{"id":36,"date":"2011-07-29T11:14:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T15:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/?p=36"},"modified":"2011-07-29T11:15:55","modified_gmt":"2011-07-29T15:15:55","slug":"replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Replace amalgam fillings with white ones?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is it advisable to replace old amalgam (silver) fillings with white composite ones? I recently changed dentists and my new dentist advised doing this at a cost of about $3600. I haven&#8217;t had any problems with the existing fillings that I am aware of.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks,<\/p>\n<p>Alex in Boston<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Dear Alex,<\/p>\n<p>It depends. If your older amalgam fillings are &#8220;leaky fillings,&#8221; meaning that they have deteriorated with age and there are now gaps between the filling and the tooth that can allow bacteria to seep in and cause tooth decay under the filling. This can lead to serious problems. However, a dentist should not recommend replacing a filling unless there is a problem. There is no reason to replace an amalgam filling just because it is amalgam. Some patients choose to do this for cosmetic reasons or because they are concerned about the level of mercury in the fillings. But this should be a choice of the patient, never something the dentist tries to get them to do if the filling is intact. For the record, there have never been any documented health effects related to mercury in amalgam fillings. (Learn more about <a title=\"Lowell White Fillings\" href=\"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/white-fillings\/\" target=\"_blank\">white composite versus amalgam (silver) fillings<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is it advisable to replace old amalgam (silver) fillings with white composite ones? I recently changed dentists and my new dentist advised doing this at a cost of about $3600. I haven&#8217;t had any problems with the existing fillings that I am aware of. Thanks, Alex in Boston<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[23,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-36","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-white-fillings","7":"tag-leaky-fillings","8":"tag-old-fillings","9":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Replace amalgam fillings with white ones? - Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Replace amalgam fillings with white ones? - Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is it advisable to replace old amalgam (silver) fillings with white composite ones? I recently changed dentists and my new dentist advised doing this at a cost of about $3600. I haven&#8217;t had any problems with the existing fillings that I am aware of. Thanks, Alex in Boston\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-29T15:14:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-29T15:15:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"AllSmiles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"AllSmiles\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Replace amalgam fillings with white ones? - Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Replace amalgam fillings with white ones? - Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog","og_description":"Is it advisable to replace old amalgam (silver) fillings with white composite ones? I recently changed dentists and my new dentist advised doing this at a cost of about $3600. I haven&#8217;t had any problems with the existing fillings that I am aware of. Thanks, Alex in Boston","og_url":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/","og_site_name":"Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog","article_published_time":"2011-07-29T15:14:07+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-07-29T15:15:55+00:00","author":"AllSmiles","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"AllSmiles","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/","url":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/","name":"Replace amalgam fillings with white ones? - Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-07-29T15:14:07+00:00","dateModified":"2011-07-29T15:15:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8d711457dbe058686ca50a64f3091c35"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/replace-amalgam-fillings-with-white-ones\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Replace amalgam fillings with white ones?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/","name":"Lowell Cosmetic Dentistry Blog","description":"Your cosmetic dentistry questions answered","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8d711457dbe058686ca50a64f3091c35","name":"AllSmiles","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4871feb8d40502b614db766f8d98ebe87cf929ac5d4f943528110b3f2d298e54?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4871feb8d40502b614db766f8d98ebe87cf929ac5d4f943528110b3f2d298e54?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"AllSmiles"},"url":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/author\/allsmiles\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drszarek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}