Mercury in fillings

Some practical advice giving due weight to the probability of the Hg fillings threat:

Eat more vegetables, and less fat; quit smoking, wear sunscreen, exercise regularly, wash your hands, and drive slower. If you haven't done all that, you have no business worrying about mercury fillings.
 
I am not saying for or against, however, I am curious...

What if a filling breaks off and is swallowed? It has happened many times before. Does the Mercury remain intact through the digestive tract?

Personally, I have had a filling break off, and I my accidentally swallowed it, and I have heard of other cases where this happens.
 
yup, good question. Don't have or know the data on that. I'm sure the data is out there though. my gut feeling is that you'll get some in your system, but not enough to worry about. But who knows.

Again, a composite is much more likely to breakup. And I know for a fact that acidic conditions can start to break up the PMMA, which is again carcinogenic. So, the question is which is worse?
 
snooziums said:
What if a filling breaks off and is swallowed? It has happened many times before. Does the Mercury remain intact through the digestive tract?

Personally, I have had a filling break off, and I my accidentally swallowed it, and I have heard of other cases where this happens.
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Is there any reason at all, from your experience, to attach any importance to the incident?
 
Beady said:
Is there any reason at all, from your experience, to attach any importance to the incident?
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I'd say, yes. because it can happen. When you design a medical device like, you have to account for what happens in critical failures.

However, I'd agree with you if the point you are making is: It happened to him and others he knows. He's still able to use the computer to pose the question. I'm assuming those others are ok. So swollowing a filling must not be that big of a deal.
 
joobz said:
I'd say, yes. because it can happen.
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Simply because something can happen does not make it important. Importance is decided by a combination of frequency and consequence. I would say swallowing a filling is unimportant because it happens so infrequently and there are virtually no noticable consequences.

So, I'll rephrase the question:

What happened when you swallowed a filling that makes you think it was any more serious than, say, stubbing your toe?
 
Beady said:
Simply because something can happen does not make it important. Importance is decided by a combination of frequency and consequence. I would say swallowing a filling is unimportant because it happens so infrequently and there are virtually no noticable consequences.

So, I'll rephrase the question:

What happened when you swallowed a filling that makes you think it was any more serious than, say, stubbing your toe?
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A good demarker, frequency and Consequence. Yet for medicine, when consequence outweighs frequency. Consider Vioxx, it was pulled because it resulted in deaths. The frequency of deaths were excessively low, but it occured.

Consequence is the greater issue. If swollowing a filling resulted in the leaching of mercury from it and all that mercury went into the circulation. It'd definitily be cause for concern. However, elemental mercury is poorly absorbed and as such not a great cause of worry.

So by your standards, frequency = low, consequence = low, it isn't something to worry about.

However, since snooziums didn't know the absorption rates, it was a valid question.
 
joobz said:
A good demarker, frequency and Consequence. Yet for medicine, when consequence outweighs frequency. Consider Vioxx, it was pulled because it resulted in deaths. The frequency of deaths were excessively low, but it occured.
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A quibble - the 'problems' and contrindications with Vioxx were known and clearly stated on the SPC and patient instruction leaflet. The problems occurred more in the way the drug manufacturers stated it's uses to the Doctors and the Doctors not reading the full documemtation.

Here's a paper that has gone into it more
 
Mongrel said:
A quibble - the 'problems' and contrindications with Vioxx were known and clearly stated on the SPC and patient instruction leaflet. The problems occurred more in the way the drug manufacturers stated it's uses to the Doctors and the Doctors not reading the full documemtation.

Here's a paper that has gone into it more
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And my take on the whole thing is that people want to classify drugs way to much as either good drugs or bad drugs, instead of drugs that help you with risks you are willing to accept vs ones that don't provide enough help for their risks.
 
Of more concern to me would be the debris and dust created by the dentist performing the final shaping and smoothing of the filling, rather than from swallowing a broken filling.

For one thing, the filling (during shaping and smoothing) isn't fully bonded; additionally, as I said - the process of shaping and smoothing creates a lot of fine particles which are probably inhaled and swallowed.
 
Mongrel said:
A quibble - the 'problems' and contrindications with Vioxx were known and clearly stated on the SPC and patient instruction leaflet. The problems occurred more in the way the drug manufacturers stated it's uses to the Doctors and the Doctors not reading the full documemtation.

Here's a paper that has gone into it more
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You're comepletely right, I was just using it as an example of that the consequence factor weighs in really heavily in medicine, especially when the condition they're treating wouldn't normally be expected to cause mortality(like pain). They could have saved them a lot of trouble ahd they just narrowed the patient population who'd be elligible for it.

