Tooth filling - what materials are there?
introduction
“The tooth has a hole, I have to drill it now. Then I'll make you a nice new filling! What material would you like to have, I have several? "
Everyone has probably heard this sentence before when visiting the dentist. The prospect that someone would like to drill into the tooth right away, and that one will probably get an injection - that is associated with a lot of fear and horror for many. Then you are not always able to listen to the dentist what he is saying about the many different materials and the respective costs told for a specific material.
Read on for general information about: Dental fillings
There are many materials that can be used to fill a hole in a tooth. Some of these materials are used by the Health insurance completely covered, for some the patient has to pay extra. How much money a filling costs depends on both the used material as well as the Size of the hole and still dependent on the treating dentist.
Dental fillings that directly from the dentist inserted into the tooth are to be distinguished from plastic fillings. Such plastic fillings are Inlays, Onlays or Partial crowns. For this, the dentist takes an impression of the tooth with its hole and then a perfect seal for this hole is made in a laboratory. This piece is then inserted into the tooth by the dentist like a crown.
Tooth fillings can consist of different materials. It always applies that the material is still deformable must be when it is inserted into the previously ground tooth by the dentist. As soon as the filling material is in the hole and so somewhat in the right shape modeled has to be Harden.
Materials for temporary fillings
If, for certain reasons, the dentist cannot close a hole with a correct filling at an appointment, he still has to somehow plug the hole in the tooth. For example, if a tooth is to receive a root canal treatment, this treatment cannot usually be done in one appointment, but the dentist removes the nerve on the first appointment. Then he puts medicine into the tooth. The tooth is now closed with a cement filling. Only at the next appointment will the tooth get a correct, final filling after the end of the root canal treatment.
Cement as a tooth filling does not cost the patient any additional payment. Cement fillings are fully paid for by health insurance.
However, the cement becomes brittle over time. It no longer forms a tight seal, but simply allows the bacteria to penetrate the tooth. The result is tooth decay. A cement tooth filling is always to be seen as a temporary solution, especially since it is washed out by the saliva over time.
You might also be interested in: Filling with cement
Dental fillings made of plastic can be viewed both as a temporary solution and as a permanent tooth filling. What kind of filling it will be depends on the type of plastic.
Tooth fillings made of plastic, which are only used to restore a tooth so that a crown can be placed on it, are called crown preparation fillings or KVB for short. This type of filling is completely covered by health insurance. The patient does not have to pay an additional fee for the filling.
You might also be interested in: Temporary filling
Materials for denifinitive fillings
Did the dentist just Caries removed and a hole is drilled into the tooth for this, it must also be tightly closed again so that no more bacteria from the oral cavity can penetrate the tooth and completely destroy the tooth. The dentist uses one for this definitive tooth filling. This filling is no longer exchanged and, at best, remains in the tooth for several decades.
The classic definitive filling materials include plastic (so-called composites), amalgam and gold in the form of gold hammer fillings, but these are no longer used today.
Ceramic filling or porcelain there is not any. As a rule, when the layperson speaks of ceramic fillings, he means a Ceramic inlay.
Composite fillings
Such fillings are made in the vast majority of cases Composite. They can be done so well that you can no longer recognizes the difference between tooth and filling. This is possible because there are so many different colors on offer. The dentist can do it all individually with the patient decidewhich color suits your own teeth best. The tooth filling is made of composite light-curing and she is in the so-called Layering technique modeled in the tooth.
Do you have to make an additional payment as an insured person for such dental fillings? In most dental practices there is a form on which you confirm with your signature that you are willing to pay more money for the filling material made of composite plastic. How high they Co-payment Failure is different in every practice, so a comparison between two dentists is definitely worthwhile when there are several fillings. Between 40 and 100 euros per area are charged. It can be the case that a single composite tooth filling can be very expensive.
Most statutory health insurance companies have agreed that composite fillings should be used visible area, i.e. the anterior region, free are for the patient.
Those insured with private health insurers get these fillings paid for by their respective health insurers.
Find out more about: Composite fillings.
How do filling materials harden?
There are materials that harden by itself, that means they will harden by themselves at some point as soon as they have been mixed. The second option is Hardening by UV light, one speaks of light-curing materials.
Self-curing filling materials
With self-curing filling materials, the dentist and his assistant have to hurry to ensure that the wax-up is finished before the material is hard. Today's filling materials that harden in this way are usually located in a small capsule that is clamped in a kind of vibrating machine. This machine shakes the capsule for about ten seconds. In the capsule themselves are both powder as well as liquid.
Both components are only separated by a thin membrane. When the machine is shaken, this membrane rips and the powder and liquid mix. The assistant takes the capsule out of the machine and clamps it in a kind of spray gun. Now the dentist can inject the material into the tooth. The material will now harden by itself. Cements for example, are mixed and processed in this form.
In the past, powder and liquid still had to be used mixed together by hand become. It could easily happen that either too much powder or too much liquid was used and the filling then did not have the perfect consistency. With the capsules, which come directly from the manufacturer, this source of error is avoided.
Also amalgam hardens by itself over time, but does not consist of a powder-liquid mixture, but a metal-amalgam alloy. When modeling, care must be taken to build up enough pressure when plugging.
Read more on the subject here Amalgam filling.
Light-curing filling materials
In contrast to the materials that harden by themselves as soon as you mix their two components with one another, there are also materials for tooth filling that only get hard under light. These are the so-called light-curing dental fillings. The blue light that is used for curing contains ultraviolet rays that harden the light-curing material of the tooth filling more quickly.
These ultraviolet rays are completely for humans harmless, you just should do not look directly into the light. In order to protect the eyes, the patient is either put on orange-colored glasses or on them Curing light an orange protective shield is already attached, which filters the blue rays. A polymerisation lamp hardens the plastic in the filling. The lamp emits the special ultraviolet rays mentioned above.
The light-curing tooth fillings include all plastic fillings, the composite fillings and also the ceramic fillings. Nowadays only such materials are actually used for tooth fillings, as they are much easier to process and mistakes can no longer be made when mixing.
A light-curing filling material is a little bit similar to children's modeling clay. It comes in capsules or syringes. The material is in the previously drilled Hole stuffed into it and then in a beautiful Tooth-like shape modeled. You always have to use the newer materials for tooth filling cure in layers with the curing light.
For the dentist, this means he stuffs some filling material into the hole, smooths it out, models it and then the curing light is used and irradiates the filling material for about 40 seconds. Then this layer is hard and the next layer can be started.
Because such a layering technique has already taken some time, many dentists charge an additional payment for composite tooth fillings.
