When I went to this dentist he told me he’d be fine working around my health sensitivity issues. I recently needed a crown and asked for a gold alloy. When it was done, I asked about the alloy that was used and he told me that the lab never sent it. I asked him to obtain it, which he did. Here is what I found out:
35% Palladium
30% Indium
30% Silver
3% Zinc
2% Gold
I was shocked that only 2% of it was gold. Plus, the amount of palladium and indium worry me because of my health issues. I mentioned this to my dentist and he said there were no apparent issues. I’m guess by that he meant there are no obvious signs of allergies on my gums. Are these materials a concern or am I safe?
Brenda
Dear Brenda,
Palladium is present in almost all dental crown alloys. There have not been any documented or verified allergies to it. Indium I had to do additional research on. I didn’t know as much about because it usually is not used in such high percentages as it is in your alloy. It’s generally found at under 5%. However, what I found did not indicate there were any known allergies to it.
So why did your dentist have it at such a high percentage? Palladium is a hard metal so he would need something to soften it up. I think that accounts for the high Indium and Silver percentages.
Given your sensitivities, you should be concerned about any alloys and keep an eye on them. The good news is if you were, there would generally be irritability at the spot where your gums touch the crown. Because you are not seeing that, I would consider that a good sign.
All that being said, I am concerned about your dentist’s sense of ethics. First, saying he did not have the alloy certificate is suspicious. Labs are required by law to send them to the dentist who is supposed to place them in the patient’s chart. You can even see that instruction on the bottom of the certificate I posted above. Either he is lying because he knew he gave you a cheap alloy instead of what you asked for or he is horrible about his record keeping. Neither of those are good for patients.
Second, he didn’t exactly give you the gold alloy you asked for. There are two requirements to be considered a gold alloy:
1. It must have at least 60% of a combination of gold, platinum, palladium, and silver.
2. It needs to have at least 40% gold.
If we do the math for yours, with the gold, palladium, and Silver it comes in at 67%, which is a good amount. However, your crown comes way short on the gold requirement. Yours only has 2%. He’s doing a cheaper crown than what you asked for. Sometimes when patients are looking for affordable dental care, they end up with a cheap dentist instead. Believe me, there is a big difference between cheap and affordable. Cheap dentists are either low on skills and need to keep their prices super low in order get new patients as they lose old ones, or they cut corners and give their patients subpar materials. It looks like yours falls on the subpar end.
So, what should you do? My suggestion is if you show any symptoms of a sensitivities is to demand the dentist replace it with a proper high noble alloy free of charge.
This blog is brought to you by Decatur, AL Dentists Drs. Drake and Wallace.