The Problems with Amalgam Fillings

Dental amalgam is a product of the early days of dentistry, from the days when anesthesia was not an option for dental patients and most areas of dental care were as poorly regarded as patient comfort. During these frontier days, any person with a pair of pliers could call himself a dentist, and in fact the first dental professional organization asked its members to sign a pledge that they would not use amalgam fillings because amalgam contains mercury. Members who defended dental amalgam argued that it was at least as safe as arsenic, which was introduced shortly after amalgam for use in endodontics.

Nowadays, arsenic has rightly been banned as a deadly poison, but dental amalgam still remains in use, though questions about its safety remain. The toxicity of mercury in dental amalgam is considered low, but it is not negligible.

In addition to concerns about mercury toxicity, amalgam fillings may be bad for your teeth. First, because amalgams are metal, they expand and contract more quickly with temperature changes than the natural ceramic material of your tooth. This can lead to wear on your tooth as well as the creation of tiny cracks in the teeth. These cracks can catch food and harbor bacteria, leading to decay that goes around and under the amalgam filling, essentially creating an “express route” for bacteria to reach deeper into the tooth.

Microcracks can also make a tooth more likely to suffer a stress fracture later on, which will likely require a dental crown to treat.