WFAA-TV

Virginia Pritchett said 16 years after she received her mercury-based fillings, she began to have numerous side effects.

Virginia Pritchett would probably agree her mercury poisoning was all in her head since the silver fillings she received as a child with cavities were technically placed there.

It is the fillings she said are to blame for a two-decade health slide that included health problems ranging from stomachaches in college to seizures in her forties.

"I was almost killed as a result of these fillings," she said.

Pritchett's will testify in Washington D.C. next week to talk about her problems she said she has endured.

"Who, with any sense, would think that mercury belongs in a person's mouth in any form?" she said. "It defies common sense."

Her allergies are so bad, she said she can't risk taking public transportation.

Allergies are what Endodontist Justin Aurboch says are the only problem when it comes to the alloys of silver, tin, copper and mercury. He said the combinations of metals are safe unless one has an allergy.

Aurboch's father was also a dentist.

"He used them," he said. "I have [had] them in my mouth since I was 6-years-old."

While Pritchett said her ailments were caused by her fillings, Aurboch said he has never had a problem with his.

The Food and Drug Administration has agreed with Aurboch in the past, but the agency will listen to Pritchett and others who strongly believe their ailments are a direct result of the metals.

"It took 16 years for my symptomns to show up," Pritchett said.

Some dentists have stopped using the mercury-based fillings because of the controversy, but Medicaid only pays for metal fillings. So, for those with little money, cheaper fillings may be the only option.

"I would like to see these fillings outlawed," Pritchett said.

Pritchett has had her own metal fillings replaced with resin, which is far more common than amalgams these days.

E-mail bhawkins@wfaa.com