Featuring Dr. Ed Lowe, DMD, Dentist

Duration: 1 minute, 33 seconds

Fillings are materials that are used to replace the space left by dental decay after your dentist has taken out the decay.

Often there's a cavity there, for example, a small to medium-sized cavity as in this tooth. You can have two choices of material that you replace that with.

One is silver mercury amalgam, which are the black mercury fillings, and they kind of look like this. And the advantags of this material is that it's cheap, dental insurance provides benefits for it, and that it is a relatively easy thing to place.

Disadvantages: some people are concerned for health reasons that mercury's a health hazard, and the second thing is that they seem to crack teeth and expand over time, so they don't look that pretty as well.

If nature intended for us to have black teeth we would have been born with black teeth. The other material that can be used is a white composite filling material, and that is made of acrylic and glass. And what's nice about them, they are bonded in, they support the tooth.

A little more technique sensitive, technique involved, but the bottom line is most patients like it because it looks like a tooth.

A couple tips here: after fillings, avoid hot liquids like coffee or soup so that you don't burn yourself. And if your bite on the filling doesn't feel right make sure you go back to your dentist the next day to get it checked out.

Presenter: Dr. Ed Lowe, General Dentist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: General Dentist