Mercury is known to be one of the most dangerous and toxic substances on the planet. Many people are unaware that “silver” amalgam dental fillings are actually 50% mercury.  The American Dental Association (ADA) refuses to publicly state that dental amalgam fillings contain a high level of mercury, and adamantly denies that the mercury escaping from them can cause serious health issues.

Yet it has been proven that fillings lose their mercury content.  According to Joyal Taylor, DDS, one dental researcher removed fillings that had been in a patient’s mouth for five years.  He also removed twenty year old fillings from another patient’s mouth.  He tested the percentage of mercury content if both fillings, and found that the five year old fillings had lost one half of their mercury, and the twenty year old fillings had lost all of their mercury.  Fillings tend to fracture at the edges and begin to crumble away, and mercury is absorbed by the roots of the teeth as well as the surrounding bone and adjacent gum tissue.

Every day, we do things that can increase the release of mercury vapor from amalgam fillings:  brush our teeth, use a water pick, chew gum, and consume hot foods and drinks.  And removing amalgams without special precautions increases mercury blood levels for a period of time.  Such a concentrated release of mercury can severely exacerbate existing neurological conditions.

You may be wondering if you should have all of your amalgam fillings replaced immediately. The answer is, that it totally depends upon your situation. It is important to realize that for every person who has their amalgams removed and gets great results, such as lessened fatigue or neurological symptoms, there is another person who sees no change or actually becomes worse.

The most important thing to realize is that the fillings cannot be removed by your regular ADA dentist; rather, a special protocol must be followed by a dentist with the proper equipment and training.

Your regular ADA dentist will not be able to help you for two reasons: First, they are not taught the proper procedures for safe amalgam removal, and second, they are not permitted by the American Dental Association to remove amalgams for anything other than cosmetic reasons.

If you went to your dentist and told him or her that you wanted your amalgams replaced because you suspected that they were causing your health problems and the dentist agreed to remove them, he or she could lose his or her license to practice dentistry. The ADA is very firm in maintaining that amalgams are harmless and they ex-communicate any dentists that maintain otherwise. You can get a list of properly trained biological dentists by clicking on the following web site - www.iaomt.org or by calling the Huggins Diagnostic Center at 1-866-948-4638.

We also highlyl recommend that you get a serum biocompatibility test done before you engage in the amalgam removal process. A blood serum compatibility test is done to ensure your dentist puts the most compatible or "least reactive" dental materials in your mouth to replace the mercury amalgam fillings.

The type of dental materials include etchings, composites, bonding agents, crowns, porcelain and ceramics, temporary materials, cements, adhesives, and sealants, to mention a few.

All dental materials, just like prescription drugs, have a certain number of side effects or adverse reactions. The serum test will alert you and your dentist to the relative compatibility each dental material has with your immune system.

You can your own blood sample taken by a professional lab and send it to a center that does serum compatibility testing for dental materials. The one we recommend is Scientific Health Solutions, Inc. They are at 1621 North Circle Drive in Colorado Springs, CO. You can contact them at 719-548-1600 and arrange to have a test performed. A full report listing the least reactive to most reactive dental materials (of which there are hundreds) is then sent to you and your dentist.

Serum compatibility testing is not to be confused with results from electrical devices which evaluate body electrical data in comparison with selected dental materials. In contrast, compatibility testing is a blood serum test that determines measurement of immunolgobulins and proteins which are capable of reacting with components and corrosion products from dental materials.

Test Yourself For Toxic Metals

Tests that help to diagnose metal and chemical toxicity include blood tests, urine tests, and the analysis of hair, nails or other tissues. The most accurate of these are a chelation challenge test, a hair analysis, or a do-it-yourself Heavy Metal Screen Test.

Regular blood tests and urine tests are not accurate in diagnosing heavy metal toxicity, as they only tend to show what is happening in the body at that brief moment in time, and do not give the long-term picture.

This makes sense since the body works hard to keep the levels of nutrients in the bloodstream within fairly tight limits. If large fluctuations in mineral levels occurred, serious illness or even death would result.

A chelation challenge test needs to be performed by a doctor who specializes in chelation therapy. The patient is given a chelating drug, commonly DMPS or DMSA, and the patient's urine is collected and analyzed over a 24 hour period. This test is a highly accurate way of knowing just what heavy metals are present in the body.

The drawbacks to this method are that it requires a visit to a health care professional's office, it is expensive, and there is a possibility of side effects to the chelating drugs.

A hair analysis is also a good way of determining what toxic metals are present in the body. In addition, it also measures the levels of essential minerals in the body, such as calcium, magnesium and zinc. This test can provide you with much-needed information about your body.

The drawback to this test is that it does not always show mercury toxicity, since mercury tends to "hide" in the tissues and organs. As well, certain populations such as autistic children often show very low levels of toxic metals on their hair analyses, since they are unable to excrete heavy metals.

Hair, being outside the body, is a form of excretion, and these children tend to store their toxic metals tightly within their tissues and organs.