Tooth-Coloured Fillings

Fillings are required when a tooth decays, when a tooth chips, to protect cracked teeth and several other reasons.

Historically, dental fillings were predominantly made from an ‘amalgam’ of silver, tin copper and mercury; and are commonly called silver fillings. These fillings were often found in the back teeth on the chewing surfaces. Whilst the material lasts a long time, the tooth around them fatigues with time, and then can break. This results in these teeth needing more extensive treatments like crowns and root therapies in some instances.

This reason, as well as the simply poor aesthetics of the amalgam silver fillings has led to the rapid and overwhelming adoption of tooth coloured fillings in modern dentistry.

Tooth coloured fillings are made from a material called ‘composite resin’. There are different composite resins for different applications, for example, back teeth require a stronger resin, and front teeth require a highly polishable resin. There are hundreds of different companies which manufacture resins. At Pymble Dental Practice we are committed to only using the best quality composite resins with the longest clinical studies behind them.

Composite resins are bonded to the tooth directly using a high strength bonding agent and set by a blue wave ‘curing light’. They are highly technique sensitive and take care and precision to place well. Well placed and carefully sculpted composite resin fillings can look very much like a natural tooth.

At Pymble Dental we pride ourselves on placing each filling with care and skill to closely mimic the colour, texture and lustre of the original tooth.