Therapeutic Flowable Offers Strength and Esthetics

In the 17 years that I have spent as a practicing general dentist, I have probably tried upward of 50 different restorative materials, and I have come to several conclusions. When the preparation is close to the pulp, I feel compelled to use a glass-ionomer restorative material. However, when I use a glass ionomer, the restoration isn't glossy or easy to polish, and no matter how hard that I try, I still occasionally see a little brown line along the margin of one of my bonded composite restorations a few years later. Flowable materials are great at filling voids, but many quickly wear down and look ugly in radiographs. The upside of flowable materials is that they are so amazingly polishable, but many are too flowable, giving me very little control over the material after I extrude it from a syringe. During a normal workday, restorative dentists encounter quite a few stressors, but for me, bonded composite restorations, especially class II and esthetic zone composite restorations, are the source of the greatest stress.