What is a Dental Filling?

Types of Dental Fillings:

Tooth fillings are broad of two types

• Temporary
• Permanent

Temporary dental fillings are usually done when your dentist needs your toothsome healing before the permanent filling.

They are usually done

• When your teeth undergo root canal treatment.
• When the cavity is very large and your dentist plans for a lengthier procedure, the teeth will be filled with this type of filling for the intermediate period.
• As a medicament in case of the large cavity with severe pain.

Permanent dental fillings:

These are the fillings done by your dentist to restore the form, function, strength and integrity of your tooth structure to bring back its natural structure.

Permanent fillings can be of many types:

1. Amalgam: Commonly called the silver filling was the most commonly used filling for the past 100 years.

But it is not used frequently nowadays majorly because of its colour, also because there are more improvised tooth coloured fillings have been introduced in the market.

2. Glass Ionomer Cement(GIC): This is one of the most common teeth coloured filling used in the present decade. GIC is a filling made of glass particles. It has many advantages like

• It's colour which matches the tooth colour
• Its ability to get attached to the tooth
• Prevention of further decaying of the tooth due to its fluoride release property
• Less time consuming
• Economical

3. Composite: Composite fillings are the most advanced present-day filling available with a number of advantages. They help you get your teeth a natural look as if there was no damage before. They have many advantages,

• They are more durable
• They look natural thus most commonly used for front tooth filling.
• Less tooth structure is lost
• They bond to tooth structure better than other fillings
• Can be repaired easily

Also, they are few disadvantages like longer treatment time and requirement of good oral hygiene maintenance.