Organic Living and Lifestyle Blog

I’m Replacing My Mercury Amalgam Fillings under Doctors Orders

September 25th, 2007

Today I’m off to the dentist to start replacing my ugly old mercury (amalgam metal) fillings with nice white resin ones. When I was a kid I kept my dentist quite busy so I’ve got a few fillings now, 20+ years later.

Over the last few years, I had heard about getting the old mercury fillings replaced but was put off because I heard the process can release more mercury into your body and that quite often the fillings are ok and aren’t leaking mercury into the body and don’t need to be replaced. I’d also heard it was very, very expensive. However, things have changed.

My Doc ordered (well, very strongly recommended) that I get my mercury fillings out because my blood tests showed evidence of mercury affecting quite a few of my organs and there’s also growing evidence that mercury is linked to breast cancer & thyroid disease. Given my recent experience with both of these (read about it in my cancer scare posting), I’m not taking any chances so I met with one of the recommended dentists a month ago.

You can’t just go to any dentist to get this done. The dentists that were recommended to me have specialist procedures in place. The one I chose, Rachel Hall, explained that to protect me, a rubber dam is used to isolate one tooth at a time and I will be given oxygen from a separate source so I don’t breathe in the mercury vapors. (read more about the safety procedures here at her website). I was surprised to hear that the mercury has to be disposed of as toxic waste!

I have also been taking recommended natural supplements for the past week to help support my body’s immune system. My doc already had me on iodine and selenium and they both recommended that I also take a high dose of pure Vitamin C, ascorbic acid every day and Zinc. Rachel also suggested garlic to help detox my body. I’ve also been doing the Tony Robbins 10 day challenge which works in perfectly so I’ve been even more nourishing food into my body than usual.

I asked how long it will take to get the mercury out of my body and was told that it’s hard to say and it can be anything from a few months to several years. She also told me that the new resin ones she’ll be using are long lasting which was good to know because I remembered hearing when they first came out that they didn’t last very long. Oh, and about the cost, I was expecting it to be approx $3,000 but it was under $1,000 for my 8 fillings and I get part of that back from private health.

My dentist says only to replace a maximum of 4 fillings at a time. This is so it’s easier on both the body and the wallet! So it’s going to take another visit to finish the job and then I’ll not only have that nasty poison out of my body but I’ll also have an even better smile.

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