Composite Resin and a Good Dentist
Here in Japan, a good dentist is worth his weight in amalgam. Or, as is the case with my latest visit, composite resin.
A filling that I had filled maybe a decade ago started to chip a few days back. It didn’t hurt, but it was enough to make me worry and naturally warranted an immediate visit to the dentist. After a horrifying dental experience with a doctor close to my apartment which cost me a tooth, I looked for and found a good doctor: Dr. Nishibori, with offices in Sendagaya (very close to the JR station) and Roppongi, in central Tokyo. Dr. Nishibori was trained in the U.S., and has a very modern office–and two very important elements here are that (a) he speaks English well, and (b) he takes National Health Insurance.
I had visited Dr. Nishibori earlier for a full exam and to get a bridge put in (to fix up the disaster the other dentist had left behind), and I liked his offices–good, modern equipment, fast service, good people. He even recommended another dentist when he felt that other dentist provided better work than he, a sign of professional integrity.
When I came in for the tooth work yesterday (made the appointment just a day and a half before–but there was almost no wait), I noticed some new equipment. Every dental station was now equipped with a flat-panel computer display. From looking around the room, I could see that they were used for X-rays. I didn’t get to see it close-up because I didn’t need X-rays then, but I could see that the X-rays showed incredibly large and clear on the screen. A new system, Dr. Nishibori told me. Very cool.
He also gave me a resin filling instead of amalgam, the first time a dentist had done so for me. The composite resin filling, aside from being white and blending in better, bonds to the teeth better and contains no mercury, along with other benefits. The downside: some sensitivity after treatment–my teeth still hurt a bit a day later.
Nishibori, despite his qualifications, modern office equipment and central location, does not charge much: the whole session was completed in about an hour, and I was charged about 1,500 yen (maybe $13). That’s my 30%, with insurance picking up the other 70% of the bill. Not bad, as resin fillings are supposed to cost up to twice as much as silver fillings.
If you live in Tokyo and are interested in seeing Dr. Nishibori, the Sendagaya office phone number is (03) 3403-8885 (alternate is -8886). They’re open weekdays till 6 pm, and until noon on Saturdays.
Peace Luis,
I visited the doctor you recommended (Nishibori) two weeks ago, and i want to report some facts, that your readers may be enlightened.
1- Dr.Nishibori still uses the poisonous amalgam fillings in his clinic.
2- When confronted with the truth about amalgam, he gave the excuse that the dental association in Japan doesn’t see anything harmful about it, except some RARE cases. The links below prove that the danger of amalgam (more than 50% mercury) is beyond theory, mercury is the most poisonous non radioactive element.
3- His clinic maybe modern and nice, but it is not even equipped with the required devices (oxygen masks..etc) required to replace amalgams, so i decided to leave after paying for the X-rays.
Here are some usefull sites:
http://www.amalgam.org
http://www.iaomt.org
http://www.home.earthlink.net/%7Eberniew1/indexa.html
Thanks for the recomendation anyawy, it’s not your fault.
Alas, all the anti amalgam lobby is not telling the full truth. The amounts of mercury that come form amalgam fillings, is so low, it is denyable. Second, if someone with an amalgam filling, is getting ill from it, why is not every dentist getting ill??
Amalgam is a good safe filling material. Did you for instance know, that the whgite filling material is not to be touched by bare hands, becuase it will give you an allergic repsonse to it? And it even can have some cancer inducing effects..
Of course, white is tissue saving, and looks better than amalgam.. But fully safe, while amalgam is unsafe?? No, really, I absolutely do not belive those lies. And to be honest, never ever have seen a legitimate research paper which states that using amalgam as a filling as an hazard to your health.
And yeah, i know of the named sites, and even checked the research. Do a medline search, read, and know the truth.
Rob:
You state the case of amalgam with more than just a bit of bias; you state that the anti-amalgam proponents are “lying,” and that amalgam is “safe.” However, as I understand it, the current research has not resolved the case either way; while amalgam has not been proven dangerous, neither has it been proven safe. The issue is still unresolved.
