Home – Fillings
Fillings – It’s a word that sends shivers down the spines of many people – but that doesn’t need to be the case anymore!
Here at Parkview Dental Practice, we have a range of pain management and options available to our patients to help make treatments as painless and stress-free as possible.
When a tooth is affected by decay, the decayed tooth structure is removed and a filling is used to restore the tooth back to its original shape and function.
Once decay has taken hold in a tooth, it will continue to damage more of the tooth, becoming more painful until treated by a dentist. A filling repairs the damage caused by decay and stops any more bacteria from entering the tooth. Fillings can be made of a number of different materials and can be used to repair any tooth in the mouth.
Composite fillings are a popular and natural looking solution made of resin, which is soft and malleable so it can be shaped to fit the cavity. Composite resin fillings are a mixture of plastic and glass compounds that mimic the colours of a natural tooth. Composite fillings are:
Composites are relatively versatile, but they are not well suited for large or deep fillings, particularly on molar teeth. In these cases, porcelain, ceramic or traditional silver filling compounds provide a mechanically stronger alternative and will last much longer.
Amalgam (also known as silver) is a mix of metal alloys that are soft when being used to restore a cavity but harden once in place. Amalgam used to be the popular choice for many years, but due to the dark colour they’ve lost their popularity.
Amalgam fillings are still very useful for areas of the mouth where biting pressure is higher and the fillings are not very visible, such as the molars.
With little to no drilling or preparation needed for placement, glass ionomers are fillings that are perfectly suited for babies, children, and for fillings around the gum line.
Composed from a combination of acrylic acids and fine glass, glass ionomer fillings are relatively weak when compared to other filling materials – so they are not suitable for biting surfaces.
Glass ionomers do not generally match the translucency of natural teeth as well as porcelain, ceramics, or composites, however they are valued for their ability to release chemical compounds into the nearby area, such as cavity-fighting fluoride.
