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Which Type of Filling is best?

Dental decay is one of the most common oral diseases, and it is important to fill cavities as soon as possible to prevent further damage to the teeth. Dental fillings are a restorative dental treatment that helps the tooth return to full function, and the latest materials are designed to be extremely conservative, requiring only the decayed tooth material to be removed by your dentist. Leeds City Dental Care offers patients quite a few options for filling teeth, but the final choice may be down to the location of your tooth, and the size of the filling. It’s something Dr. David Brown or one of our other dentists will discuss with you at the time. Nowadays most people opt for tooth coloured fillings simply because they’re more cosmetically pleasing. In the past and these types of fillings might not been suitable for large areas of decay, but advancements in technology mean that just about all teeth can be restored in this way.

Composite Resin Fillings

Composite resin fillings are the most popular choice, as they are relatively long lasting and cost effective. You’ll only require one visit to our Leeds dental surgery and the results can be amazing. You’ll be given a local anesthetic so your tooth can be prepared for the tooth coloured white fillings in Leeds. The next step is to clean and dry the preparation ready for the filling material.

The surface of the preparation is lightly etched to create a better bond, and the filling is gradually placed in small increments of material. It’s not uncommon for our dentists to use several different shades to create a naturally beautiful looking restoration. The final restoration is hardened using a special light, and shaped and polished.

Composite fillings should last several years, but we’ll make sure they’re doing okay at every check-up by our dentist in Leeds city dental care. They are suitable for repairing front and back teeth but will eventually become a little stained.

CEREC Inlays

If you have a significant amount of decay in your back teeth then we may recommend a CEREC inlay. The beauty of CEREC is that an inlay can be created chair side in just one visit to our Leeds surgery. The restoration is milled from a solid block of ceramic using the latest CAD/CAM technology. The blocks come in a variety of shades and translucencies, so you get a precision fit beautiful new filling in an incredibly short space of time. The materials used are also extremely strong, and are suitable even for areas where you may bite or chew quite a lot. In the past these types of fillings would’ve been called indirect fillings, in that they required more than one visit to our dental surgery.

What about Amalgam Fillings?

A lot of people still have amalgam fillings, and although it may not be worthwhile replacing them while they are still viable, many are opting for more aesthetically pleasing materials when they do begin to leak and crumble. One of the disadvantages of amalgam is that it expands and contracts whenever it comes into contact with hot and cold foods and this can have the effect of weakening the tooth, making it more prone to fracturing or cracking.