Can you have your teeth tattooed?

Q.
Dear Dr Hughes
Can you please tell me if it is possible to have a tattoo on the teeth ,All the information i have read so far seems to imply that a tattoo can only occur on the soft tissue ,ie on the lips ,tongus ,pallete,skin,etc .
I would also like to know the reason why a dentist would do an amalgum filling then cover it with a porcelain crown .
I look forward to your reply
Thankyou for your time and for considering my question.
A.
Hello  Yes your assumption is correct, you cannot technically tatoo a tooth with an ink-based tatoo. However there are other clever ways to make a tooth ‘look’ tatooed…one way is to tatoo of print something on a porcelain crown or veneer.

If an amalgam filling is healthy and intact then they are often used to support a tooth under a crown, so sometimes it’s perfectly valid to do this

Hope that answers your questions

Mark

Dr Mark Hughes Harley Street Dental Studio 52 Harley Street, London W1G 9PY Web: www.harleystreetdentalstudio.com Tel: 020 7636 5981 View My Profile Dr Hughes
August 16th, 2011 at 08:47 PM
Dianne Miri Says :

Dear Dr Hughs

Thankyou very much for your email ,unfortunetly i feel i didnot explain properly so will try again in the hope that you can answer me .

I recently had an old metal crown removed along with the old amalgum filling .I requested it be replaced with composit filling and a porcelain crown .When i looked at the tooth before the crown was fitted it looked black/silver ,i asked the dentist why it wasn t white and he said that the tooth had been tattooed by the old amalgum filling .
I was wondering if this could be possible as i was under the impression that a mercury filling could only affect the soft tissue .

I lok forward to your reply
Thankyou
Dianne Miri

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