Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Cavities

Episode Date: April 12, 2019

Dr. Sydnee finally took a much belated trip to the dentists office and she and Justin are celebrating in the only way they know how: Digging through all the retched ways we've tried to fix teeth since the dawn of time. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. I'm a man. I'm

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For the mouth Hello, Irvindyan welcome to saw bones a metal tour of Miss guy to medicine. I'm your co-host just a macaroni And I'm Sydney Mac Roy Everyone, please join me in welcoming the hero of the day Bravis gal. I know Dr. Sydney Mac a Roy hooray for Sydney Thank you, Jess. I think I'm gonna pause button wait. Hold on. I think I'm gonna pause but wait hold on. I got It's it's around here some home. I think I'm gonna pause button. Wait, hold on. I think I'm gonna pause button. Wait, hold on. I got it. It's around here. I think I got it in the pause button. Hold on. Is that... that's a rim shot.

Get that. Get that. That's the music. Hold on. I got it. I'm sorry. I don't have it all anymore. Imagine there's a pause. Thank you, Justin. Come on, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, I It's overdidated. Yes. I mentioned on the show, I mentioned on the show a while ago that had been a long time since I'd been to the dentist. Oh, I'm a kid. I got some emails from some of our dear listeners who were very concerned about me. They were emails of concern.

I tried to make it. You should go to the dentist is what they were all saying. I tried to make it a max fund drive stretch goal that if we hit 25,000 new and upgraded donors, did we go to the dentist? But I'd already made an appointment at that point. That's right. Yes, because I realized that was true and I needed to take care of my teeth.

So I went to the dentist. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I mean, the experience was not bad at all, but like my dental situation was not as bad. Cindy's a fastidious brusher. She's like a DIY, you know, survivalist approach to healthcare that she's going to do it all right. Because I never wanted to have to go to the dentist and to be fair, I will note, and this

is not a unique problem, but I think it is worth mentioning that a lot of people neglect their oral health in terms of going to the dentist regularly because they don't have dental insurance. And that was the beginning of the problem for me. After I was off of my parents insurance, I didn't have dental insurance, so I didn't go, because I couldn't afford it for a long time. Now, obviously, we've had dental insurance longer than I have. I have a few years.

Yes, then I have gone. So I didn't have a good excuse for a while, but many people in this country suffer from the fact that they don't have dental insurance, and it's very expensive sometimes, depending on what work you need. But not you, I mean, that wasn't your excuse. No, that wasn't my excuse recently.

So I wanna talk about cavities or dental carries, you prefer. I don't. Same thing. Everybody says cavities. Because I had a few, and I've had some filled, I will return next month to finish the job. Man, I wish they could just numb my home out

and do it all at once. Just get it over with. Friends, I did go with Sydney to the dentist's office to provide moral support. She was very strong and brave to the entire experience. I was very proud. It's, I do not like not knowing everything in these situations. I'm used to, I go to the doctor and I kind of already know what's going on

and I know the deal that it was very uncomfortable. Yeah. Not no. So I empathize with with all of my patients now. That's my best. Yeah, thank you Jenny and Jillian and Joe for suggesting. I like that. That triple. Yeah, I love love that Justin for making me go to the dentist Jesus for creating dentistry. No, no No, not and Judy Woodruff you dentists are my dentists. Thank you Dr. Tady. Thank you Judy The history of tooth decay goes back a very long time, but it is probably not Well, probably not necessarily as long as you would think, because it looks like as we go back into like our pre-homo sapien ancestors and some of early humans that teeth actually did pretty well for a long time. We don't find lots of old skulls with lots of dental decay, as you would think, right?

Because there was no dentistry happening. But there weren't a lot of cavities. It seems like in the neolithic period is when this changed. That was about around 10,000 years ago. We start to see this huge uptick in the number of cavities we find. And in dental decay and cavities, we find in these old skulls. And so a lot of people have tried to figure out like, why? Why all of a sudden did everybody's teeth get so bad? They invented nerds. That is. Everybody was just wild for them.

There have been a lot of suggestions that farming could be the reason that we see this is about the same time that farming started to occur. So you see these kind of hunter-gatherer society settling down and growing grains and carbs and that's the, a lot of people have tried to link it to that. Like, is it the carbohydrate-rich diet of the farming communities that led to a lot more dental decay? And there's some support for that because there's a bacteria, for instance, streptococcus mutants, which mainly eats carbohydrates sugars. And we'll turn it into this, they leave behind this acid after they eat the sugar, they leave behind an acid that can eat away at your enamel.

