Through advanced technologies of dental adhesion, state-of-the-art ceramics and resins, the newest bonded restorations are actually close to matching nature in durability, wear, performance and look. With these brand new materials, it is easy to bond your teeth together again, practically restoring them back to their virgin toughness without the invasiveness of complete-coverage crowns. Typically, metal fillings may be replaced with approaches that are known to be better than mercury/silver amalgam fillings. It can be, therefore, possible to maintain the healthy, remaining tooth structure, as opposed to grinding it down for a crown.

Everything wears away, and your silver fillings are no different. They withstand stress-filled and heavy biting forces each day, and as they get older, they crack, leak and may result in damaging fractures in the teeth. Over time, metal amalgam fillings can, in fact, soak up water, causing them to swell and even break free from the tooth. At this point, your tooth is far more prone to tooth decay and tenderness.

Mercury/Silver fillings have some negatives worth listing that ought to be thought of when it is time for you to replace your restorations:

• Silver fillings are much less appealing than tooth-colored fillings. Think about it, they don’t in the least resemble a natural part of the tooth.

• Amalgam expands and shrinks whenever subjected to hot and cold extremes in your mouth. The constant expansion and shrinkage with temperature may set off cracks and fractures in your teeth. There might not be any sort of symptoms for a while, but these teeth may become very sensitive as the crack increases or opens whenever you bite down or chew. It isn’t abnormal for patients to come in wondering the way they broke their tooth while they had been eating something soft like a banana or slice of bread. What they don’t realize is that the tooth almost certainly had a crack in it long before it eventually came apart.

• Silver fillings under continuous chewing stress are susceptible to metal fatigue or bending and flexing failure, a concept which can be fully understood and confirmed by repeatedly bending a metal paperclip until it finally breaks.

• Metal fillings are harder and less flexible compared to the teeth they are wedged into. The longer they may be in the teeth, the greater pressure they put on the remaining weakened outer surfaces of the tooth resulting in fractures and cracks.

• Metal fillings aren’t cemented to the tooth cavity. They only sit in the tooth and act under pressure to wedge the tooth apart, similar to how a metal wedge can be used to split logs into firewood.

• A minute space surrounding the filling edge exists as soon as the silver filling is plugged into the tooth; and within this gap, normal corrosion and leakage takes place. This unnoticeable space is large enough to allow for bacteria and food particles to enter in with time and result in tooth decay at the joint between the filling and the tooth. Composite fillings, however, are actually bonded to the tooth surface and seal the margins closed from invading bacteria.

• To be able to prepare a tooth for a composite filling, the actual tooth can be treated much more gently and with less healthy tooth structure needing to be removed. And for that reason, the dentist can maintain the highest amount of original tooth structure as possible

• Silver fillings necessitate drilling undercuts (think carving out a pumpkin) and removing larger healthy parts out of the tooth to be able to keep the mercury amalgam filling from falling out since it is not attached directly to the tooth. These types of undercuts also can compromise the tooth as fillings get bigger and sentence that particular tooth to upcoming fracture at some point. These cracks could be substantial resulting in crowning the tooth to fix it or perhaps major cracks resulting in extraction of the tooth.

• Composites, utilizing their chance to be conservative and using their gluelike properties, may strengthen and protect against fracture. Through intercepting the opportunity for cracking before experiencing the symptoms of hot/cold sensitivity and also biting discomfort, new conservative solutions including tooth-colored fillings or porcelain-bonded restorations are actually preventing the unwanted effects of toothaches and damaged teeth.

• Finally, many dentists say that, bonded tooth-colored restoratives are likely to be safer compared to conventional fillings, simply because they don’t include any mercury. Although the American Dental Association (ADA) states the usage of mercury in metal fillings is safe, there is an ongoing discussion within the dental field in regards to the side effects of those mercury amalgam fillings. In Europe, several countries actually banned the usage of mercury amalgam fillings to avoid any sort of hazards linked to mercury.

Employing a PROACTIVE rather than a REACTIVE approach to amalgam replacement is really a choice a lot of patients are happy to have us follow.