Dr. Katie To explains that silver fillings are about 50% mercury and can release vapor when chewed or heated, but large studies haven't found they cause disease in most people. Individual risk varies, so biocompatibility testing helps determine personal susceptibility. Removal is riskier than keeping them in, so proper protective protocols matter most.
Question four: Are my silver fillings making me sick? This is quite a question, and I can say from my own personal experience that was the case. Here's the honest answer: What we know and what we don't. Here's what's established: Amalgam fillings are about half mercury. Is a neurotoxin, and they do release a small amount of vapor, more with chewing and grinding and hot drinks. Here's what's not established: That it's making the general population sick. Large reviews have not demonstrated that, and that can be controversial. We evaluate every single patient based on their whole body health. So that is one of the things that we definitely want to make sure everyone knows. What's reasonable? Individual susceptibility varies. We do biocompatibility on all of our patients, and that is the standard of care in biological dentistry. And the total exposure across all sources matters a lot as well. The bigger risk is not the filling sitting in your tooth, it's actually how it comes out. And I'm going to show you a slide in just a few minutes, and if your provider is not doing this, protection for you and for themselves, that's definitely an office you want to have some questions about.