So if you're eating a lot more grains, this bacteria is going to thrive in your mouth, you're going to eat away at your enamel, you're going to get more cavities. But that doesn't always work. They've looked at different societies around the globe and other farming communities. This wasn't necessarily a one-to-one relationship. So partially it's the diet. There's been some other suggestions.

If you look at the difference in dental decay between male skeletons and female skeletons, they find that female dental health was way worse. I wonder if people who were adhered very strictly to a paleo diet would have less problems or fewer problems? I don't know. Maybe it'd be interesting to see, but they've also suggested that it might have something to do with people who could become pregnant.

Pregnancy creates hormonal changes that can make you more likely to have issues with dental decay and cavities and that kind of thing. So they've suggested that when communities settled down into little farming places and stayed in one place for a long time, we see that fertility increased. People had more babies because they were staying in one place. And these people who became pregnant maybe have had more cavities because they were becoming pregnant more and more of these woman.

So is that why? Anyway, one way or another, about 10,000 years ago our teeth got bad and they've been bad ever since. Sorry, teeth. For a lot of human history, we thought that worms were the reason. And they were.

No. Thanks everybody for joining us this week on Salva. No, and I think it's funny because I was thinking like, oh, this will be a gross thing that everybody will forget about. We used to think worms lived in our teeth. I've read there are actually, this is actually still a common question. You see on like question and answer forums online. Just say, yeah, who answered Sydney. It's okay. How do I get rid of the worms in my teeth? How do I get rid of the worms in my teeth? Uh, tooth worms do not cause cavities, but we have thought that since ancient times. What did, well, what do tooth worms cause?

There aren't tooth worms. Oh, well, see though, it was a very misleading phrase. Two thorns are your friend. They repair cavities with their viscous mucus. No, there are no tooth worms. It's, it's weird though, because you see this concept of toothworms spanning different cultures. Like it has arisen spontaneously all over the globe throughout history. And everybody has a different kind of idea of like exactly what the worm looks like or what it does.

But the worm is pretty prevalent in our idea of why our teeth had holes, which I mean, it sort of just makes sense. Like it's a little teeny hole. It looks like something burrowed it. Maybe a worm. Maybe I was a worm. Maybe I was a worm. Some of the oldest evidence of this comes from a Babylonian tablet, a Q&A form tablet, which has what is called the legend of the worm on it. The legend of the worm, my favorite kid rock album. And it basically there's this, the marsh created the worm and the worm went weeping and said, what am I going to eat? I'm paraphrasing, I'm not going to read this whole thing. And he said, the worm said, lift me up and among the

teeth and the gums caused me to dwell. The blood of the tooth, I will suck and of the gum, I will not, it's roots. the ancient legend of the worm. I don't know that I'm going to set that to music anytime soon. The, the reason in part is the little hole, I think it looks sort of like a little warm hole. The other reason we think, amazing inner-cellular travel is possible in your mouth. In your mouth. That it's probably also because if you remove

whole diseased parts of teeth like big chunks of decay, it can kinda look like worms. Kinda look wormy. Squirmy wormy. I don't like this. I've recently realized I don't like talking like this or anything like that. I mean, it's unpleasant.

One time I was eating a granola bar and a piece of my tooth broke off in it. And I was just like chewing on a piece of my tooth and I still think about that a lot. I'm really sorry. Yeah, it was hard. It was on a plane too, so I couldn't just like stand up, like I quit life. Everyone, it's too hard. I've decided I've been through a lot of things, but this is too far.

I can't I handle life. The last tooth that I lost, it came out when I was eating one of those Oreo cookie bars, you know, the cereal bar things. Last one I lost in the bar. I have told Cindy this many times, but I live in legitimate dread of the day when our children start losing their teeth. That was the gnarliest process for me, and I have like a lot of issues with it. I cannot think about, oh, luckily it does not bother me. So I will handle that. It's good. I will handle that part of of trying. Are you going to be, can I ask you this?

Are you going to be like a ganket out of their head type? Are you going to be like, do the floss on the, I'm wondering, we have not dipped into this since like, it's not been an issue for us as parents yet. I'm wondering if some of the gnarly stuff our parents are into is one of those things where you like look back on it now and everybody's like, no, don't do this. Don't try the floss to the tooth and then slam the door knob.

