Lead free solder - exposed in a UK national newspaper

Whenever I see references to amalgam fillings in this context, I always wonder just how 'real' the improvement in perceived well-being is. I don't doubt that you feel better now you have had them removed, but I really wonder how much of that is because you *expected* to feel better, because that's why you were having them removed ? Kind of like the double-blind placebo tests, when they are evaluating the efficacy of new pharmaceutical drugs. Have you located any studies as to whether people who have amalgam fillings actually have a higher level of mercury in their bodies than would be expected for their given location / lifestyle, and did these levels actually reduce, or at least stop going up, once the amalgam had been removed ? I'm interested to know, not least because I have an amalgam filling in just about every 4 - 8 tooth, both sides, top and bottom, and have had for 40 years or more since I was a kid, and they were the 'norm'. Although my memory, particularly short-term, is not as good as it was, otherwise, I would have rated my health as 'OK', and not any worse than I would expect for a mid 50's man with my location and lifestyle.

Arfa

Loadsa mercury in my mouth too, but I was told by my dentist that *more* would be released into the body and absorbed during the process of having the fillings drilled out and replaced, than would be released by simply leaving them in place. Folks our age are going to die of *something* in two or three decades, regardless. I think that mercury, or lead, or whatever-other-heavy-metal poisoning is the least of our worries.

Cheers, Pete.

We are disposable containers for our genes.

I think there is a quite reasonable argument that with our bodies having (by design) a limited life if they are not knackerd and contaminated by the time we die we have to some degree wasted them.

I wonder, should we ever be able to extend our lives to hundreds of years, what that might mean for our lifestyle. Living extremely healthy and avoiding pollution of all kinds, perhaps?

Mark

Y'er welcome. I hadn't even thought of exposure issues prior to reading it myself.

I use a dust mask and a broom for broken glass. I've shredded at least 2 paper vacuum cleaner bags trying to vacuum broken glass with sharp edges.

I don't think the amount of mercury involved was sufficient to justify a new vacuum cleaner. Just replace the bag and be done with it. If paranoid, clean out the vacuum cleaner with a compressed air hose, but do it outside.

Some manufacturers will identify the amount of mercury in their lamps. If you can identify the manufactory, you can lookup the mercury content. Most of it will be vaporized when you broke the bulb, so the real danger is doing the cleanup in a closed room. That's why I suggested that if it happens again, give it time for the mercury to dissipate.

Also, 5mg of Hg is a small volume thanks to the high density of mercury. At 13.6g/cm3, 5mg will be only 0.000368 ml in volume.

I've worked with large amounts of metallic mercury. Safety is always an issue but accidents do happen. When spilled, the easiest way to pickup the droplets is by first freezing the area with dry ice (frozen CO2). The mercury will harden, where it can be picked up with tweezers or a broom. When the CO2 melts, errr.... evaporates, the mercury returns to its liquid state.

Some medical details on heavy metal poisoning:

Also ensuring that a frontier is available; e.g. serious efforts at off-world colonization.

Michael

Aha! Another glaring testimony to the insipid dangers that we can expect from buying/disposing of CFLs (or electronic solder) due to MERCURY (or LEAD) which has been proven to be FATAL (...in some cases). Yes, the snipping was intentional.

:)

-Bill

"the meek shall inherit the earth"

because the brave will be out conquering the universe.

Cheers Terry

Apparently you haven't read much history. The history of exploration and colonization is liberally laced with misfits, criminals, and evil scum of varying sorts. Anyone that is successful and comfortable in the home country, is not going to go out exploring. They already have what they want, so why bother risking it on the unknown? It isn't so much bravery that inspired the age of exploration. It was the intolerance created by various despotic rulers than inspired those with nothing to lose to get out of town and go exploring. Same with those that were persecuted for religious and political reasons.

The initial explorers may by the brave and the daring, going to places where no sane person would consider living. However, those that follow will be quite different. The 2nd wave will be the tourists. Those with bigger pocket books than concern for their own safety. After that come those that can't get along with anyone, in any country, on any planet. Kinda like the moutain men and mad hermits. Next come the immigrants, that just want some different or better place than the living hell they came from. Eventually, space travel will be mundane enough for the carpetbaggers, bureaucrats, politicians, hookers, pimps, salesmen, and the rest of the trash that constitutes civilization.

indeed. one does not need to look far back in history (9am today will suffice) to discover that, on average, humans are nasty. Our "civilisation" is a pretty thin veneer, which is entirely absent in large swathes of the world.

luckily, not in my back yard :).

