What is a dental filling?
The tooth itself has no restorative power, so if there is a cavity in the tooth, the only way is to remove the carious tissue around the cavity, clean the damaged area, and then inject the filling into the vacated cavity in order to restore the function of chewing and further prevent the continual occurrence of tooth decay. This method is called filling according to the depth, location and size of the cavity to choose the appropriate filling material for filling.
What kind of caries can be filled?
(The development process of dental caries)
In terms of our human body’s sensation, it is possible to fill a tooth when there is no sensation at all in the case of shallow caries. When it develops to medium caries, there will be sensitivity when eating hot, cold, sour or sweet, and it can be filled. But when it develops to deep caries, the pain will be more obvious when it is stimulated by hot, cold, sour or sweet. If there is no pulp symptom and no nerve is exposed, it is recommended to fill the tooth. If the nerve is exposed, there is no pulp symptom and the decayed material has been removed, it can be considered to protect the pulp and fill the tooth, there may be symptoms of pulp pain, such as cold and hot pain, night pain and other symptoms of pulpitis, but try to protect the nerve so that the tooth will be strong.
Steps of filling process
1.Oral examination. Make a comprehensive understanding of oral health condition and proper treatment, and make the best restoration plan for tooth filling according to the number of caries, healing position and lesion degree of caries.
2.The preparation of cavity. The cavity is composed of cavity wall, cavity edge and cavity angle. To prepare the cavity, we should remove the diseased tissues, protect the pulp and healthy tooth tissues, and establish a good retention shape and resistance shape, so as to avoid the filling from fracture, falling off and unfitting and causing secondary caries.
3.Disinfection of the cavity. If it is early caries, only one-time disinfection is needed to fill the filling material, while if it is medium or deep caries, three to five times of sealing treatment is needed, and if the caries involves the dental nerve, root canal treatment is needed.
4.Filling. The filling material is filled into the prepared cavity. The composite resin is irritating to the pulp, and the silver amalgam is a good conductor of temperature and electricity; therefore, in the cavity of medium depth or above, it is necessary to protect the pulp by first lining the bottom of the cavity with a layer or double layer of base material that is not harmful to the pulp. The cavity is then filled tightly with a metal or non-metal filling material according to a certain procedure.
What are the materials used for fillings?
There are three types of filling materials used in clinical practice: composite resin, glass ionomer, and silver amalgam, of which composite resin is the most used.
Advantages
1.Composite resin does not need mechanical fixation when filling cavities, but relies on chemical bonding, and does not need to prepare the special shape required for silver amalgam filling on teeth. Less teeth are to be grinded out and less damage is done to the pulp.
2. In terms of restoring the shape of the tooth, composite resin definitely beats silver amalgam in aesthetic performance because the color and transparency are very close to natural teeth.
3.The strength and edge sealing performance of composite resin can basically meet the demand.
4. less wear resistance than silver amalgam, with an average life span of 3 to 5 years.
5, higher technical sensitivity, that is, the quality of filling and the level of the doctor have a great relationship.
6.In vitro experiments suggest that the dimethylpropionate in the composite resin may have some toxicity to some cells. The composite resin after proper curing is basically a biocompatible material. Because of its small solubility, only a small amount of unreacted resin components can escape. From a toxicological point of view, the amount that can escape is too small to cause a toxic reaction.
The rotten cavities are removed after the filling, making the teeth aesthetically pleasing and no longer appear to be clogged after eating, but the only thing that patients may not pay attention to is that they think that their teeth will not appear to be rotten after the filling. In fact, the oral environment itself is not changed after filling, and this bad oral environment is the root cause of your cavity growth. However, there is no way to change the oral environment after filling. Therefore, what you should do after filling is to pay attention to oral hygiene, brush your teeth in the morning and at night, so that the oral environment can reach the acid-base balance, so that the situation of tooth decay and tooth decay will be greatly reduced.