When dentists are considering how to restore a damaged tooth, one of the things they consider is whether they want to use inlays or onlays. Here is a look at what they are used for.
Inlays
Inlays are essentially just dental fillings, but with one primary difference. When a dentist is filling a cavity, they start with cleaning it out and removing decay. Once that is done, traditional fillings, whether they are metal amalgam or tooth-colored resin, are placed in the cavity in a liquid or semi-liquid state. Then they are hardened by a special light. That hardening changes the size of the filling slightly, which causes stress on a tooth. While this isn’t a problem for most teeth, that stress could be enough to break an already weaken tooth. When this is a concern, our dentist would use an inlay. These fillings are shaped in the mouth, but hardened outside of it. They are then set back onto the tooth and cemented into place.
Onlays
Onlays are made the same way as inlays, but they cover more area of the tooth. In fact, they are designed to replace a ridge of a molar or premolar, which is important for chewing and grinding purposes. This is necessary for a tooth that was chipped or suffered extensive structural damage as a result of decay. The onlay returns both structure and support to the tooth.
No comments:
Post a Comment