How to Care for a Tooth After a Filling

Video Transcript

"Did you just recently have your tooth filled by your dentist and you just don't know what to really do after? Well my name is Michelle and I'm a dental assistant here with Solutionz and I'm here to explain to you on how to care for your tooth after a filling. Depending on what type of filling it is, now whether it is a silver filling or a white filling you definitely need to be really gentle in that area especially if it is a silver filling. With the silver filling even though it is placed in there and it is secure the silver is still setting up it is still hardening to its full capacity so what you need to do is just for the first 24 to maybe 48 hours after having a silver filling you would really need to just be really gentle in that area, brush really lightly, don't chew on that side whatsoever and then kind of wait until it fully hardens after 24 hours. If you have a white filling then pretty much a white filling is a little bit more of a better restoration of the silver filling because of the tooth color filling, you won't be able to tell that it is in your mouth and then also too it is automatically set as far as it being hardened, it is automatically set to its maximum strength once you leave your dental office. Depending on it is a plastic based material once they place it in your mouth they cure it with a special curing that hardens the material and it hardens the material and it sets it. So you can actually start functioning on that side where you had the filling right away. There is really no down time if you have a white filling done but of course you really need to be careful. You definitely need to wait until your numbness wears off in order to start chewing on that and you don't want to be chomping away on your teeth and your tongue and not even know it so to take care of your filling what you should do is really be gentle in that area and then brush and floss it normally like you would your natural teeth. So once again my name is Michelle and I'm a dental assistant with Solutionz and I just explained to you on how to take care of your filling."