Question: My dentist retired and my new dentist wants to drill out all my white fillings and replace them with amalgam (silver fillings). Speaking with my son, who lives in Washington state, his dentist wants to replace his amalgam fillings with white fillings. Is there a consensus among dentists as to which is the better material?
Answer: In my 23 years of practice and years on the lecture circuit, I have never known any practitioner who is replacing white fillings with amalgam (silver-mercury) fillings. This would be like replacing your cement tile roof with mud and straw. Both will do the job, but one has decades of improvements making it the better choice. Ceramic and composite resin restorations have several benefits over amalgam. They chemically bond to existing tooth structure, preventing the need to cut away deep, dovetail-like grooves, called retention grooves, in order to mechanically lock the filling in place. This leads to an increase in the need for root canals. In addition to the obvious aesthetic advantages of resins and porcelains, they will not block the X-ray beam, as amalgam does, causing your doctor to miss areas of decay, especially on rotated and crooked teeth. If you have any questions please give us a call 239-936-5252.