The technology and techniques that go into dental onlays, crowns, and fillings have progressed to an amazing degree. These days, the vast majority of onlays last for well over 5 years time.
With dental tech progressing, it can be difficult to keep track of all the new ways dentistry can improve your life. If you don’t know about some of the latest improvements in the field, you might suffer from a dental problem without realizing that a solution has already been created for it!
It’s also important to know about your dental treatment options so you can know which option is the best treatment for your situation. Read on to learn all about onlays vs. fillings and other dental treatments!
Four Ways to Treat a Damaged Tooth
Dental onlays, inlays, fillings, and crowns all perform essentially the same function. Each of them is a treatment for a tooth that has partially decayed or degraded.
The easiest way to understand the difference between the four is to think about how much of the tooth is gone in each case.
1. Fillings
A filling is the most common and the most basic kind of dental restoration. Most people have had a filling or a few at some point in their life.
Fillings are quite small. When a tooth develops a small hole, like a cavity, then a filling will fill that hole up to help seal everything out.
It’s important that bacteria, as well as corrosive food substances, are kept out of the hole in the tooth or else it may grow bigger.
In most cases, a dentist will first make the hole in the tooth slightly bigger. This is necessary to make sure that the hole has a smooth surface and the filling can reach every crevice. A filling substance is then placed in the hole and hardened.
2. Inlays
Inlays are the next step up in dental treatment. If you’re lucky, you might not have needed any of these before, as fillings may have sufficed. It’s for exactly that reason that many people don’t know exactly what inlays are.
When a tooth is somewhat more degraded, a filling stops being a feasible way to fill out the damage. That’s when the inlay comes in.
You can think of an inlay as basically like a giant filling. One important difference, however, is that the inlay will have to be shaped to mimic the rough biting surface of the tooth.
Teeth are specially designed for chewing, and an inlay has to be shaped like those chewing surfaces. This is one reason it’s important to get a quality dentist to shape your inlay exactly right for your mouth.
3. Onlays
Onlays are suitable for tooth damage that’s too big even for an inlay. In these cases, the whole top surface of the tooth might have been lost, or very nearly all of it.
Technically speaking, your dental treatment becomes an onlay if it has to cover one or more cusps on the tooth’s biting surface. An onlay can be the right choice if your tooth is cracked as well.
4. Crowns
You can think of crowns as almost like replacements for the entire tooth. Naturally, that means they’re only necessary when a tooth has very significant damage.
We often think of teeth as just the part of the tooth that we can see. A crown will indeed replace that entire structure.
From a dental perspective, however, the tooth extends deep below what we can see. A crown doesn’t really replace a tooth, because that deep, hidden structure of the tooth is still there.
A crown will be fitted to that underlying structure and will rely on it to remain fixed and strong in your jaw.
Dental Onlays vs. Fillings
If you’re considering dental fillings vs onlays, the most important thing to consider is how extensive the damage to the tooth is. As discussed before, if the damage to your tooth is more extensive, it may be the case that a filling is too small to repair it. In those cases, you’ll have to go with onlays or another option by default.
On the other hand, sometimes a hole in your tooth is small enough that either a filling or an onlay could treat it. What should you do in those cases?
One thing to keep in mind is that fillings are often made with plastic. They are quick and easy to install, but they have a limited shelf life. Even if your tooth could be treated with a dental filling, you might consider getting a longer-lasting onlay anyway.
Dental onlays are often made of porcelain. Porcelain has a fine white color that allows it to blend very naturally with your teeth.
On top of that, porcelain is far more durable than a plastic filling. It also resists corrosion.
In other cases, your onlays can be made with either gold or a composite resin.
Naturally, gold won’t blend in with your teeth as well. Some people like the look of gold dental work, though, so it can be worth considering. Gold is another long-lasting material and is often used for dental work towards the back of the mouth.
Composite resins start out matching your teeth’s color very well. Over time, however, they can stain and start to stand out.
When it comes to choosing fillings vs onlays, porcelain onlays are the longer-lasting, more natural-looking choice with great resistance to corrosion.
Know All About Onlays vs. Fillings and More
We hope you learned something helpful about onlays vs fillings and other kinds of dental care in this brief article.
To learn more about how you can get excellent dental care that takes advantage of the latest in technological advancements, check out our other pages.