Dental Care: Can Silver Fillings With Mercury Fracture Your Teeth?

There is much talk about the dangers of silver dental fillings, sometimes called amalgams. They are composed of about 50% mercury, which is known to be toxic and are banned in other countries. In my office we offer a special procedure for the removal of met safe for people with mercury poisoning, or simply want to avoid further exposure. This article is about the safety of living for their own health, but about how it can affect your teeth.

Mercury expands and contracts with hot and cold. Because it has been used in thermometers, before they take off the market. Now, imagine you have a damaged tooth that is something like a porcelain or glass and can break easily. When the cavity is removed can only be a hollow thin-walled left. Now imagine, putting a strong silver metal filling in it. Could still be OK, but what happens when you live in a metal filling causes it to expand and contract when you put hot and cold in your mouth?

expansion and contraction with temperature can initiate cracks and fractures in the teeth. There can be no symptoms for a while, but the teeth can become sensitive to the fracture expands or opens when you bite down or chew. It is not unusual for patients to come in asking how they broke the teeth when they eat something soft like bread or banana. What they do not know is that the tooth probably had a fracture in her long before she finally came apart.

In my practice, almost any broken or fractured tooth that was not caused by direct trauma of the silver filling in it. Almost every crown I made for a tooth that was before the silver filling. Crowns are used to rebuild broken teeth and wrap together and keep them safe and considered a major restoration. In severe cases teeth can be broken in ways that require root canals or extractions.

So what do you do? There are other dental filling materials, often tooth color, not to initiate cracks and may actually increase the strength of your teeth. It is possible that simply changing the newer dental materials can help prevent fractures, and thus the future of the crown. Not all dentists feel the way I had it on. Talk to your dentist and do what he feels for you.