Visiting a dentist

I’ll be starting a Korean class on Thursday, so I took my last opportunity to go to the dentist today – I had a cavity in my lower right canine.

The dentist’s office was impressive. In the dentist’s char, he had a flat panel TV for me to watch while the anesthetic kicked in (I watched the Korean summit). His work was excellent, too – I can’t even tell that my tooth even has a filling. Korea’s national health insurance paid most of the bill; we paid only the ~$50 copayment.

He said something that sort of bothered me, though. He said the two molar fillings I got a while back (in 1997 or so) were of really cheap quality – due to the mercury content, the U.S. is the only developed country that still uses that style. Mercury!

So that has be curious – is it true the U.S. is the only country that uses this style of filling? Is it because insurance industry doesn’t want to foot the bill for decent fillings? And is it possible that there’s mercury in my mouth that can have an impact on my long term health?

I have an uncle who’s a dentist. I’ll have to ask him.