Amalgam Filling Removal Safely Case 3 Replacing Mercury Fillings

This lovely lady from Browns Bay sought me out to safely remove all her old mercury amalgam fillings & replace them with either composite resin fillings or emax porcelain overlays. For these three teeth placing white fillings was clinically the best option.

3 Reasons for replacing old mercury amalgam/black fillings with white fillings instead of porcelain overlays or dental crowns

1. The old silver amalgam fillings are small and no structural cracks have formed in the tooth
2. The patient has requested just fillings to be placed - this is often due to cost as a filling option costs less than a dental crown option
3. There are long term problems with the overall health of the mouth and a more costly dental crown/overlay is not indicated eg maybe the patient has gum infection which may lead to easrly tooth loss or maybe the patient has active tooth decay that ideally should be brought under control first.

We opted to replace these three mercury amalgam fillings with colour matched white composite resin fillings. We placed a dental dam over the teeth. Dental or Rubber/Nitrile Dam placement has 4 advantages

1. Whilst always using powerful suction, when I section out the old mercury amalgam all the amalgam waste is removed and no waste enters the mouth
2. Whilst using rubber dental dam a smaller suction pipe or saliva ejector removes any mercury vapor and saliva from the mouth
3. Most people find rubber dam very comfortable and prefer treatment with this rather than without. Sometimes there is a bit of fiddling around to put the rubber dam on, but once in place the whole procedure takes less time.
4. Placing white composite resin fillings and porcelain dental crowns and overlays is all about perfect bonding technique. The great thing about adhesive dentistry or bonding white restorations to teeth is that the bond strengths are very strong. When biomemetic principles are followed the bond between your tooth and the new white filling or dental crown/overlay can mimic the strength of your original tooth. 
   
   Using dental rubber dam allows the tooth/teeth to be isolated from the moisture of your mouth ie your saliva. Using dental dam increases the predictability of the bonding process making for long lasting beautiful and strong tooth coloured restorations 

There was a lot of tooth decay under the two bigger mercury amalgam fillings. This was gently excavated & the composite resin fillings were bonded in using biomemetic bonding techniques

Everyone was happy with the final result and the treatment was uneventful both during and afterwards

Posted by Andrea Clarke BDS

Milford Dentists is proud to help the good people of the North Shore with all their dental requirements - especially ridding the world of mercury amalgam fillings - from Devonport and Belmont up through Takapuna, Castor Bay,Mairangi Bay & Browns Bay as well as Albany, Northcote, Hillcrest & the Whangaporoa Peninsula.

White Fillings To Mask Dead Black Or Grey Teeth - Case Study 1

4 Reasons Why Teeth Die And Go Black Or Grey

A dead or non vital tooth will often discolour or darken. Here's why.

1. Because the tooth has been hit hard and this percussion injury has killed the blood supply feeding into the tooth
2. Because the tooth has been snapped/fractured by trauma and the exposed nerve becomes infected with bacteria and dies
3. Because of tooth decay - once the tooth decay reaches the nerve the bacteria kill the nerve
4. And occasionally because of high temperatures created trying to fix a decayed badly broken down tooth

Case study - This lovely lady from Takapuna has been coming to Milford Dentists for a longtime. She asked me if I could improve the appearance of her two grey teeth. Both teeth had big big fillings, the nerves had died & both had been root filled (or endodontically treated). 

She did not have the budget for dental crowns so we opted to (inexpensively) mask the visible parts with a veneer build up of white composite filling material. If you imagine painting over something black to make it look white you need a white opaque layer

1. Closest to the tooth I bonded a very thin opaque layer which totally blocked out the grey tooth. But now I had 2 bright white teeth shining at me
2. I now placed a thicker layer of a natural tooth coloured composite resin that had a lovely opacity similar to tooth dentine. This layer looked good but the tooth still looked dull and lifeless
3. Finally I added a more translucent layer of white filling that mimics how enamel looks to make the teeth really shine

Here are the before  white fillings placed on the upper and lower premolar -

Here is the before and after photo

As with most dental repairs, although the results are not permanent and eventually require replacement, composite resin fillings are very durable and can offer what we at Milford Dentists believe is a safe, stable, effective solution for the repair of teeth in a lot of situations. 

Talk to us today to learn more about the benefits of white composite resin fillings.

Posted by Andrea Clarke BDS

Milford Dentists is proud to help the good people of the North Shore with all their dental requirements - From Devonport and Belmont up through Takapuna, Castor Bay,Mairangi Bay & Browns Bay as well as Albany, Northcote, Hillcrest & the Whangaporoa Peninsula.