Sir, I am currently working in my first year of general dental practice and enjoy hearing stories of patients' previous dental experiences.

A 68-year-old gentleman told me that he worked as a navigator in the merchant navy between 1970 and 1977. In 1973 whilst out at sea he started to feel vibrations in his mouth which interrupted his sleep. He later realised that he was picking up the Morse code signals received by the ship through his amalgam fillings. This was confirmed when he correctly interpreted a Morse code message to a colleague via the vibrations!

The problem settled when he left the navy but later recurred when he lived close to Yeadon Airport in Leeds. A local dentist offered to replace his 18 fillings but he declined and the problem settled once again when he moved area.

As a child the patient lived in different places in England and Scotland and thinks the fillings were all different mixes of metals.

Have any other readers come across this phenomenon before?