Biocompatible Fillings
Dentistry, like other forms of healthcare, has progressed over the years. If you are old enough to have experienced dental work before the new millennium, you and your teeth vividly know the difference–especially with dental procedures like filling a cavity.
Fillings are necessary for when dentists remove a cavity/decay from inside your tooth. Filling a cavity helps with dental hygiene by strengthening the tooth. Also, a dental filling can help to prevent more decay or other problems from harming the tooth. Metal fillings used to be all the rage in the past. But nowadays, dentists are considering a different approach: biocompatible fillings.
What Are Biocompatible Fillings?
Biocompatible materials refer to something that is not harmful or hurtful to living tissue. This is particularly relevant when talking about materials that dentists place within our bodies, such as surgical implants.
If you have a cavity and need a filling, there are many options that can be used to fill that cavity. In recent years, biocompatible fillings have been proven to be safer and preferable in comparison to metal fillings.
Some of the most common types of fillings include metals like silver amalgam, gold, and mercury. The most common fillings that most people are familiar with from the past are the amalgam fillings, which are made of silver, tin, copper, and mercury. Although these metal materials might have helped improve the dental health of the patient at the time, they can be harmful in the long run. It can also be helpful to replace any metal fillings with biocompatible fillings for the benefit of your health.
What Are the Different Types of Dental Material?
With so many options and combinations of materials used as dental fillings, it is important to know about the commonly used materials.
- Titanium: made of titanium metal for dental implants and crowns
- Gold: used for dental fillings and crowns
- Porcelain: ideal to use it for cavity fillings and crowns; different kinds have materials such as zirconia, polymer, leucite, and feldspathic
- Alloy: combines different materials such as tin, copper, silver, indium, and gallium
- Amalgam: made up of mostly mercury, as well as silver, copper, zinc, and tin
- Composite fillings: made up of mostly resin as the base and little pieces of glass; there is also a plastic composite option
- Dental cements: there are many different types of dental cements; some are biocompatible
What Are Some Examples of Biocompatible Fillings?
Based on the types of dental filling material that are out there, some are biocompatible and some are not. The most common biocompatible materials are porcelain, plastic, or resin. These fillings come with a practical design. In other words, these fillings have the same color as teeth, are non-toxic, and can help us to protect the tooth from further decay.
How Do You Determine the Right Biocompatible Dental Material?
With so many options available for a biocompatible dental experience, researchers have developed a test to determine whether or not a filling is biocompatible. Chemical sensitivity is different for each person. Therefore, testing is the best way to avoid a reaction to the filling. The test consists of taking a blood sample. Testing the blood sample determines which dental materials can work for each person.
What Are the Benefits of Biocompatible Fillings?
Outside of basic dental health such as removing cavities, preventing decay, and protecting your teeth, the benefits of using biocompatible fillings are to ensure that there is not a chemical reaction that can cause further damage to the teeth surrounding the filling. We also practice preserving the tooth structure as much as we can in order to perform the least invasive procedure possible.
Pure Holistic Dental is a team of dentists in Houston that aims to promote and protect healthy teeth. To do so, we create a dental plan that works for every patient individually. Pure Holistic Dental offers zirconia filling and BPA or bisphenol free filling material that are biocompatible. We also provide safe mercury filling removal if you have any chips in the filling. Schedule an appointment with us today at our website and we can set you on a path to minimally invasive, natural dentistry.
Are we a good fit for you?
- You want to save time and money over your lifetime to get optimal health
- Your goal is to be the healthiest version of yourself to feel the best
- You want the least amount of dental work possible