Here’s What To Know Before Choosing A Dental Filling.
Recent approaches to the aesthetics involved in oral care have improved the procedures involved. Hence, anyone can restore or enhance their facial appearance. So, if you have cracked, chipped, broken teeth, or your teeth have worn down due to misuse from nail-biting or tooth grinding, dental fillings can come to the rescue. Dental fillings are also called tooth fillings.
Tooth decay could eventually result in a cavity and ultimately cause tooth extraction. When this happens, a dental filling is employed to fill the tooth part now vacant after the dentist debrides the area of tooth decay.
You can get quality dental fillings in Coopersburg, PA, and you also have the liberty to discuss with these dentists in Coopersburg the type and filling to use. There are different kinds of fillings, and this article serves to inform you about their peculiarities so you can easily make informed decisions.
What Are The Different Types Of Dental Fillings?
Several materials for dental filling materials are currently available. You may choose dental fillings made with gold or porcelain or silver amalgam, which sees mercury mixed with silver, tin, zinc, and copper. Materials called composite resin fillings can also be used, as well as tooth-colored plastic materials. There’s also a material containing glass particles known as glass ionomer, and it is pretty similar to composite resin fillings.
So, how do you then know the choice of tooth filling to use? Let’s see some advantages and disadvantages of the fillings mentioned earlier.
Gold fillings are durable, as they can last for at least 10 to 15 years and don’t rust easily. They can also withstand chewing forces, and for aesthetics, some patients find gold more pleasing to the eye than silver amalgam fillings. However, gold cast fillings are generally more expensive than other materials. There is also the requirement of additional office visits, at least two dental office visits to place it. You should also know that there’s a risk of a galvanic shock. Although very rare, a galvanic shock happens when a gold filling is placed immediately next to a silver amalgam filling causes sharp pain due to the interaction between the metals and saliva producing an electric current.
Silver amalgams also have similar reasons to make it a dental filling choice, and just for aesthetics, some people could choose it. However, it does have more disadvantages than gold. Silver fillings don’t match the color of natural teeth, making it a less popular choice. Moreover, creating a space large enough to hold the amalgam filling results in the destruction of more tooth structures because a dentist removes healthy parts of the tooth. Silver amalgam materials, in comparison with other filling materials, may experience a more comprehensive degree of expansion and contraction and lead to a higher incidence of cracks and fractures. Lastly, approximately 1% of people who use silver amalgams are allergic to the mercury present in amalgam restorations.
For tooth-colored composites, the shade/color of the composite fillings can be closely matched to the color of existing teeth, thus making them particularly well suited for use in front teeth or visible parts of teeth. Also, in addition to using as a filling material for decay, composite fillings can repair chipped, broken, or worn teeth. Tooth-colored composites have similar disadvantages like the gold fillings in that it requires more chair time and additional visits to the dentist, and is also more expensive.
To make both an informed and professional choice, it would be good to consult with your dentist. Dentists domiciled in Coopersburg have proven to be experts in providing dental filling services in Coopersburg, PA. Schedule a visit to speak with someone at the dentist in Coopersburg, PA today.