Restorative Dentistry Makes For Healthy Smiles!
Restorative Dentistry Makes For Healthy Smiles!
Hello and welcome to the Dores Dental blog! We are your trusted source for comprehensive dentistry solutions in the Longmeadow, MA area. It would be great to see your smiling face in our office sometime soon!
Interestingly, we have found that often our best patients are hesitant to speak up when they have signs of tooth decay in their mouth. Perhaps they don’t want to let us down in-between checkups. Maybe they feel guilty. But we only want what’s best for you, and to keep your smile in the greatest possible condition so that you can avoid all the bad things that sometimes happen in the dental world. One of those things is tooth decay. No matter how well you think you take care of your teeth, cavities can still take hold for a variety of reasons. And, truth be told, a cavity that is caught early enough isn’t the end of the world. On the contrary, that’s what restorative dentistry is designed to help with!
Cavities have traditionally been treated by employing silver dental fillings. It sounds fancier than it really is! These procedures essentially involve a digging out of the decay and a filling in of the remaining hole with some other substance.
Conventional fillings worked well for their time, but they did elicit a few concerns from patients, and they certainly looked unnatural in your mouth. If you are familiar with classic literature, you will understand what we mean by saying silver fillings were the scarlet letters of dentistry.
Luckily, at Dores Dental, we have invested heavily in new technologies and kept up with the latest trends. As such, we currently utilize discrete, mercury-free dental fillings to tackle cavities.
Free (Of Mercury) And Easy!
Who would want to install unnatural substances into their mouth, unless it was absolutely necessary? It’s odd when you consider what fillings used to entail. That silver amalgam that goes into old-fashioned fillings is actually a paste comprised of mercury along with other metals. Strange, huh? Though, we should reiterate, that they did get the job done, saving millions of teeth in their time.
Still, we like to celebrate the fact that our fillings are now made of composite resin, glass ionomer or ceramic, which means that they are tooth-colored, biocompatible materials that contain no mercury or other metals. They will look and feel completely natural in your mouth.
Plus, these newfangled fillings allow for increased durability by bonding directly to your tooth structure. The old process actually weakened your tooth and left it more vulnerable to fracture. That’s definitely an improvement.
Tooth-Colored Fillings Look Better Too!
For your treatment, we will first isolate the tooth in question while protecting the rest of your mouth with a rubber dam. Then, we will clean the tooth, eliminate any signs of decay, and re-shape it.
This is the cool part: at this point the proper shade of composite resin is then mixed to match your teeth and is applied to the tooth in question layer by layer. This is why it blends in so well with your smile.
When we are through, you will have plenty to smile about!
Reclaim Your Oral Health Today!
Contact our Longmeadow, MA dental office if you’d like to learn more about our tooth-colored, mercury-free fillings. Schedule your consultation today by calling 413-241-3995!