My parents didn't do anything like that. They just said like, it'll come out when it comes out, try not to swallow it. My parents would do it with a wash cloth. I hate this. I wanna talk to you. Let's not. Well, even the show.

I'm sorry, people are like me. This isn't the show. You took us in a different direction. I hate this. I want to talk to you. Let's not. Well, even the show are like me. This isn't the show. You took us in a different direction. I'm talking about the back of the room. The tooth worm, the fictional tooth worm. Yeah. Why are you doing air quotes when you say fictional sitting? I don't understand. You folks can't see this.

I'm not. I'm not. So this is like the penis bone art. It was the part of it was the whole that it left. And then the other part is that maybe it kind of looked like Worms, maybe the part that was left behind after they would remove a tooth sort of look like worms one way or another people He said this was the worst and it killed me and you're saying it again. I thought that there was a tooth worm They thought that a toothache was when the worm wriggled around Sure, that's what you were feeling and and like I said, in different places, it looked different ways.

And British folklore, it looks like an eel. The German thought it was like a maggot and it was red, blue, and gray. Either way, we finally figured out in the 18th century Pierre Foshard, who is known as the father of modern dentistry. I fought him hard for that, but congratulations, Peter. He was the one who said, I think that decay of our teeth has something to do with sugar. And this idea was built upon until we figured out

that it has to do with bacteria in the mouth, that live on sugar and that kind of thing, that causes tooth decay and it has nothing to do with a tooth worm. But it really, you will find this all the way up into the 20th century, people who are still arguing for the existence of a tooth worm. And today, I think there is still people hear these whispers and think like, is this something I missed? Was I just never taught this? But there are no tooth worms. Do not worry. There were these electron photograph, microscopic electron microscope pictures

that they took of the tooth once within the last decade or so. Where they looked at the tooth really closely and they saw these teeny little worm like structures in there and everybody freaked out and went, were we wrong? Was it really a worm? It was not in fact a worm.

It's some sort of, they're not sure, like some sort of, they're not sure. Maybe, anyway, it's fact a worm. It's some sort of, they're not sure, like some sort of, they're not sure. Maybe. Anyway, it's not a worm. The point is it's not a worm. It's not a worm. You know what it is? Hey, it's me science.

We don't know what it is, but it's probably not worms. Now, everybody joked about it because it was like, oh, we were wrong. There's a tooth worm. It's not. It's not a tooth worm, but you'll find this study at science. So what is it?

Scientists found it very funny. We're still not 100% sure. But the scientists found it warm. Dentists got a big kick out of it. So as soon as we started getting cavities, we started trying to fix them. We have found evidence that we attempted to drill out, or well, initially not drill out, but scrape out,

I should say cavities, 14,000 years ago. We found a skull with a decaying tooth, and there was some marks on it. There were some marks on the tooth on the biting surface of the tooth that looked deliberate. They looked like they had been kind of scraped away at. And it looks like something called a microlyth, which was like a little flint blade that would have been used for different things that may have been used to make these marks on this teeth. I found, as I was reading about this, I found this note that there was a research team

at the University of Bologna who tried, they experimented with modern teeth and similar sorts of micro-lists to confirm that they could have made such marks, which I like the passive way that is worded. They experimented with modern teeth. Mm, wink. Oh, you're gonna scull, though.

I'm assuming. I just like the idea that somebody volunteered. Yeah, you can scrape my teeth with that ancient micro-lift. With that old rock, go for it. You know what, I am nasty. You know what the sad thing is? That's the state of like dental care in the United States.

That's a state not, not on the dentist, but on our insurance, on our crappy insurance system where people don't have insurance. You know somebody would be like, I got a cavity and I can't afford to go get it filled. Will you micro-lyth my to? Yeah. Anyway, so they tried and they thought this is probably it. The dental drill is super old. Yeah, I was shocked.

You mentioned this to me. You're researching. The dental drill is somewhere between 9,000 and 7,500 years old. You believe that? It's older than pants. Yeah. Pants are 3,000 years old. I heard it every little thing.

