From: Linda Foster [fosterstudio@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 6:17 PM
To: Dockets, FDA
Subject: Docket 2006N-0352 

September 2, 2006

 

STOP TOXIC TEETH DISEASE 

 

An Argument Against the Continued Use of Silver Mercury Amalgam Dental Fillings

 

When my former dentist told me that I had four very old, deteriorating silver amalgam fillings (which are actually 50% mercury, 25% silver, and can also include tin, copper, nickel and other heavy metals) that needed to be replaced, I started reading about the other options of filling materials for teeth.  Someone had told me years ago that she had been bed ridden with multiple sclerosis before having her teeth totally redone and getting rid of all of her old silver mercury amalgam fillings.  What she had told me all came back to me.  I did more and more research and determined that I was going to follow the same course she had taken.

 

I had, I believe it was, 32 mercury amalgam fillings or so done on my teeth when I was 19 years old.  Many of them were huge, covered the whole bite surface of the teeth, and were there nearly 40 years until I was 57 years old and had them safely removed and replaced with non-metal filling material.  Some had been redone with amalgam over the years and six had crowns after my teeth cracked one by one over the past twenty years or so. No wonder they cracked.  They were absolutely crammed, every surface, with amalgam, expanding and contracting every time I ate something hot or something cold.  Who knew?  No one ever warned me.  My dentist has told me that my teeth still have many cracks and I know I face more crowns in the future.

These fillings are mostly mercury not silver.  They should never have been called silver fillings.  Than sounds so innocent for something so deadly.  They need to properly labeled as to what they really are, mercury amalgam fillings.  Talk about truth in labeling!  We make manufacturers tell us how much salt is in a can of peas, but we are not told that there is mercury in the stuff they use to fill our teeth.

 

I had been suffering for years from a myriad of unexplained and what seemed to be unrelated health issues such as: heat intolerance, vertigo, chronic mononucleosis, migraine headaches, pressure headaches at night, TMJ, hormone disturbances, low blood sugar, rapid aging, arthritis, back pain, joint pain, severe muscle cramps in my legs, weird vibrating in my feet, eyelid twitching that drove me nuts, low thyroid levels, memory problems, confusion, foggy thinking, irritability, hot flashes, night sweats, muscle pain, leg cramps, numbness and pain in my hands, chemical sensitivities, horrible red pus-filled welts on my cheeks, rashes, weird headaches, depression and no hope for the future, tail bone pain, overwhelming fatigue, surgery on both eyes for early senile cataracts at age 49, and even a malignant melanoma on my back in 1979, plus other stuff I cant remember right now.  

 

My memory was so bad I couldnt remember for two seconds whether I had just locked a door or if I had fed the dog.  I would look at the dog to try to determine if he looked hungry.  He always wants to eat and so always looks hungry.  Day after day I would walk out my kitchen door, lock it, walk six feet to my car, get in, and then have to get out to check whether I had locked the kitchen door.  Could not remember doing it, and sometimes I didn't lock it.  I would even drive back home after going part way to work because I had absolutely no recollection of locking the door. 

Depression was threatening my very survival.  Suicide at some point in my life was certainly a real option.  Hormonal imbalances deprived me of sleep, made my days unbearable, and my emotions a roller coaster ride.  Back pain, head aches, fibromyalgia type pain, foot pain, knee pain, tail bone pain, even ear pain were destroying any qualify of life I might enjoy.  Heat intolerance and chilling easily with violent sneezing, made just doing normal everyday activities challenging.  The future was something I dreaded, health deteriorating and aging at an accelerated rate, feeling 87 years of age when I was only 57 years old.  People in my family, especially the women, live into their late 90s.  Why would I look forward to 40 more years of what was happening to me?

 

My former dentists had all scoffed at the idea that silver mercury amalgam fillings could be the source of many of my problems.  At this point, I was not to be put off again by scoffing dentists.  I had determined the course I was going to take.  I read everything I could get my hands on, made notes, and I knew exactly what I wanted done and basically how I wanted it all done.  I had myself tested for heavy metals by both hair and urine analysis.  I had my test results in hand that showed extremely high levels of mercury.  All I needed was someone to do the removal safely and follow as many of the guidelines for safe removal as possible.  In order to pay for everything, I refinanced my house.