But I think ponderingturtle's point is what is done anyways. they do consider the cost/benefit when they make a drug. (think of the high risks/side effects involved with some cancer treatments) It's the general public who thinks otherwise.
 
joobz said:
But I think ponderingturtle's point is what is done anyways. they do consider the cost/benefit when they make a drug. (think of the high risks/side effects involved with some cancer treatments) It's the general public who thinks otherwise.
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The problem is that the public wants any drug to be compleatly safe and not accept that sometimes they will have to accept a risk if they want to have an improvement. I don't see why say Vioxx shouldn't be on the market(the way it is promoted is a seperate issue) if it works for somepeople and they would prefer it to others in spite of the risk, well why shouldn't they be able to use it?

The problem is that more than just the public thinks only in terms of good and bad, it is the way that the FDA controls drugs.
 
Beady said:
Is there any reason at all, from your experience, to attach any importance to the incident?
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Well, if swallowing a mercury filling when it breaks off (it really did happen to me) is not a problem, then that would imply that a little bit of mercury is not a problem for the body.

So why should anyone complain when Industry dumps mercury into the environment, if when it reaches humans, the amounts will be so small that it will not cause any problem.

I guess that whole mercury scare in Japan in the 1960s was all fake?
 
snooziums said:
Well, if swallowing a mercury filling when it breaks off (it really did happen to me) is not a problem, then that would imply that a little bit of mercury is not a problem for the body.

So why should anyone complain when Industry dumps mercury into the environment, if when it reaches humans, the amounts will be so small that it will not cause any problem.

I guess that whole mercury scare in Japan in the 1960s was all fake?
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You are makeing several mistakes in this line of thought. The main one being failure to understand that mercury concentrates and is persistant in the body. So short term exposure to a moderate level of mercury is not the threat that long term exposure is to a lower level of mercury.
 
ponderingturtle said:
You are makeing several mistakes in this line of thought. The main one being failure to understand that mercury concentrates and is persistant in the body. So short term exposure to a moderate level of mercury is not the threat that long term exposure is to a lower level of mercury.
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That and also bioavailabilty. elemental mercury is not readily absorbed into the body through ingestion. It is aborbed when it's inhaled. Remember that in the 1700s some people thought drinking mercury would be a cureall. While it proved toxic, it took many doses before the long term bioaccumulation effects would set in.
 
snooziums said:
Well, if swallowing a mercury filling when it breaks off (it really did happen to me) is not a problem, then that would imply that a little bit of mercury is not a problem for the body.

So why should anyone complain when Industry dumps mercury into the environment, if when it reaches humans, the amounts will be so small that it will not cause any problem.

I guess that whole mercury scare in Japan in the 1960s was all fake?
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And furthermore, what you are injesting is an amalgam of mercury. I would think it would pass completely through you harmlessly. It certainly doesn't disolve in saliva.
 
BTW, I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that the highest dose of mercury that can be achieved in relation to amalgam fillings is to have them removed. Mercury goes up a little after placement, then goes back to near background level, then if they are removed, goes back up again.

It's also worth mentioning that dentists are exposed to quite a high level of mercury vapour in using amalgam, particularly those dentists working more than 20 years ago, with hand mixing of amalgam particularly problematic. And we're not all mad/severely impaired in the kidneys/dead.
 
Perspective

Cause of death by age group Endland and Wales, 2002

Source: Advanced Paediatric Life Support handbook, 4th edition

cause_________________________ 4-52weeks___1-4years____ 5-14years
sudden infant death syndrome_________164________ 0 ___________ 0
congenital abnormality_______________205________ 97 ___________ 64
infection __________________________65_________ 52____________27
trauma ___________________________53__________90___________197
cancer ____________________________15__________89__________ 218

In the study I cited above, NO deaths due to mercury in a 7 year period. NO identifiable disability in a 7 year period.

So. MERCURY DOES NOT KILL CHILDREN.

Trauma (cars) kills children. Cancer kills children. SIDS kills children.

I get very, very annoyed when people devote time and money campaigning to have something which is so harmless no effect is noticable over a 7 year period when over a similar timespan 5000 children have died due to cancer or trauma which we CAN do something about.

If you value the lives of children, campaign for effective road safety measures and give/raise money for cancer research.


Takes, deep breath,

RANT!

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHUT UP ABOUT MERCURY, MMR, MOBILE PHONES and whatever else fruitloop ideas you may have been meme-infected by.

 
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What does a large release of methyl mercury from an industrial plant have to do dental amalgam? Pretty much nothing.
 
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