Anyone that is successful and comfortable in

abbrev. "people"

However unlike Earth, space is a lot bigger so it should take a lot longer to ruin it. perhaps even long enought that we'll learn to play nice, but I doubt it.

I always liked that line in Amused to Death: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll f*ck it up"

Cheers Terry

It's been shown that amalgam fillings release mercury vapor only when you grind down hard on them. They're otherwide inert.

I feel like I know exactly what you're thinking, because that is what I used to think too! But I kept meeting people who told me, "I'm so glad I had it done" that at one point, it was the next thing to try, to see if I could recover from my chronic health problems.

I didn't expect to notice *any* improvement right away, and I'd never heard of that happening. But it did. After the painkillers wore off and I got a night's sleep, the very next day I got a definite, very-hard-to-ignore boost in mental acuity, and to use an overused saying, "felt like a fog had been lifted off me". Nothing else had changed in my life that could have accounted for that.

I had put off having it done for about 10 years due to the cost, ordeal of it, and because I never had anything objective to latch onto to feel confident that it would result in any kind of noticeable improvement. Other people I've talked to don't get any, but they're usually still "glad they had it done."

"YMMV" is the simplest answer I can give to you, and there's not much of any way anyone can tell you in advance what your experience would be.

As compared to say, other people who also have amalgam fillings? ;-) Unfortunately, that's the rub of it. Heavy metal toxicity is usually very sneaky. It sinks in gradually, and you can't tell it's there, and I think for almost all cases, it never gets bad enough to cause acute symptoms that doctors can diagnose.

But then I heard of a woman (friend of a friend) who was suffering from MS for many years, and after a lot of other things, she tried getting her mercury fillings removed. And then she simply recovered! So who knows? There's no proof that the mercury removal did it, but she had no other explanation for it. (Miracle?)

BTW, I regret that I cannot reveal personal details about other people, to protect both them and dentists who remove mercury fillings. Dentists are still persecuted by the ADA and other organizations in some areas.

Jay Ts

Yes and no and/or maybe. :) Mercury is released during removal, so you'd need to find a dentist that observes proper technique for the operation. If you can, find one that has been trained by Dr. Huggins, the guy who brought this issue into the public view with his book "It's All in Your Head". (Hint: search Amazon.com for that, and check out the reader comments too.)

I've heard that there are many dentists doing mercury removal, and you need to be careful to find one that does it "right".

Some dentists even have something like a DMM to check electric potentials of each filling, to make sure to take them out in the proper order. I'm not kidding! (And no, I don't have any idea if the theory that is based on is really scientifically grounded or not.)

I might die tomorrow, and if it happens, that's not a problem for me. What DOES matter is that I have a high-quality and enjoyable life with value in the meantime.

Jay Ts

That's what the ADA and ADA-trained dentists like to say. It is my opinion that they are in deep denial regarding the issue. Not surprising considering that the ADA was formed by a bunch of mercury-using dentists who got together and decided that dentists in the organization were not allowed to tell their patients that mercury was bad for them.

However, the information that I've reviewed says that there have been research studies done that have shown it's just not true - mercury dissolves a little in saliva, and a lot more in acidic stuff like lemon juice, tomatoes or carbonated beverages.

I haven't actually read it, but I expect there's a lot more informatin on this in Dr. Huggins' book.

So keeping in mind that I'm not an expert...

I think the rate of dissolution varies with individual body chemistry, and the type, number and condition of fillings. And some people seem to be a lot better than others at flushing out toxins from their body (I'm in the low end on that one, so I have to be a lot more careful). Or maybe some people are simply more tolerant of having toxic bodies. To me, there seem to be a lot of people in that category.

I regret the pun, but I find the whole topic of mercury filling toxicity, along with the general topic of heavy metal toxicity to be a "grey area" (sorry:). It's really difficult to pin down in a well-defined manner in a way that doesn't beg for debate. The more I've studied it, the closer it seems to "conspiracy theory". I wish it were simpler.

Jay Ts

Bullshit. A filling is so small that no meter made can read the resistance of it, nor is there an instrument than can measure any subtle differences from one to the next. That is aside from the fact that one would have to have the filling out to be able to access it across its breadth in order to take any such reading to begin with.