Well, there you go. So older than pants, the dental drill. Older than pants. Now, of course, the drill that they would have used 9,000 years ago is not anything like the drill. I hope that they used on me this week. I don't know. You look at their tools back there and they still look pretty, pretty haggard. They found in a neolithic graveyard in what is now Pakistan, they found all of these different

skulls with these mollors that had very precise holes in them and they looked, they found all of these different skulls with these molars that had very precise holes in them and they looked like they had been drug. They did not look like something that could have been scraped. It looked like something that would have been done with some sort of drilling tool. They think it was probably something called a bow drill. This is like some sticks and a sharp stone and a cord and you think about it looking like a but like an archer bow, you know, and then you're going to wrap it around the stick and hold it perpendicular. Do you kind of get what I'm saying? And so it'll twist in there and then it will provide more torque. Yes. And that and you would rotate that and that would that would cause the drill to work.

And then you've got the stone on the end of it, of the stick for the cutting part. Again, they tried this, and they found that it did make holes that look like the holes in these teeth. So the dental drill, maybe like 9,000 years old. Of course, people are still, we can't confirm that for sure. Some people are like, I don't know,

this could have just been hammering, maybe like something pointed and a hammer and just like kind of pounded in there. So after we got these all drilled out, what would we, what were we jamming in there? Well, I'm going to tell you that Justin, but first let's go to the billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that I skilled at my car before the mouth. All right. So Justin, you want to know about fillings?

Yeah. That's me. As since we started making holes in teeth, we figured we should put something in there. That's an old idea too. So the first. We made this all. What are we going to do now?

That I like to imagine we figured out the whole part and they were like, Oh, dunk. The whole crap. Okay, look around. There, there was a, we found a human jaw that is 6,500 years old in what is now Slovenia. And as they were doing, they were testing some new 3D imaging out on it. You can test, you test new imaging modalities out on these old skulls and bones and things. And they were checking it out and they found that there was something stuffed in one of the teeth.

It was a map. It was a map to Oak Island. Tiny map. It was the Templars. It was the Templars. It hiding in there. No, it was it was a cap of beeswax. And it looked like it had been put in a little hole to fill the hole. And impermanent but elegant solution to the problem. Well, it makes, it's probably a good choice for the time. Sure. Beeswax, it's pliable and soft. And if you get it warm, well, I mean, it's pliable and soft when you get it warm. But then once you put it in there, body temperature, it would actually harden. So it would be pretty, now I get it replaced frequently, I would guess. I mean, it's hung out in there for 6,500 years. It's a point for a point.

Uh, now granted, I don't think he was chewing much for the majority of that. Yeah, right. Uh, it also may have been somewhat antibacterial, not that they necessarily would have known that, but still not a bad choice. So that is probably the oldest filling. I wanted to make a note, a lot of that information that I've just given you. I usually don't. It was made up. No.

I found this great BBC article by Colin Barris, and I just wanted to make a note. A lot. Man, it was a great article. It's so rare that when I'm doing an episode of Solbundz, I find one article that like really hits a lot of major points. I wanted to mention it. The ancient Egyptians tried filling teeth to the Edwin Smith papyrus. It mentions all kinds of treatments for dental problems as does the Ebers papyrus.

What's the ancient Egyptian do called Edwin Smith? Nuss who found it. Oh, we've talked about this. I know. I know. Some of the some of them are remedies for loose teeth. Some of them are how to either fill the tooth or to like hold it in place. So that you could use like a tooth filling for a whole would have also doubled as something if like a tooth is loose. You would just kind of pack this in there and try to keep it. Right. Because it didn't, you tried not to have your teeth pulled or tried not to lose your teeth.

Sure. That would be a death sentence, not quite, but it can be. So they talk about things like a filling agent, like ground barley and you could mix it with some honey and some yellow ochre and you could either splint the tooth to keep it there or just stick that in a hole that may be in your tooth. They found that there have been there were some cavities that were filled with linen and you might have dipped them first and something like cedar oil or fig juice and like that and then just stuff it in the stuff it in the hole there.

We have found evidence Roses a Persian physician. It would have been alive in the late 800s. It had also been drilling and filling teeth. He used alum and mastic, which is like a gum resin, it's like a resin filling. That's what I have. Not that, not that kind of resin, but a different composite resin, which we'll get into. We also started using, by the middle ages, we were adding things like ground sheet bone, something to add in there, which, I mean, isn't, again, this isn't a wild idea considering that like the resins now might have little glass. We were getting, this almost seems like border more on engineering, which I think we got

good at a lot earlier than we got good at medicine. Well, that's very true, because you didn't, we're trying to fill a hole. Right. We can do that. We can figure that out. We figured out how to make a hole. Yeah. And then a few hundred years later, we figured out how to fill a hole. Yeah, so that's huge. And really, in the mark of human medical history and like that, that is,

that's incredible. That's lightning speed progress. Sure, right. medical history and like that, that is, that's incredible. That's lightning speed progress. Sure, right. So they also found that a gold leaf made a good filling a long time ago. And as you may know, gold has been used to fill teeth. I mean, up to this day, you can get gold fillings. Sure. So that's not, we figured that out a long time ago. A lot of the other treatments, in addition to filling a tooth throughout the medieval period would have been based on the idea that there were toothworms.

