Tooth Fillings

Filling Cavities with Tooth-Colored Resin

Helping you avoid cavities is a common focus of routine preventive dental care. However, they’re still the most common chronic dental issue for children and adults alike, and treating them is a frequent focus of restorative dentistry. For most mild to moderate cavities, a tooth filling is the easiest and most effective solution, especially when the filling is created from tooth-colored, biocompatible resin. Made from finely ground acrylic and quartz-like particles, the composite resin not only effectively fills your cavity, but also blends in discreetly with your tooth and offers optimal protection against further tooth decay.

Why resin offers more benefits than metal

In previous decades, the most common material used for tooth fillings was metal amalgam – a mixture of trace metals, including mercury. At our office, we use tooth-colored composite resin instead of metal for a variety of reasons, such as:

  • The resin is custom-tinted to match your tooth’s color.
  • Composite resin conforms more accurately to your cavity.
  • Compared to metal, the resin is highly biocompatible.
  • A resin filling protects the tooth better against oral bacteria.
  • Patients with allergies or medical concerns can safely receive resin fillings.

What happens if you wait to fill a cavity?

While tooth-colored fillings are often an ideal solution for most common cavities, the tooth decay that causes them will continue to progress if you don’t fill the cavity promptly. The damage to your tooth will also grow worse, and in severe cases, the infection can reach the vulnerable nerves and tissues in the tooth’s pulp and root canal. If this occurs, then we may need to perform root canal therapy to restore the tooth and place a custom-made dental crown over it to protect it.

Make your cavity and filling disappear

A tooth-colored filling is made from biocompatible resin, which makes it preferable to metal amalgam for a number of important reasons. For more information about the benefits of tooth-colored fillings, schedule a consultation by calling Pacific Hills Dental in Omaha, NE, today at (402)330-2243.We proudly serve patients who live Omaha, Papillion, Elkhorn, La Vista, and Millard, and all surrounding communities.