Further, you use the logic that if amalgam causes illness, dentists should become ill from it. This is a flawed argument in more than one way. First, the dentist is not demonstrably receiving a higher amount of mercury vapor simply by installing the fillings; the toxicity comes from the constant release of mercury vapor into the mouth from the presence of such fillings. Unless there is some aspect to the process of dental application of amalgam or its handling which gives the dentist a greater daily dose of mercury than someone with the fillings in their mouths, then your argument is false.
Second, the effects of mercury poisoning are not universal; as a medical student, you should know that different people react differently. Some people have a lower toxicity threshold than others.
Further, research has shown that amalgam fillings can increase the amount of mercury in blood and urinary samples by two to four times. While levels may remain below some accepted standards, the variation in toxicity threshold can lead to adverse reactions in some people while others remain unaffected. Arguing that amalgam is safe because some people don’t get ill is like arguing that smoking is safe because some patients never develop cancer.
Further, since the theory is that increased mercury levels can lead to autoimmune deficiencies, the symptoms caused by heavy-metal poisoning at low levels will not be consistent, making it very difficult to pin down. As a result, it is possible that amalgam is causing illnesses but has not been proven to do so because the results are not universal and not consistent.
You also state that “white fillings” are less than safe, but you do not specify composite resin. Is composite resin what you’re talking about? And if so, which composite resin formula? All of them? Some? just one specific type?
A look at scholarly work on composite resin seems to show that the toxicology of resins is far less researched and far less understood than the effect of amalgams, which itself is inconclusive.
As a medical student, you should know better than to scold other people for making definitive statements, when your own definitive statements are just as unsupported!
I would be interested in any light you could bring to this issue, however. Could you provide links to specific documents about the health risks in the “white fillings” you speak of? I searched in Google Scholar (which produced a long, long list of research article on amalgam), but found no papers that discussed health risks of composite resin.
I would also be interested in your arguments against the document found here:
http://www.iaomt.org/documents/The%20Scientific%20Case%20Against%20Amalgam.pdf
I have just been at a Dr Huggins interview site , I am hearing more and more about this mercury thing , I hadn’t heard of it before , and even the female dentist who spilt one drop on her double gloved finger and it went through both gloves and she died an agonising death in 6 months , and we allow them to put this in our mouths?
Narym
NY: Um… you have the story wrong. It was not a dentist, it was a researcher, and she wasn’t working with amalgam, she was working with pure dimethyl mercury, not the type of mercury used in amalgam, but a far more potent type.
Think about this: chlorine is a powerful oxidant used in bleaching and disinfectants, and its gas was a chemical weapon in WWI; sodium is highly toxic and bursts into flame when exposed to air or water, and its variant sodium dichromate is highly poisonous and a powerful carcinogen. Would you put these horrible poisons in your mouth?
But put the two together, and you get table salt.
This is not to say that amalgam is safe. But it is not universally recognized as dangerous, either.
In USA, (California) the dental community must give each patient a written material fact sheet about all dental material, prior to working on them.
Composite Resins (white fillings) contain ‘crystalline silica,’ which is know to the State of California, as a chemical that causes cancer. Gold is the only filling that is safe, yet it looks bad in your mouth and is very costly so people think that composite resins is the second best healthy compound on the market to put on your teeth.
The question I want to know is why the dental community does not give this fact sheet to each patient prior to dental treatment, it is the law in this State, yet patients are not being fully infomed by their dentists? WHY NOT…
This behavior reminds me of used car dealerships, that take you for a ride and claim default after you develop cancer, heart disease, nervous system disorders and other medical conditions
related to dental fillings, root canals, and crowns.
Lets face it folks, it is all about money and repeat business at the sake of your lives.
We need to demand better health, safety and disclosure notices to patients for dental treatment from the American Dental Board in each State of the Union.