A filling is a restorative dental treatment which is used to artificially ‘fill’ a decayed tooth. Once the decay has been removed, the filling helps the affected tooth to return to normal function and prevent further damage or tooth loss. At Leeds City Dentalcare we use the latest dental materials which are purpose designed and prescribed for each individual case.

Tooth Coloured Fillings
Virtually invisible, white fillings look just like your natural teeth so they will not detract from your natural smile.

Many people have amalgam (silver) fillings which have progressively blackened over time and caused the tooth to become stained. Although amalgam has been used for many years and is a functional material it does have several disadvantages. The most obvious problem is its unsightly appearance.

For many years, the use of tooth coloured (or composite) filling materials was predominantly on the front teeth. This was because the early tooth-coloured materials were not strong enough to withstand the pressure & daily wear associated with the back teeth. An enormous amount of work has been carried out around the world in more recent years to develop new composite & hybrid materials which have become progressively better. Today, at Leeds City Dentalcare, these advancements in the field of Cosmetic Dentistry have reached a stage where we can confidently use these tooth-coloured materials in any part of the mouth, producing fillings which blend seamlessly with the remaining tooth structure. In this way we are able to repair small to medium sized cavities & at the same time produce great aesthetic results.

Although we do not necessarily advocate the replacement of old amalgam fillings just for the sake of it, many people now choose to have their old amalgam fillings replaced with these more aesthetic materials when they start to show signs of failure.

In this way composites are very versatile materials. However, they are not always the best option when used to replace very large amounts of tooth tissue. In this case a crown or inlay would be more beneficial.

One of the latest & most exciting innovations in dentistry in recent years is CEREC™.  At Leeds City Dentalcare, by using the latest computer aided design we are now able to design, shape, & create a beautiful restoration outside of your mouth using the CEREC™ system. By taking an infra-red scan of your tooth we can design & precision machine (to as little as 7.5 microns!) a beautiful & long-lasting restoration out of a block of a special reinforced ceramic material. We keep these blocks in many different shades & translucencies & through careful selection are able to produce superb results which not only look great but are far stronger & longer-lasting than conventional filling materials. And this is all carried out without the need for any dental impressions in a single visit! Click here to read about Leeds City Dentalcare CEREC™ treatments.