Total and utter bullshit.

Is Rosie O'Retard your favorite celebrity?

More bullshit. Back when that organization was formed, silver/mercury amalgam filling were all there was available for the task. So no "selling" was required, nor practiced, idiot.

Thank you so kindly for your warm reception to my post.

I was merely passing on the information because I had found it amusing. I thought it was fun to mention it and go "on topic" for the newsgroup as a change of pace. :) But you didn't seem to get the intent or the joke. I am so sorry.

They don't measure resistance. To re-include the full context:

| Some dentists even have something like a DMM to check electric | potentials of each filling, to make sure to take them out in | the proper order. I'm not kidding! (And no, I don't have any | idea if the theory that is based on is really scientifically | grounded or not.)

I put it right there in front of you: They measure ELECTRIC POTENTIAL otherwise known as "VOLTAGE", between a filling and a reference point.

It has to do with electricity... different metals in a salty solution, currents and movement of metal ions. Of course, there's absolutely no physics behind that, right?

Seriously, I don't know if tiny currents in the mouth could dislodge enough mercury to cause a problem, ok? The people who come up with these ideas are dentists, not physicists. Sometimes they are just off on some parts. But I haven't read Dr. Huggins' book, so I shouldn't knock him without listening openmindedly first. The guy has saved a lot of people. Take a look at the reader comments on his book at Amazon.com.

Other than your mention of it, I have no awareness of that entity. Apparently, you are much more of a fan than I. :)

Again, thanks very much for your post, I think that made my day.

Peace and Happiness,

Jay Ts

Hmmm. Your passion for this subject is clear. I do, however, remain unconvinced that this is anything other than placebo effect, which has been shown in proper clinical trials, to be an extremely powerful entity. As far as I am aware - and I haven't read anything about this for some time - the human body is not good at removing heavy metal toxins from itself, without external help, so I would be surprised if your body had managed to just 'clean itself' - especially overnight - of any mercury that might have been in there as a result of your fillings.

As far as fillings dissolving as a mechanism for getting the mercury into your body goes, I have some that have been in my mouth untouched for probably 30 years. All of the saliva / beer / coca cola / lemon juice / tea / coffee / other drinks, don't seem to have touched them one iota. If they are smaller than they were, then it's by a fraction of a mm. I attend a dentist regularly, and he has not seen fit to replace any of these long-term fillings through reason of them being worn below what is acceptable for their function. He has, of course, had to replace the odd one from time to time over the 35 years that I have known him, for clinical reasons.

Considering the (relatively) small proportion of the filling that is mercury in the first place, any such mercury ingression as a result of this dissolution, must be infinitessimally small, and probably absolutely negligible in comparison to other sources of mercury ingression, such as airborne from power stations or in the many pounds of tuna fish that I have eaten over the years. If you could show me a study that didn't call on hearsay and personal anecdotal evidence, and that could show that a body's mercury content decreased, or at least arrested in its upward climb after such fillings had been removed, then I might be more inclined to accept that there's something in it. Can you show any such study conducted under proper scientific protocols ?

Arfa

Gold and early plastics were already in use before amalgams were introduced. Just now I found that information in the entry for "dentistry" in The New International Encyclopaedia in Google Books. There were also other materials in use, including lead and tin. (Note for the dense: that is me playfully trying to go on-topic again. :)

According to a Wikipedia article linked below, amalgams came into use "because they are malleable, durable, and more affordable than gold or composites."

In other words, because they are _cheap_ and _easy_. :)

The info in my previous post came to me through a holistic, mercury-free dentist, who may have been a little biased. The story was that there were dentists at the time (c. 1850, roughly) who were against the use of mercury, and started an organization that included only those dentists. But another organization was formed by the mercury-using dentists, and they won, eclipsing the first one. That is now the American Dental Association (ADA).

The article said that the term "quack" came from the mercury-using dentists. "Quack" was short for "quicksilver", another term for mercury. This article at Wikipedia more-or-less supports that info:

And there is a link at the bottom of that page to this one, on Dental Amalgam Controversy:

Information in that article supports my comment about the origin of the ADA. See the section, "History and overview". It does a lot better, but I think I did pretty well considering I was going on a single article handed to me 8 years ago, before I had Wikipedia, and I was going just on memory of that.

Jay Ts