Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoGeo
I am confused. I have been looking for a good dentist and have visited 4 of them over the past few years. Two say my teeth are fine and I don't need anything done except having them cleaned. Two gave me a list of things that needed to fixed due to superficial cracks. Due to these superficial cracks they want to replace the metal fillings with composite. I actually went back to one of the dentists (not around here) who said I didn't need anything done and told them that another dentist where I live had wanted to replace a lot of the fillings because of cracks. He said not to.
How do you determine which is the right thing to do? How do you know if some dentists are just looking for things to fix to make money? Or are they really trying to prevent a problem down the road? It seems some dentists are more proactive (fix something that may become a problem in the future) and others are more reactive (fix it if it does break).
Sometimes you have something worked on that is not bothering you and then it becomes a problem. I just don't know what to do. Anyone have opinions or stories about what happened to them?
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Yes, I'm glad you asked because I have a good story for you:
About 15 years ago I had a dentist tell me that I had a small crack in one of my metal fillings. And there were two adjoining back teeth with large fillings also. He recommended that I put a crown on each one of those. He said you never know when the cracked one will get worse and the whole tooth may crack. The other two were not cracked but he said they must not be too strong judging by the large fillings.
But two other dentists said it was okay and nothing needed to be done.
Guess how long it took for that tooth to crack? 15 years! And only a small piece of it cracked and came off. There was no pain involved so I simply made an appointment to see my dentist within a few days. My dentist looked at it to determine what would be needed. She recommended a crown and I went back to have it done.
After I had it done I asked how long a crown would typically last. The answer: It varies depending on the environment and upkeep one provides, like brushing and flossing. But, generally, it might last about 20 years, give or take 5 years.
So I'm glad I didn't rush to have 3 teeth crowned 15 years ago. By now, or within another 5+ years, I might be in need of another fix. My current dentist agrees that some of my old metal fillings are quite old (I think possibly 40 years old) but is not putting any pressure on me to replace them.