Dental filling is one of the most
common dental treatment procedures. It treats dental cavities in order to make
sure that the cavities do not worsen the dental or oral health of the existing
healthy teeth. However, despite this fact, most people do not know how the
dental filling procedure is done. This is because the procedure is done inside
the mouth of the patient and the patient is absolutely unaware of it. Hence, here
is a guide that will help you to know about the steps that you need to undergo
and that you will be prepared for.
Injecting a
dental anaesthetic:
This is the first step that is
offered to patients in most of the cases. A combination of lidocane, adrenaline
and hydrochloride is given as the most common and widely used anaesthetic. This
makes the entire local area or the area around the tooth or teeth, in which the
filling is to be done, numb. Hence, you will not be able to feel anything that
is happening inside the mouth.
Drilling
the teeth:
Once the numbing procedure has been
done by an experienced dental
practitioner, a high speed drill is used by the dentist to make the space
open for further procedures. The drill usually has a burr in its front that
looks much scary, but isn’t too sharp. It would not even cut through the gloves
if rolled on the hands. Since the dental decay is quite soft, there will hardly
be any sound of the drill and the decay will thus easily be excavated using
this drill.
Decay
removal:
The dentist and the nurse will use
sterile water to remove the decay from the impacted tooth. The nurse will
suction out any of the excess water. To make sure that the filling is proper,
the dentist will ensure that the entire decay has been removed, leaving no
traces behind.
Reducing
sensitivity:
The nurse, upon the instruction of
the dentist, will prepare the mixture or a paste that will be applied as a lining
on the impacted tooth. This paste reduces sensitivity of the tooth or teeth as
it hardens automatically. In some cases, a blue light is used to harden this
mixture.
Filling the
cavity:
The cavity or the space, from which
the decay has been removed, will now be filled with an amalgam capsule, with
the help of an amalgamator. Using the carrier and the plugger, the amalgam is
filled in the tooth. This does not require any external force to set the
amalgam as it hardens all by itself with time.
Smoothing
the amalgam:
As you visit a dentist in Birmingham to do the filling in your tooth and he or she
does all these steps, the next and final step will be to check for any high
spots of the filling. This will be checked by asking the patient to bite on an
articulating paper. If any high spot is found, it is removed by smoothening the
tooth filling.
This completes the
procedure and the dentist recommends some after treatment cares. The patient
must not eat hard foods within 24 hours and not drinks within an hour, in order
to let the anaesthetic to wear off.