 

I knew that dentists were not allowed to advertise about mercury fillings or talk about the possible dangers of them.  So, I wrote to about 20 dentists that I found in the phone book in the Fresno area, who seemed like they might be inclined to replace old amalgam fillings with non-metal materials.  I also interviewed a couple of dentists that my doctor and his nurse practitioner went to.  They were not supportive of my quest.   I didnt know about the DAMS organization at that time.  

One local dentist actually called me in response to my letter and said he would do the removal.  He insisted that I get a Serum Compatibility Test done first to be sure we didnt use some other material that might cause problems with my immune system or anything.  That sounded good to me.  I went ahead with the test.  He was very careful and conservative and took as many precautions as possible to keep me from further exposure.  The removal was successful and I didnt suffer any additional damage in the process.  I found a second dentist to replace the crowns as the first one wanted to use a material with gold in it.  I didnt even want gold in my teeth.  No more metal of any kind in my teeth.

 

Before amalgam removal the urine heavy metals test done with a provoking agent showed very high levels of mercury and high levels of tin and aluminum too.  The hair analysis did not show high mercury levels but did show that most of my essential minerals were totally out of balance.  It also showed that I had extremely high levels of uranium, and other heavy metals associated with amalgam were high.  I also took a hormone saliva test which showed that my hormone levels were practically non-existent.  No wonder I was taking long naps all during the day and it took me two or three days to recuperate from any activity, even the fun stuff.  I had to space out my life into increments with one day to do an activity and then allow for two days of rest before another activity.  

 

It was a wonder I was functioning at all.  Some months after all the removal procedures were done I had the same tests run again and the results were all so much better with many of them at normal levels and the mercury and other heavy metals showing at very low or zero levels.  This was very gratifying.  The best part was that I was also feeling much better too.  The extreme tiredness started to lift and I could do more activities and take on more projects.  This was just in time as I have elderly parents who really need me now to do their shopping and to take them to appointments.  I have to drive 65 miles into the foothills just to get to their house, and then do everything they need and then drive home again.  I couldnt have done it a few years ago.  Now I can and it isnt killing me in the process.  

 

I am so much better these days, three years into post amalgam removal and ongoing chelation therapy.  I have hope for the future and I no longer feel like an 87 year old woman.  My memory is better for daily life but still not up to taking on working in a stressful office environment.  As I just turned 61, the prospect of ever working in a stressful office again is remote at best anyway.  Most of the physical ailments I had been enduring are fading or totally gone.  I still have some arthritis and hormone issues.  I no longer dread getting older and facing continuous suffering on a daily basis.  

 

I look forward to gracefully aging and enjoying my twilight years. Life is so much better in so many ways.  I am grateful for the improvements that I have experienced and I will continue on with my quest to remove as much of the remaining mercury in my system as possible.  I am no longer teetering on the brink of becoming diabetic or ending up with Alzheimers or becoming a suicide statistic.  

This all takes research, caution, persistence, and patience.  I would do it all again in a heartbeat, too.  But, it just shouldn't be this difficult for someone to improve their health or to keep themselves healthy in the first place.  Most people simply are not up to doing what I did to save myself and get my health back.  And, it just should never have happened to me to begin with.  My life was ruined by this.  I lived a half life for many years and I am only just now recovering from it at the age of 61.  This is all completely preventable which makes it criminal that it is happening to millions of people every day without their knowledge

 

Please save other people from living their lives under such horrible conditions with so many physical and mental handicaps.  Stop the use of mercury in amalgam fillings.  There are so many other materials available for use in our teeth.  I have no metal left in my teeth whatsoever, even in my six crowns.  My numerous fillings are all composite materials that do not contain metal.  All amalgam was removed from beneath old crowns when crowns were replaced.

 

This is such a primitive and heartless practice, filling our teeth with a toxic material and leaving it there for decades right under our brains.  I was robbed of healthy, active, pain free, joyful, and prosperous decades of my life.  Nearly two-thirds of my life was spent living at a half life level or even below that.  Do not do this to any more people.

 

Full disclosure is mandatory and necessary when putting things in peoples mouths on a permanent basis.  Childrens brains should never be exposed to this toxic material.  No wonder they misbehave, are hyperactive, do not do well in school, suffer from autism at unprecedented rates, have horrible cancers, experience rage, psychopathic tendencies, and kill their families and friends.   This is all while they re children!   Then they turn into abusers, killers, road ragers, have fertility issues, suffer miscarriages, have damaged babies with horrible disabilities, can't keep jobs due to mental instability, can't remember anything, have foggy disjointed thinking, join crazy cults, shoot their families, kill their co-workers, drive at 100 mph, drive their cars into crowds of people, fill up institutions for the insane, live under freeway overpasses talking to themselves, suffer from bi-polar disease and maybe kill themselves as my 27 year old niece did five years ago.

