Don’t Let a Cavity or Metal Filling Harm Your Smile

Hello again Plano! Welcome back to the ongoing dental health blog of 1st In Smiles. We hope you and yours have had a wonderful holiday season filled with memories and merriment. As the calendar prepares to turn to 2016, now is an excellent time to start thinking about things you’d like to improve on in the New Year.

Have you started listing any of your New Year’s resolutions yet? Most people focus on improving their health and appearance in the New Year. That could mean a new diet or exercise program. But oral health often gets overlooked in the excitement of the New Year. This is unfortunate because improving your oral health can benefit both your health and appearance.

At 1st In Smiles in Plano, TX, we offer tooth-colored composite dental fillings. Composite dental fillings are an excellent way to repair a cavity. If you’ve had a lingering toothache, it could be related to a cavity. We can seamlessly repair your smile with a tooth-colored filling, or even replace old, outdated metal fillings with a more attractive tooth-colored filling.

In today’s post of our dental health blogs, we’re going to look at some of the advantages tooth-colored composite dental fillings have over other types of dental fillings. We’ll also look at what you can expect if you need to have a cavity repaired with a dental filling, or need a replacement dental filling for your metal filling. But first, let’s look at just how harmful cavities can be to your smile.

Why Does a Cavity Need to Be Filled?

Cavities occur as a result of plaque buildups on the enamel of your teeth. Whenever you take a bite of food, or drink a beverage, trace amounts of bacteria are left behind on your teeth. This bacteria develops into an yellow, acidic film called plaque. Plaque causes tooth decay by dissolving holes in the enamel of your teeth.

Regular brushing and flossing alone are not enough to prevent cavities. Plaque tends to gather in places you can’t reach on your own, which why it’s important to schedule a dental cleaning at 1st In Smiles in Plano, TX, every six months. We use ultrasonic tools to remove plaque from your teeth, and digital technology to detect tooth decay.

If we detect a cavity, we can often repair it quickly and inexpensively with a tooth-colored filling. But untreated cavities will continue to grow larger, which can result in severe damage and infection to your tooth. Wait too long to repair a cavity, and you may need to have a root canal, dental crown, or other lengthy procedure to repair the damage. We might even have to remove the tooth!

The Advantages of Composite Dental Fillings

For over a hundred years, dentists used metal dental fillings to repair cavities. Although these fillings were quite effective, they have their fair share of drawbacks as well. For one, metal fillings require a portion of your healthy tooth to be removed to make room for them. This results in a tooth that’s not as strong as it should be.

Secondly, metal fillings contain mercury. Mercury can harm your digestive system should it ever leak out of the dental filling. But perhaps most noticeably, metal dental fillings simply don’t look very good. They stick out in your smile, and might even make you embarrassed to smile.
Composite dental fillings are the least noticeable of any of the popular types of dental fillings. Created with a mix of plastics and glass, composite dental fillings can be matched to the color of your natural tooth. Once they’ve been placed, no one will ever know that it’s there!

Composite dental fillings are durable, and free of potentially harmful materials such as mercury. Plus, composite fillings bond directly to your teeth, so less of your health tooth needs to be removed. A composite dental filling will last for an extremely long-time as long you brush and floss your teeth everyday.

What to Expect When You Need a Dental Filling

At First In Smiles in Plano, TX, dental fillings are a completely comfortable procedure. We will numb your mouth if needed, and offer sedation dentistry services. Most dental fillings only require a single appointment to place the filling.

Once you’re comfortable and relaxed, your dentist will remove the decayed portion of your tooth and/or your old filling. Then composite resin is layered in a liquid form into your tooth. The composite resin is then hardened into place, and trimmed to match your other teeth. After polishing the dental filling, you’re good to go! There’s minimal discomfort and any sensitivity should fade away with a couple of days.

Make an Appointment

Do you suspect you may have a cavity? Or do you have an outdated metal filling which you’d like to replace? Then contact 1st In Smiles in Plano, TX. You can reach our comfortable and modern office at 972-380-8105.