I just have two amalgam (mercury) fillings left in my mouth (yay!) I had 11 amalgam fillings in my mouth when I started having most of my dental work done last year. (started in April or May of last year) It's taken me a year to get nine of those teeth worked on.

I've been getting the amalgams removed 3 at a time. I wanted the amalgam OUT of my mouth, and I had a few dental issues that needed attention. (the amalgam fillings were really old, and very high mercury content according to my dentist)

The amalgam was actually causing my teeth to crack. Hot and cold food would make the amalgam expand and contract and was causing me problems to no end. The first 3 had some serious infection in them, but werent to the point of a root canal, but did cause me some MS problems last year. (vision, and serious numbness problems happened just after getting those worked on)

The next set had some infection in it too, but only caused a few minor problems after getting it replaced with composite fillings.

The last set that I had worked on went ridiculously easy, or so I thought. A month after having those teeth taken care of, one of them had a serious abscess. Painfully serious. That was when I had to have the root canal. That tooth is the one that I blame ALL of my MS problems for the past 3 years. (I blame it for setting off my first exacerbations, optic neuritis in 2006)

It had actually been infected for awhile (I'm guessing since 2004 or 2005), and I'd been ignoring it and hoping it would go away. I guess I ignored it a bit too long, and after having the amalgam removed and switched with composite, one of those cracks in the tooth allowed a big abscess to form.

That's when I started to notice problems with prioproception in my right foot. Foot doesnt seem to be numb much, just confused as to where it is at times.

I got my crown last week and I'm hoping the prioproception problems go away now that my mouth is mostly healthy now.

I told my dentist that I'm going to wait till next winter to get the last two amalgams removed (along with what used to be my only composite filling my former dentist did) I've just had so much dental work in the last year that I dont want to see my dentist for awhile...except for a couple of teeth cleanings... She said she didnt see any problem with that.

I do feel so much better now that I've gotten rid of most of the mercury fillings. I dont think it has anything to do with the mercury...at least not much to do with it. I think it was mostly the infections that I had in my teeth that were making me feel sick all the time, and what were firing off the MS exacerbations.

I've noticed that some other possible MS problems in my body seemed to get a lot better since the dental abscess got taken care of. (umm...it's TMI, but we'll just say that bathroom issues and girl issues are not as much of an issue for me as they had been)

I also feel better physically (not as worn down feeling, and not as MS-ish as I was feeling) I just hope that the dental issues got taken care of before they started causing more than just MS problems. (dental infections can affect your heart)

I still have numbness in some areas, and I'm guessing that those tingles might be permanent since I've had them for so long.

I cant wait to visit my neuro in a couple of months to tell him that it feels like things have improved since taking care of my teeth. I just hope that improvement stays for a long time.

I now try to suggest to any MSers that are having problems to check their teeth along with the rest of their body to make sure there are no infections setting off their problems. I've noticed that neurologists seems to forget or ignore the fact that dental infections can cause MS issues too.

I'm starting to wish I hadnt been so lazy in getting my teeth dealt with when they first started to cause me problems. Maybe I wouldnt have had that bad case of optic neuritis that affected my vision for over a year. Maybe it would have been milder and not as painful.