 

Mercury is a known neuro toxin which does horrendous things to living cells.  Yet, our society keeps okaying its use in our teeth, even very young children.  Stop this insanity, now, not down the road, right now, this minute.  Just ban the use of mercury amalgam in teeth immediately, no phase outs, just stop it now.   Everybody has had plenty of time to see this coming, they have been warned.  If they didnt pay attention, that is their problem.  They didnt want it to be true.  It is another one of those Inconvenient Truths.  The ADA, the dentists, the dental schools, the manufacturers will all figure out alternatives real quick when they get the word that it is over.  

 

Stop destroying innocent lives.  Stop escalating the health crisis in this country.  Between myself and some of the people that I know and talk to about this, we alone account for many, many thousands of dollars spent on health care, lost productivity, destroyed lives, destroyed families, and the devastation on families when suicide happens.  Multiply that out to the general population and the impact that mercury toxicity is having on the health of our population is staggering.  Just eliminating mercury amalgam could bring the health crisis to a near standstill or at least to a manageable level.  

 

Mercury is killing people including a 75 year old friend of mine.  They cannot find anything physically wrong with her to account for all of her symptoms that have really hit hard in the past 3 or 4 months.  She had a long list of medical problems before this current stuff started too.  They say all the recent mental issues are all in her head.  Loss of appetite, fainting, dizziness, blood disorder causing blood clots, ulcers, kidney problems, gall bladder surgery, migraines, impatience, couldnt wait for more than a few minutes, couldnt deal with children in restaurants, intolerance of heat and light, intolerance of other people, road rage back when she could drive, hypothyroid, hypoglycemia, chronic bronchitis, cataracts ten years ago, memory issues and sentence forming problems, no sense of time passing, delusional, depression, no hope, no will to live.  

 

I tried to tell her, maybe a year ago and then again six months ago, back before this got so bad that she could very well be mercury toxic.  She brushed me off.  She didnt want to talk about it.  She kept eating tuna.   She went to her very nice dentist who wouldnt dream of hurting her.  She had some dental work done in the past year and she went down hill in just the past few months.  This is not just garden variety dementia.  The mental health clinic where she spent a week or so said they cant help her as she wont do what they want her to do.  Her doctors and family are at a total loss as to what to do to help her.  Her current doctor is a psychiatrist who is trying different medications to try to control some of her symptoms.  No medication can overcome the effects of mercury.  She will no doubt end up in a nursing home and I doubt if she will last very long.  

 

It is sad, disturbing, and I feel, totally unnecessary for this to happen.  How many more older and otherwise, people are there out there who are already in and will continue to fill up nursing homes with things such as Alzheimers, dementia, MS, Parkinsons, lupus, autism, immune disorders, blood disorders, cancers, neurological disorders, inability to live on their own, delusional and other personality disorders, bipolar disorder, sociopathic tendencies, suicidal tendencies, depression, and all the rest. 

 

Someone has to take a stand on this.  Someone has to be the one to say enough is enough.  The insanity has to stop.  The lobbying to protect the continued use of mercury has to stop.  The poisoning has to stop.  Big business raking in huge profits at the expense of the general population has to stop.  The ADA has to be put back in its legitimate place as merely an association of dentists committed to providing information to dentists.  It should never have been allowed to become such a powerful entity committed to pushing to keep mercury amalgam in use when everybody has always known it is highly toxic.  Yes, everybody, for at least the past 200 years has known it is extremely toxic, the second most toxic substance known on the planet.  Yet it keeps being inserted into the teeth of unsuspecting children, pregnant women, and the rest of us.

 

Stop the madness.  It wasnt called mad hatters disease for nothing.  They knew what they were talking about even back then when mercury was used in the making of felt hats.  But it wasnt in their teeth.  They were just using it in a solution.  Stop using mercury in teeth.  Stop the spread of mad hatters disease, only this time it is coming from our teeth.  Stop toxic teeth disease.

 

Please be the one.

 

From a concerned amalgam illness sufferer who wants to stop the same thing from happening to anybody else.

L. Foster in California