DR:  My parents were both dentist

JANINE:  Wow!  Thewhole family.

DR:  Actually it’s an interesting story; well Iwon’t get into it.

JANINE:  No you’ve got time.

DR:  I have a copy of my grandfather’s diplomafrom 1923, from his dental school.  They lived in Romania but they went to schoolin Germany.

My grandfather and grandmother were set up ona blind date.  My grandmother went tomedical school; she was probably one of the first women in medical school.  Then she went back to dental school to helpmy but the story that I wanted to tell you is that my grandparents were inEurope during the Holocaust.

Both of them had eight or nine brothers and sisters, marriedwith many children and all those families were lost, and my grandparents, mymom and my mom’s sister were the only ones that survived and made it toPalestine, at that time.

I grew up in a different place.  I grew up in Israel until I was 10.  Then I came here, but even if you grew uphere, the mentality was different.   Going to the dentist regularly only became ahabit in the 60’s and 70’s. When I grew up water was not fluoridated. 

So I came here and my mom took me to the dentist and helooked at me with a big smile on his face and said, “Son you have 16 cavities.”

JANINE:  Is it true that old silver fillings areactually leaking mercury into your body?

DR:  We can listen to many different theoriesabout it.  I personally, especially comingfrom a scientific family, I’ve never seen any hard core proof. 

If you know your Chemistry, you know you can take twocompounds and put them together forming a third compound.  When the third compound starts breaking downit is not breaking down into two separate compounds again.  It’s just breaking down as a third compound.  So what we have in our mouth is called silveramalgam.  And amalgam is just acombination of, yes, it does have mercury and silver, but they’re locked in astructure that can’t breakdown. 

Overall it’s healthier to change out old silver fillings,because they are only meant to last 10 or 15 years.  What ends up happening is if you don’treplace them they break and when they break, they take a chunk of tooth with itand then you go from needing a small filling to needing a crown.

JANINE:  I’ve been there done that.  That’s exactly what happened to me.

DR:  This ends up costing eight to ten times as muchso you definitely have a benefit in replacing old fillings.  You get the aesthetic benefit because today’sfillings are tooth colored and the bondage fillings are not necessarily stronger,than the silver, but the strength is in the wear, and they don’t reallybreak.  That’s a huge benefit because wedon’t want you breaking teeth.

JANINE:  That’s not fun…could be painful.

CONTACT INFO:

Ron Zeidler D.M.D., Cosmetic, Reconstructive & Implant Dentistry,  Zeidler & Zeidler Dental Corporation.

email - zeidlerdental@pacbell.net  -  tel. 310.552.2724

10231 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite D, W. Los Angeles, CA 90067.