We still believed in toothworms. So a lot of the other treatments would have been aimed at trying to get rid of the toothworm. They didn't like to do a lot of invasive stuff in this period in history. You wouldn't want somebody digging around in your mouth, drilling holes and filling cavities. And you tried really hard not to get them pulled.

It was the nastiest period in medical history as far as I'm concerned. It was the worst confluence of understanding and stupidity, I think, where it's just like, I just wouldn't want to be sick in the middle. It's rough. No, I wouldn't want to be sick at any point in human history, but definitely, the closer to now is better. Well, sure, of course, yeah. but definitely like the closer to now is better. Well, sure, of course, yeah.

So they would do things like, I would say non-invasive procedures like a charm. Or, Ah, yes. You know, a spell or a prayer or something like that. Sometimes just bloodletting. You could pray to Saint Apollonia on her feast day and that will cure your toothache.

When's that? February 9th. So you's that? February 9th. So you gotta wait till February 9th. What if you got one of her retains the worst? I'll wait a whole year. There was a charm that involved drawing vertical lines on parchment while touching the painful tooth with one's finger. You could try the beak of a magpie hung from your neck.

Sure. Yeah, why not? You should prick a many-footed worm which rolls up in a ball when you touch it with a needle. So a rolly-poly bug. I'm assuming. I'm assuming in the technical, zoological, the rolly-poly bug. We're potato bug. That one. Pill bug. Pill bug is what I always call them. I call them rolly-poly bugs. All right. That's why I'm again. I just take care of humans, just to care for you. And then actually you would touch the, so after you touched the worm, the, the pulley

bug, you would touch your tooth with that same needle. And that was in that transfer. And remember, we talked about that idea that you could, it was the same idea as why you would strap a chicken to your plague, Boo Bow, to your big infected plague lymph node. The chicken would get the illness. So if you touch the, what you were trying to do was kill the toothworm. Mm. You were transferring the pain from the toothworm to the other worm. Nice. Smart. And then the toothworm would be still. Smart. And stop hurting you. There was no toothworm. Again, I'm going to keep saying that. There is

no toothworm. The treatment of the tooth to keep saying that there is no toothworm. The treatment of the toothworm would vary. Sometimes you would try to smoke the warm out. Nice. By the way, warm. What's up warm? We're going to smoke you out. You would heat some beeswax and hinbane on a piece of iron and then just try to direct that to the cavity. That'd be hard to do. And then you could fill the hole with, in, in, in, actually is a mild narcotic. So this probably did help someone with a pain.

There were other things you could take. There was a candle of sheep suet was a popular treatment, and you would try to burn it near the tooth, and then the thought was that, and then hold some water under it, and you'll watch the worm drop out Into the water. I can't I you would think the first time that didn't work that would be the end You think that about ear canaling too yet here we are it never is And then if everything else failed we've taught we did a whole show on tooth extraction

So I didn't want to belabor that too much. There's a if if you haven't listened to it, I would recommend, it's a wild history of our, we would not just take teeth out. If you haven't listened to it, let me mention, you would go to someone and they probably had no sort of credentialing. I mean, there were a dentist and things who knew how to take care of teeth. But a lot of the people who'd extract teeth

were just like folks. Yeah, just folks like you and me. Just people and they would do it a lot of times in public and you would pay to come watch. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, someone extract teeth and they would do it until like carnival music and they would be quite showy

and they would rip your teeth out and they would often would do a lot of damage because they didn't know how to do it and they were doing it for show. Sure. I always thought I do think it's an interesting point. After they pull your teeth out and they often would do a lot of damage because they didn't know how to do it and they were doing it for show. Sure. I always thought, I do think it's an interesting point. After they pull your teeth out, you would have to buy them back if you wanted to keep them.

