Mercury Free Fillings
At our office we offer composite restorations. These are light hardened, tooth coloured restorations that bond to your teeth so that you cannot tell the difference between your natural tooth and our fillings. No one wants to get fillings when they visit the dentist’s office, but sometimes they are necessary to preserve the health of your teeth and to keep small problems from becoming large, painful ones.
If it is discovered that you have a cavity that can be restored with a filling, we will remove the decayed areas of the tooth, clean it, and then place a filling in the cavity. At Innovation Dental, we offer mercury-free fillings, which have a number of benefits for the patient.
Dentists have been using amalgam fillings containing mercury for 150 years. They do have their benefits, they are very strong, they are able to withstand heavy chewing forces in back molars, and they do last a long time. However, they are unesthetic and they have been known to cause teeth to crack because metal is more rigid than tooth and can expand and contract with temperature
Moreover, there has been much controversy over the health implications of these fillings. Although there has been no scientific evidence to discontinue the use of these fillings, many people are uncomfortable having them in their mouths and prefer them to be replaced or not used in the first place.
Mercury free, or composite resin fillings have similar flexibility to natural tooth structure. They are “bonded to the tooth” so they help to strengthen a weakened tooth and help prevent future breaks and chips.
