Types of Sealant Materials: Benefits of Preventive Dentistry
Dental sealants are transparent coatings on your teeth. Dental professionals usually apply them on chewing surfaces. However, lingual surfaces on your front teeth can also have these coatings. Sealants keep food particles and bacteria away from dental surfaces. Getting dental sealants near you is safe and painless. If you want to learn about the materials used to make dental sealants and their benefits, here are the details.
Types of Materials used to make Dental Sealants
Some types of dental sealants include:
Polyacid Modified Resin
This dental sealant is a blend of glass ionomer and resin sealants. This sealant is also called compomers. They don’t have water, so they are hydrophobic. Dental sealant polyacid-modified resin delivers fluoride in lower amounts like a glass ionomer. Dental professionals use polyacid-modified resin sealants on kids.
Composite Resin
This type of sealant is a mixture of a plastic compound and ceramic. People usually prefer the tooth-colored variety. Our dentists at Excelsior use a curing light to harden this dental sealant. Composite resin dental sealants help protect teeth against cavities. The retention rates in these dental sealants are high. An individual can have this type of sealant for up to a decade.
Composite resin sealants are hydrophobic. This means moisture cannot stay on these dental sealants even for a moment. This helps keep away any bacterial contamination via stagnant moisture. Dental professionals recommend this sealant for primary and permanent teeth.
These dental sealants are ideal for hypo-mineralized permanent models. Such premolars and molars have defects in the enamel. With composite resin sealants, the fissure sealant in these molars stays on longer. Composite resin sealants are more durable and are also resistant to desiccation.
Glass Ionomer
The distinct characteristic of these dental sealants is the long-term release of fluoride. This helps strengthen your enamel for years. Glass ionomer also helps lower your tooth’s risk of tooth decay. Our dentist at Town Dental Excelsior recommends this sealant once a kid’s primary teeth erupt.
Dentists don’t perform a pretreatment before glass ionomer sealants. The acid-base reaction during setting already bonds the dentin and enamel. This helps make the placement of glass ionomer sealants quicker and easier. These sealants need more maintenance, but they protect teeth from decay and cavities more effectively than composite resin.
Importance of Dental Sealants
Dental sealants in Excelsior offer incredible benefits that include the following:
They help Protect against Cavities
A dental sealant protects teeth from decay and cavities by covering the top of your molars with tooth-colored plastic. This additional layer of protection makes it difficult for food particles and bacteria to remain on the surface of your tooth.
This process of applying them to sealants is painless and doesn’t involve any alterations to your tooth surface. To apply dental sealants, your dentist cleans your teeth thoroughly to remove any hidden plaque or food particles.
Once the teeth are cleaned and dried, a small amount of gel is placed on your teeth to help with the bonding process. Your tooth is then rinsed and dried again. The sealant is then painted onto the chewing surface of your tooth. All crevices and pits are filled in during the dental sealant process to make the dental sealants permanent.
Dental Sealants are Suitable for all Ages
Dental sealants are both beneficial to kids and adults. Although kids are the most common age demographic for this treatment, adults and kids share the same benefits. Permanent teeth of older people are also riddled with small grooves that need to be covered to help protect the tooth from bacteria.
Sealants help Reduce Deep Grooves
Molars have deeper depressions and grooves on the surfaces, making them more challenging to clean. No matter how well one brushes, toothbrush bristols can’t reach all the depressions and grooves on the chewing surfaces of their teeth. Most unreachable spots are primed for food particles and plaque to collect.
It’s also easier for food debris and bacteria to build up in these deep areas. Eventually, these deep depressions and grooves lead to a tooth experiencing some degree of decay. Dental sealants help prevent decay from developing in these vulnerable areas.
They are Long Lasting
Applying dental sealants during childhood will help protect your teeth throughout the most cavity-prone years since sealants can last for many years with proper care. Dental sealants last longer if one maintains good oral hygiene and avoids biting hard objects.