Category Archives: Dental Fillings

How to Decide Between a Dental Bridge and a Post

There are a lot of ways to achieve perfect smile

Dentistry is a very subjective area where a wide range of treatment such as dental bridge or a post is readily available to suit your needs. This can present challenges for both the dental practitioner and the patient in deciding which treatment option suits the patient best, taking into account the advantages, disadvantages, time and cost required to achieve desired results. As the dental practitioner may have very different opinion as to what is ideal, you being the patient need to clearly express your needs to the dentist and have a good discussion to avoid any misunderstandings and setting down reasonable and realistic expectations.

Why does a tooth needs a dental bridge or a post?

Often when a tooth is very broken down, there are several options to manage such tooth. Not pursuing with treatment is always an option, though always not recommended especially when associated with large areas of dental decay and the potential of infection.  Another option is to place pins or post into the tooth. The former consist of small screws that are manually drilled onto the tooth while the later is an alloy post that is cemented into the root canal, hence the tooth will need to have been nerve or root canal treated prior to post insertion. Placement of pins or post will provide more retention and anchorage for the dental restoration. The last option is to extract the tooth. After extraction, a gap will be present and this can be replaced if desired. There are several options to replace a missing tooth, such as bridge, dentures or dental implants. Continue reading

How to Replace Silver Dental Fillings

Transition from an old silver filling to a new one…

What is a silver dental filling?

amalgam filling

“Silver” dental fillings or commonly known as amalgam fillings contain 50% mercury, silver, tin, zinc and copper. It is inexpensive, easy to use and manipulate during placement into cavities as it is soft, moisture tolerant, less technique sensitive and forms a hard material on set. Amalgam has greater longevity as long as 10 years or more compared to other restorative materials and is wear resistant. Amalgam is condensed and packed into prepared cavities. They lack the bonding mechanism when compared to bonded fillings which restore 85% of strength that the tooth had before the first filling. Continue reading

Are Mercury Dental Fillings Safe?

Mercury dental filling, or best known as dental amalgam is an alloy of silver, tin, mercury, and copper as it’s constituent. The term amalgam is also used as a synonym by the dental profession. Among all, silver and tin have the highest composition within an amalgam.

The use of mercury in the oral environment has raised concerns regarding safety. Currently, several countries have banned the use of dental amalgam because of environment concerns, as well as alleged side effects that may be sustained by patients who receive dental amalgam restorations.

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How to Temporarily Replace a Tooth Filling

You are starving. It’s that really annoying sensation down there that drives us all on an eating spree, devouring anything edible. However in your haste of consumption you fail to notice a small but hard piece of bone fragment in your freshly prepared chicken sandwich. You chomp into it. Very hard. There is a moment of silence as a sharp crack vibrates your skull. You spit out what remains of your meal and discover two hard objects; chicken bone and a piece of tooth filling. It’s a Sunday, your family dentist is closed for the weekend. What do you do?

The filling has fallen out, and the pulp is more exposed now.

The very first thing that you should do is evaluate the site of fracture. Take notice of any or a combination of:

1.       Pain

2.       Sensitivity ( to air, cold or hot fluids )

3.       Extent  of the fracture

4.       Bleeding

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