Why Are Dental Fillings Important for Your Oral Health?

Dental fillings in Forty Fort, PA are incredibly essential for the state of your oral health. Tooth decay starts in your mouth when bacteria attach to your teeth to form plaque. The bacteria consume excess sugars leftover in your mouth to produce acids capable of eroding tooth enamel. Cavities begin developing when the enamel wears off, damaging the tooth permanently by lowering its differences and compromising its health. With permanent damage affecting your tooth, dental fillings can restore the tooth’s health by intervening. However, what happens if you refuse to have the cavity filled? Let us look at the consequences of leaving the tooth untreated.

Progress of Tooth Decay

A cavity filling is essential immediately after tooth decay affects the tooth. Before placing the filling, your dentist x-rays and examines the tooth to evaluate the extent of the damage and helps you choose a suitable material for the filling. However, if you refuse the dentist’s recommendation to have the filling promptly, the decay in your tooth worsens to make you prone to severe consequences.

Not getting dental fillings in Forty Fort, PA, encourages the bacteria in your tooth to work harder and reach dental pulp. Dental pulp infections are severe and can cause untold miseries like losing your tooth or becoming prone to other medical conditions that require treatment from different professionals. The infection can also spread to the neighboring teeth. If you want to eliminate the infection, you must either undergo the fearsome root canal treatment and restore the tooth with a dental crown or, easier still, merely have the tooth extracted and search for replacement solutions. All that and more simply because you didn’t think dental fillings are essential for your oral health.

Can You Prevent the Need for Dental Fillings?

Preventing the need for a tooth filling is not challenging and merely requires you to implement a consistent home care regimen and care for your dental health. The need for fillings in your tooth arises only when you allow tooth decay by neglecting to brush twice a day, floss at least once, and visit your dentist in Forty Fort, PA for six-monthly exams and cleanings. In addition, you probably encourage tooth decay development in your mouth by having excessive sugary and starchy foods and beverages favored by your mouth’s bacteria. After you develop cavities in your teeth, the bacteria would have created permanent damage best restored using dental fillings. Unfortunately, if you refuse dental fillings for dental anxiety or others, you must prepare yourself to bear the consequences as described earlier.

How Much Is Time Required to Get Dental Fillings?

Getting dental fillings is a straightforward procedure handled by dentists. The time needed for getting a dental filling depends on the location of the cavity and the extent of the damage. Generally, dentists fill holes in under an hour unless you need indirect fillings because you have extensive decay in a tooth that is better restored with inlays or Onlays. However, in most cases, the dentist completes the entire filling procedure in approximately 40 minutes, providing you the freedom to return home or work immediately after.

When getting a dental filling, you must consider the type of dental filling you want to have in your tooth, depending on the location of the cavity. You can have metal fillings in your molars and tooth-colored composite resin fillings or ceramic fillings on your front teeth. Metal fillings are incredibly durable and last for over a decade with proper care. Silver amalgam fillings are affordable, and gold fillings are expensive.

If you have a cavity on a front tooth and decide on tooth-colored fillings, the fillers are more expensive than silver amalgam and half as durable. However, the dentist recommends silver amalgam fillings for your molars and composite resin fillings for your front teeth.

After getting your dental fillings placed by the dentist in Forty Fort, PA, you seal the permanent damage created by tooth decay and prevent other bacteria from leaking into the tooth. As a result, the microorganisms are prevented from causing more damage. Simultaneously you protect your oral and overall health by accepting the proposal of your dentist to seal your tooth by having dental fillings and preserve your dental health.

When affected by tooth decay, you have two options available. The first is to have your tooth restored by getting dental fillings, and the other is to extract the tooth to prevent further damage to your oral health. Considering the consequences, we are confident you will decide to get dental fillings from NEPA Dental West as a better option than impacting your oral health.