What has caused fracture of GIC filling within a month?

Question

Hello doctor,

I had type 2 cavity filling in one of my molar teeth. It was GIC filling. Just after the filling they did scaling of all the teeth. I asked them should I wait for an hour after the filling, but they did it anyway. Now after a month the filling broke. What do you think the reason might be? But I did not chew any hard foods after the filling.

Answer 1

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

In your case, there might be the following reasons.

1. Uneven biting pressure. It may cause the filling to break in class 2 cavities specially as walls of tooth are involved and sometimes unintentionally person bites with slight uneven pressure and it results in breaking down of filling.

2. Water or saliva contact right after filling. Usually half an hour gap is given after GIC filling for water contact, for eating and even for drinking water. If scaling is done right after filling by putting separating medium on filling still there can be chances of water contact through scaling procedure that causes filling to become porous and it might break.

Now you can go back to dentist and ask him to do composite filling instead of GIC as it has more strength. After composite, there is no need to wait, you can have direct water contact too. Take care.