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of- the- art dental practices. Aside from the greatly improved appearance, white fillings have a
number of additional advantages over amalgams.
White fillings are chemically bonded to your tooth rather than stuffed into a hole that is
drilled with various irregularities to hold the amalgam in.
Less drilling is required with white fillings.
Amalgam fillings also leak the gray color from the silver and mercury into the tooth staining
it a dark gray over time.
Probably the greatest problem with silver-mercury amalgams is that they cause teeth to crack.
Mercury expands and contracts greatly with temperature changes. The rigid tooth does not. Over a
period of time, most teeth with large amalgam fillings will crack, and require crowns.
The patient below has 2 defective, decayed amalgam fillings. We removed the decayed amalgams
and placed white bonded composite fillings.
Click on the pictures below to enlarge.
This patient has a similar problem, a decayed amalgam filling on the upper left. The old filling was
replaced with white bonded filling. The back tooth will most likely need a new filling as well.
