up with a totally different diagnosis. The crowning blow came when she was accused of having an anxiety neurosis and was told to have psychiatric care.

At this point a friend referred her to a nutritionist. After analysis of blood, urine, hair and a number of other tests he found that she had high amounts of mercury in her body. The nutritionist called her dentist employer and suggested the high mercury and illness could be from her silver fillings and possible office contamination of mercury. The dentist flatly disagreed but was finally convinced it would be best for both of them to change the fillings.

The hygienist started to feel better almost immediately and in three months had completely recovered. Her dentist was so impressed that he had his own amalgams replaced and found he, too, felt a significant health improvement.

It is easy enough for dentists to replace amalgam fillings but the patient that is highly toxic from them has to be aware that their removal demands a strict system of procedure or they may not recover. Silver fillings have either positive or negative charges. The ones having the highest negative charges must be removed first. If removal is started with the positively charged ones, the person often doesn’t get well.

Much of the mercury released from the fillings is absorbed and becomes stored in different tissues and glands making it difficult to remove from the body. Certain detoxification procedures are advisable to hasten patient recovery. Inasmuch as most dentists are still unaware of these problems, before having any fillings replaced, I would suggest a call to the Diagnostic Center in Colorado Springs, 800-331-2303. Ask for the names of dentists in your area trained in the proper sequential removal of amalgam fillings and also request the detoxification procedures.

If your family dentist is interested in the protocol, he too can call the Diagnostic Center for the information.

People who are in good health are not felt to be at risk during amalgam removal but those who are sick and have illnesses must take these words seriously if they are not going to jeopardize their recovery.

During the past summer of 1991, the National Institute of Health recommended that the FDA set up a special panel to further study this problem and secondly, to recommend that dentists install devices in their offices to prevent excess amalgam from going into the sewage via the suction equipment and cuspidors because of the environmental pollution effects of the mercury and copper contained in the scrap filling material that goes down the drain.

The American Dental Association and most dentists mean well when they say these fillings are safe but when amalgam scrap can poison and pollute the environment, what makes it safe to put silver mercury fillings into humans.