Maintaining Fillings

Once we've restored your teeth with tooth-colored materials, these restorations will serve you well for several years. The resin (plastic) material used contains small “filler” particles of glass-like material for strength and wear resistance. They contain the finest and most up-to-date materials available today. However, you should be aware of the following information about your new restorations:

• As with natural teeth, avoid chewing excessively hard foods on the filled teeth (hard candy, ice, raw carrots, etc.) because the resin material can break under extreme forces.
• Composite fillings set up hard right away. There is no waiting time to eat. Children should be observed until the anesthetic wears off. Due to the strange feeling of the anesthetic, many children will chew the inside of their lips, cheeks, or tongue which can cause serious damage.
• Sensitivity to hot and cold is common for a few weeks following a dental restoration. Usually, the deeper the cavity, the more sensitive the tooth will be. If you feel the bite is not correctly balanced, please call for an appointment for a simple adjustment.
• The gum tissue could have been irritated during the procedure and may be sore for a few days together with the anesthetic injection site.
• The finished restoration may be contoured slightly different and have a different texture than the original tooth. Your tongue usually magnifies this small difference, but you will become accustomed to this in a few days.

When a tooth has a cavity the dentist removes the decay and fills the hole with filling material, the tooth supports the filling. When you get a cavity that takes up more than half of the tooth, a crown is indicated. A crown covers the entire tooth and holds the tooth together. Sometimes we place a filling thinking there is enough tooth to hold the filling when actually the tooth’s job is bigger than the filling can handle. The tooth then starts to break away because it can no longer support the filling. In this case we will credit the cost of the filling towards the cost of the crown.