Oh, fun. Yeah, they would keep your teeth unless you bought them. And the reason you might, but because you're thinking like, why would I buy my tooth back? Well, one, you might want to try to hold it in place. They would do like a makeshift bridge at the time,

some doctors in Dennis Wood, to try to like keep the tooth in place. The other thing is there was a belief that if you died without all your teeth that you would have to spend resurrection day gathering them back up. And that's a hassle. So you wanted to keep you wanted to die with all your teeth at your side at least if they weren't in your mouth. The the big breakthrough in filling teeth was dental amalgam. Because for a long time, we were using gold. That's kind of pricey, right?

So dental amalgam was first used probably as far back as like 700 CE. So long time ago by Chinese doctors who first mentioned using some sort of an amalgam is a mercury mixed with a metal alloy. That's basically what it is. So anything like that. There's mention of the use of some sort of silver mercury amalgam a very long time ago. The modern use probably started in France and and there was, again, it was a silver-paste sort of material that was being used, some sort of, again, a malgum.

And this was brought over to the United States by the Crock Wars brothers in 1833. When they first started doing this, they were actually making it by mixing like shaved French silver coins with mercury to make the amalgam. The problem is the Croclerc brothers brought this to American dentistry. They called it the Royal Mineral Sukodanium. Sukodanium. Anyway, it was the introduction of a Malcolm to the United States. And a lot of dentists thought this seemed like a good idea

because you could put this in there, it would harden, it was very durable, it lasted, I mean, very long time. And it was easier to work with and easier to find than gold. So this seemed to make a lot of sense to people, this use of a Malcolmgum, the problem is the Crocors brothers were not dentists. They had no idea how to fix teeth. They got this idea from France, they brought it to the US,

they were good at marketing it, good at selling it, but they weren't actually good at doing the dental procedure. Excellent. So because they weren't properly preparing the tooth by removing all the decayed material and they weren't putting it in the right way, they were causing people a lot of problems

that led to a lot of pain, a lot of gum disease, all these issues from it. It actually gave a mahogam a really bad name. Oh, right. Even though it was probably, they actually also weren't brothers. They're always called brothers. It was like a nephew.

It was like a guy and his nephew, an uncle nephew. I don't know. They're always called brothers. Um, anyway, so because of them, a Malgum got this really bad name, and it led to what was known as the Amalgam Wars. Wow.

There were like a faction of dentists who were using this amalgam and saying, look, if you use it properly, it actually works really well. But then there was the overwhelming majority of like the dental society who said, no, no, no, no, no, this is malpractice. You can't use amalgam. It's bad. And it took a long time to overcome the bad reputation of these two guys who brought

it to the US to see that no, no, it's not the Amalgam's fault. It was being used improperly. The Amalgam is actually a good idea. So in 1877, there was a big organized movement where dentists were coming forward and saying, no, this is actually a good idea. I'm doing all these tests. I'm studying it. I'm showing ways to make it that are easier and better and all this kind of stuff. And it eventually was in the later half of the 1800s into the early 1900s that a lot of the other dentists started getting on board. And this would actually lead to the formation of the American Dental Association, all the dentists who came together and said, this is a good thing.

We just have to use it appropriately. If you're curious to make a dental, like a malgum in the office, there's actually like, there's a powder that contains the silver tin and the other metals, and there's some liquid mercury, and they buy these capsules.

Oh, wow. The dentists do, and they contain the powder and the liquid, but they're separated. So in the office, they have to like puncture the cap, they have to puncture the membrane and like, mix them all. Oh, that's cool.

Which is kind of cool. Which means that for dentists, they have to be really careful how to handle these because they have mercury in them. Sure, yeah. Now, once the mercury gets mixed and it becomes the amalgam, it's no longer toxic. Oh, okay. So once it's mixed together, it's okay,

but since they are handling the... The Ross, the Ross stuff. Yeah, the liquid mercury, they have to be careful. I bring all this up because there is a modern concern now about dental amalgams because as I just told you, they include mercury. And as you know, ingesting a large amount of mercury can be poisonous. Now we are all exposed to mercury in our food and water on a regular basis, actually more so than you would be from a dental filling.

