Fillings

[Manda]

Hi, I recently had 2 fillings at the front of my mouth, with a dentist I had not been to before. While my teeth are by no means perfect, I felt that the colour of the new fillings looked greyish yellow on them. Also, they were not polished smooth at the time, and feel rough against my tongue. They have stained very quickly.
Should I complain?

 

[Busybee]

Yes you should because a dentist can choose to make them a lighter colour. Modern composite should not stain so easily. As a patient you put your faith in your dentist to make any work they do in your mouth look as natural as possible. There are different types of composite and different dentists are more or less skilled at using the material. Functionality doesn't always mean the aesthetics are pleasing unless the dentist has thought both through carefully and also has skills in more than just functionality. The roughness should wear off over time. .

 

[MattKW]

Many modern composites are very translucent, which can give a greyer look if you have normally dense teeth. Whilst you can buy composites in differing opacities (e.g. dentine, enamel, incisal), I always buy the opaque dentine shades because they work for more people. And I keep some extremely opaque liquid composites (flowables) for particularly difficult teeth. Go back and ask the dentist politely to see if he thinks he can redo better; and you need to have them polished because they won't smooth themselves off.