Hi Mark,

You must speak to your girlfriend and try to get her to change her job. I have a friend who is 55 years old and she had been a dental nurse then a hygienist in NHS dental practices from the age of 16 until about 10 years ago when she had to give up her job due to back problems.

For years doctors couldn't find out what was causing her problems. The discs in her spine had fused together and what with that and other probs things got really bad and she was no longer able to carry on working. She was in pain 24/7.

After I got ill will mercury poisoning she began to wonder whether all those years working with mercury in the surgery may have caused her problems. I had huge problems with my spine when I first got ill and couldn't walk for 18 months without the help of a stick and was in terrible pain all the time. So it got her thinking.

She didn't have many amalgams as she knew that amalgam fillings weren't safe so she always had white or gold fillings, and the few amalgam fillings she had when she was a child she had replaced over the years, but she was still worried.

She went and had a test for heavy metal poisoning and found that her body did in fact have a huge amount of mercury in it..from working with amalgam every day for all those years. Being a dental nurse was something which she had wanted to do for a long time before leaving school and she got her wish. She loved the work. But now, she can't stop blaming herself for what has happened to herself. She knew for a long time that mercury was dangerous..but still carried on in the job, because she loved it. I'm sure your girlfriend knows how dangerous amalgams are too and she will be able to tell you that amalgams in the dental surgery are dealt with as 'toxic waste'. Spillages have to be dealt with 'safely' under special procedures.

If it's a job your girlfriend loves and has wanted to do for a long time, it will be hard to persuade her to change her career but her health must come first. My friend was once very active and loved dancing, she now can hardly walk indoors and when she goes out she has to use a wheelchair and is in constant pain.

Lyn Rennick
www.LynRennicksAMPSsociety.co.uk
Lyn@LynRennicksAMPSsociety.co.uk