We all know when we are treated to the sight of someone yawning what their dental history has been. When we see rows of dark metal fillings lining up along their jawbones, we can imagine a childhood filled with sweet treats and maybe a few tussles with the parents and the toothbrushing.

Our childhood fillings have been with us a long time, especially if we are children of the 70s, 80s or 90s. Sometimes it can seem like we can never forget that we should have done what our parents said, and now we have to pay the price every time we laugh or yawn. But we don’t.

Here at Leamington Spa Dental Practice in Leamington Spa, we can replace amalgam fillings with fillings made of tooth-coloured composite. This is a mixture of glass and plastic. It comes as a resin that we put into the cavity in layers, and then harden each layer with a UV light before doing the next.

What’s so great about white fillings?

OK, so white fillings look fantastic, but is there anything else to recommend them over amalgam? You bet there is.

Strength and durability

Over the few decades that white fillings have been available, dental researchers have been working to make them stronger. Fillings, especially ones at the sides and back of the mouth, take quite a lot of punishment with all that chewing and maybe even night-time tooth grinding, so they have to be resilient. They weren’t so long-lasting when they first became available, but now, it’s safe to say that white fillings are stronger and more durable than amalgam.

Get your chewing surfaces back

Run your tongue over your amalgam-filled back teeth and you will feel the tooth round the sides of a flat centre of amalgam. That’s because amalgam is a soft mixture that gets packed into the tooth cavity. We can pack the cavity tightly but we can’t recreate the lost parts of your tooth. We can with composite resin though. Once it has set hard, we can use tools to sculpt it to recreate the mounds and valleys of your lost chewing surfaces.

Why not come in and get your amalgam fillings replaced with white fillings?