What Is the Safest Tooth Filling Material?
When you have heard enough stories about dental procedures going the wrong way, it can put you on edge when it is your time to visit a dentist near you. Dental procedures like dental fillings are meant to repair and restore your teeth. However, there may not always be a beautiful story behind every patient’s restorative treatment with fillings. It is why you should be unafraid when asking your dentist about the safest approach when getting oral fillings.
What Are Dental Fillings?
They are oral materials for repairing natural teeth, typically after dental decay or damage. Fillings for teeth are specifically for replacing the damaged part of a tooth’s structure with new material, sealing it to protect the inside layers of the tooth.
Types of Dental Fillings in Dentistry
The material your dentist will use to fill your tooth will determine the type of filling you get. The main categories of fillings for teeth are metal and non-metal fillings.
Metal fillings encompass metallic components like gold, silver, mercury, copper, and other metals. Metal fillings can either be amalgams (silver fillings) or gold fillings.
Conversely, non-metal fillings feature other materials like composite, porcelain, or acrylic. Non-metal fillings can either be glass ionomers, porcelain fillings, or composite fillings.
What Are Toxic Dental Materials?
One would consider toxic fillings to be any dental materials that have an unhealthy outcome on your health. However, the complications of the toxic material differ for patients. It depends on how their body responds to the material in use.
In recent years, there has been an ongoing debate over the toxicity of some metal fillings for dental works. Some components in the metal alloy, like mercury, have been said to have toxic elements when exposed to the body. The mercury vapor that the fillings release may eventually be toxic to your body.
While some dental experts disagree, there have been several patients that have experience adverse allergic reactions to the mercury content in some of the metal fillings. Even though silver fillings have long been beneficial for restoring teeth, people today are leaning more toward non-metal fillings as a safer approach.
What Do Natural Dentists Use For Fillings?
At Novacare Dental, we offer alternative solutions for tooth fillings to ensure that our patients are safe even when restoring their oral health. Natural dentists’ main approach regards employing non-metal fillings to restore diseased teeth so that instead of silver fillings, you can get composite or porcelain fillings.
Composite fillings entail a tooth-colored resin material directly bonded to your teeth as a cavity filling. The advantage is that they are tooth-colored and are quick restorations for repairing your teeth. Better yet, compared to the other alternatives, composite fillings are more affordable for many patients.
Porcelain fillings feature tooth-colored porcelain or ceramic material. These dental fillings are mostly indirect restorations prepared in a dental laboratory. Porcelain fillings are typically called onlays or inlays, which come as a solid piece that fits perfectly on the tooth. They also have an aesthetic benefit to your smile, not to mention, last longer than composite fillings.
Choosing The Best Oral Fillings
When deciding between the various alternatives for filling teeth, it can get overwhelming if you do not get assistance from your dentist. Liaising with your dentist will help you understand which filling material best works for you. Your decision should also be based on some of the following aspects:
- Durability – between composite and porcelain fillings, porcelain fillings last longer. Therefore, if you want a restorative solution that will serve you for more than 20 years, you will opt for porcelain over composite fillings.
- Speed of the treatment – porcelain fillings are not direct restorations. As indirect restorations, the preparation happens in a dental laboratory before the installation takes place. As such, you may need to wait for a few days before your entire treatment is complete, which is different from direct fillings.
- Cost analysis – while considering preferences, you cannot overlook your budget restrictions. Gold and porcelain fillings cost a lot more than composite fillings. The cost is higher if you need multiple tooth restorations.