Mercury Poisoning

A new patient, a 31-year-old female social worker, visits a general dentist. A full-mouth exam including full-mouth radiographs reveals numerous areas of incipient caries in a mouth with no other pathology. The dentist takes a half hour of consultation time to go through the x-rays with the patient demonstrating the existence and location of the caries. The patient was also educated about oral hygiene and diet relative to oral health.

After the consultation, a treatment plan was presented that included a complete prophylaxis, additional hygiene instruction, and restoration of carious teeth with silver amalgam. The treatment plan is completed uneventfully. The prophy is completed by an RDH who works for the dentist. All of the alloys are placed under rubber dam and polished at a subsequent appointment.

Three months later the dentist gets a call of great concern from the patient. She has just read an article stating that silver amalgam fillings contain mercury and wants to know if that is true of the fillings he had placed. The dentist replied in the affirmative. She went on to enumerate the diseases and symptoms the article attributed to mercury and assured the dentist that she would file a lawsuit for using a material in her mouth that was "poisonous."