But because of this, and I think also because of this kind of leftover concern about amalgams from their early introduction, there's a lot of skepticism and concern about like, now this is mercury and metal. Should you really be putting this in your mouth? So in 2009, the FDA did a huge review of mercury, of amalgam fillings, mercury fillings, and looked over all the evidence and all the cases

and all the studies and everything that showed is there, you know, is there any danger from these fillings or not? And in 2009, the FDA issued a white paper and said, no, we have no evidence that this is dangerous. We have no evidence that you should be avoiding these. They appear to be perfectly safe. The amount of mercury vapor, because that's what you're concerned about, is that over time

these fillings would release mercury vapor and enough to become toxic. What they found is that they released so little, it's not enough to actually do anything to you. And again, you're actually getting more from food and water, and other things out in the environment. You're getting more mercury exposure than you're ever going to get from your mercury fillings. So they've said that they're safe for everybody

over the age six can get an amalgam filling, even pregnant people, because that was a big concern. Mercury and pregnancy is always a big concern. So they've said that they're safe for everybody over the age six can get an amalgam filling, even pregnant people, because that was a big concern, Mercury and pregnancy is always a big concern. They said, generally, we recommend that unless you really have to get some dental work done, you just wait until after the pregnancy is over. That's generally recommended. But if you got to get one, it's still probably fine.

Probably fine, I should say it's still fine. We have no evidence that these fillings are dangerous to you. There have been about a hundred reported cases total of allergies to mercury, of people who've gotten fillings and had allergic reactions. So if you have a known allergy to this, you probably shouldn't get it. But other than that, there's really no reason why you shouldn't get an amalgam filling. You'll find a lot of questionable medical sources on the internet and dental sources

that will tell you that your fillings, if you have them, are the source of every medical problem you have. Of course. That all your aches and pains, and if you have mental illness, or if you have any sort of inflammatory autoimmune, anything like that, they will tell you it is because of the secret mark your

ripoysening from your fillings and you should go have them removed. There is no evidence to back that claim. And dentists would tell you there is no reason to have your fillings removed unless like they're broken or they need replaced and the dentist has told you they need replaced. There's no reason to go get your silver fillings out and put in the newer ones, which there is that option now, they have the composite resin fillings,

which is like I alluded to, that is what I got. I didn't ask for that. They just did it. Did them, they just put them in there. They thought they said they thought I'd want a better cosmetic result. I'm really fine. I don't, their teeth, it's fine.

As long as I'm healthy, I don't care. But they do look, the newer composite resins do look like teeth, like they're white. So some people prefer them for that reason. There's been some question if they're quite as durable as the amalgam fillings, the amalgam fillings, may last a little longer. The composite fillings can still do well, but it may be that if you want something that will last as long as possible, you'd want to go with the amalgam filling, it is silver. If that bothers you, I don't know. I think it looks cool. I got a mouthful of it, baby.

You can still get gold if you want those. Heck yeah. I do think it's cool. Do you know, so when they were putting in my fillings, they shine that blue light in my mouth. Do you remember that? Yes, it was light cured. It's how they set the resin is with a certain wavelength of blue light sets the resin because of the. It was a lot of, just like it looked like a blue,

like you're just trying to blue flashlight in my mouth. It's not, they used UV light initially. Now they don't use UV. It's just a certain wavelength of blue light. Wow and it interacts with the there's these glass ions and anyway It interacts with the composite resin filling to set it. That's cool Yeah, it's really cool the way they do it But you can get those but but the point is there is no reason to fear a malgum It works fine. It unless you have a known allergy, it's cheaper and maybe

more durable. I can imagine if it was right on the front of my tooth or something, I might want it to be the cause of resin. But if you hear people on the internet telling you to go get your fillings removed, don's a lie. Don't don't listen to this. Don't listen to this. That is not the problem. If you are having medical issues, go see a doctor and get evaluated. It is not your fillings. It is not your fillings. Folks, that is going to do it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening to our program. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. So I want to thank the taxpayers for these of our

song medicines as the intro and outro of our program. Thanks the max fund network for having us as a part of their extended podcasting family. And thanks to you for listening to our show. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. If you can take a moment to subscribe to the show and rate it on iTunes, that would really be helpful for us. And thank you for encouraging me to go to the dentist. Yes. Thank you, everybody who emailed me and tweeted at me, Facebook message me, and Justin, thank you. I'm glad I went.

Everyone should go. Go for your regular dental checkups. Your oral health is just as important as the rest of your health, all of your health. All of your health. So take care of your teeth. Go see your dentist. And come see us next week as we record another episode

of Saul Buns. My name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't, Joe Aholl in your head. Alright! Maximumfun.org Comedy and Culture Artists don't? Audience supported.