RFI: dental fillings

how often should people get fillings replaced?

personally i would only replace them if the denist insists on it, otherwise only if they fall out is how i roll

thanks, that's what i was thinking. dentist is saying they all need to go as a matter of course, and my grifter sense is totally tingling

Most of my fillings are many decades old. My dentist has never told me, 'welp, all these old fillings are past their due date and they all need to go'.

fourth dentist, first time one's said "yo replace your fillings". i asked how many, and how long each replacement would take, and she didn't know off the top of her head or really want to talk about it, much less show me x-rays, instead all about something called Invisalign, a transparent adult braces mechanism. very strange experience

I'd politely but firmly refuse. it's your mouth, your teeth and your choice.

some dentists are salesppl, my new dentist is this way. you just have to be firm and tell them to make a note on your fike you dont want cosmetic or preventative work, just basic maintenance/repair.

aka I AM NOT AN ATM MACHINE FYI

i'm thinking about getting my metal ones replaced with resin ones, y/n? i've had them since i was a teen, close to 15-20 years old now?

i read on wikipedia that resin ones have a limited lifespan?

hope leigh's sensitivity has died down by now

I was eating some chilli corn nuts last night and bit into what I thought was one of them hard uncooked kernels you sometimes get in the mix. And then realised to my dismay it was a sizable chunk of broken tooth. And then the big old metal filling pinged out and I instantly became physically aware of a big new gap at the back of my gob where once there was solid mass now barely any tooth left at all oh noes! Thank god for my wisdom teeth because I've fucked up my upper primary molars on both sides now.

yay, had a similar experience about six months ago, the special part was that crap had accumulated underneath the filling before it blew out, so lots of ugh to get it cleaned up. On the plus side the repair is much tougher so it’s better overall.

I don't think there is enough tooth left for a repair job in this case. But on the bit of tooth that had broken off I could see black decay working down the inner filling side of it, it was a bad old filling that very likely had some pain in the post for me so probably had to go anyway.