Tooth Colored Fillings
Tooth colored fillings have long been the standard when working on the front or anterior teeth. More recently, there are several reasons for the shift toward posterior fillings that are tooth colored. The most obvious reason is that they look esthetically better than silver fillings.
The quality of these tooth colored materials used for fillings has become increasingly better each year with many scientific advances that maintain the color, resist fracture, and give natural translucent appearance.
A major drawback to amalgam fillings is that preparation for the filling requires back cutting the tooth much like a pyramid so that when the metal hardens it will have good retention. This retention back cutting is required, because the metal does not actually bond to the tooth structure–it simply fills the cavity space and sits next to the normal tooth structure.
The back cut areas of the tooth are thin, weak areas, which fracture easily. Amalgam filled teeth are highly susceptible to having cusps that fracture off. Posterior teeth with fractured cups require the placement of Onlay or Crown to preserve normal architecture and function.
Advantages Of Tooth Colored Fillings
- Composite resin tooth colored fillings look natural with a translucent tooth-like appearance and can be mixed to match any color of the tooth by your dentist.
- Since back-cutting is not required, less of the natural tooth structure needs to be drilled away and removed by your Dentist, which maintains more of the strength and integrity of the natural tooth.
- Composite resin strengthens the tooth that is filled because the composite resin actually bonds within the tooth structure.
- Composite resin fillings rarely have areas of the tooth that are thin or weak, so that cusps rarely fracture off.
- Composite resin fillings do not conduct heat and therefore do not expand and contract with heat and cold in your mouth, which helps facilitate tooth fractures near metal fillings.
- Without back-cut areas or temperature movement, there is not any stress put upon weak areas of the composite filled tooth as occurs with metal fillings.
- Composite fillings do not have any unbounded area between tooth and filling to allow moisture and bacteria to enter and cause decay and aide fractures.
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