Despite being considered a highly dangerous and toxic chemical, mercury is found in the mouths of many people across the world and especially here in the UK. Along with silver, it is mercury that is used to create amalgam fillings and many people are now choosing to have professional amalgam removal procedures to remove the potentially harmful chemical from their mouths. The procedure needs to be done safely in order to ensure that you do not suffer any ill effects.
For more than 100 years, dentists have used silver as the material of choice for fillings. Typically, these fillings are around 20-32% silver with the majority of the remainder of the filling being mercury. Not only is mercury considered to be dangerous, with restrictions in place on how it should be handled, but silver fillings are also considered to be less than attractive by many patients.
These are two of the reasons that more patients are now choosing to have amalgam removal treatment. The silver filling is removed from the tooth and replaced with a mercury free filling; one that is usually tooth or porcelain coloured. These are better looking and they do not contain mercury, meaning that they are considered safer too.
However, care must be taken during the removal of silver fillings because the filling content can be dangerous if swallowed.
Steps can be taken to ensure a safer and more beneficial amalgam removal process.
Specialist tools like clean up aspirators can be used. A clean up aspirator is a piece of suction equipment that sits snugly over the tooth and filling but still allowing the dentist to work freely. As the amalgam filling is broken down it is immediately sucked down the clean up aspirator which means less danger of swallowing pieces of mercury filled filling.
Whether you’re considering amalgam removal for the cosmetic benefits of more natural looking fillings or because you want to remove the mercury that they contain from your body, you need to find a reliable, trusted, and professional dental clinic that will deal with the procedure in as safe a way as possible.
Sutcliffe Dental offers safe and effective amalgam removal from their modern Manchester clinic. You can have your silver fillings removed, and replaced with better looking and safer composite fillings.