White fillings have a bad name. The reason is technique, not the material.

No. Your filling will not fail if all the standards of care are adhered to: rubber dam isolation, the best material, removing all of the decay, and using magnification to see what I am doing.

A filling might feel sensitive on rare occasions right after the procedure. If it is deep, the nerves of the tooth have become sensitive and need time to adjust and settle.

Two possibilities. Either it is high in the bite, after a long appointment, and with anaesthesia, the mouth does not always close properly, so the bite may need adjusting at a short second visit. Or the bond has failed: the filling is sticking in some places and not others, creating a gap that acts like a suction pump, so biting forces trapped water out and the nerves read it as pain. That requires a redo.

Dental decay is a combination of four things: bacteria that consume carbohydrates, on a tooth surface, for a sufficient amount of time. Decay is also slow, and takes up to four years to show as a large cavity, so you may have given up sugar a year ago and the decay had already started. Carbohydrates are also present in a modern diet without us knowing, and the frequency of consumption does more damage than a large quantity at one time.

Two reasons, and both are avoidable. Moisture contamination during placement, these materials are sensitive to saliva and blood while they set, which is what the rubber dam is for. And failure to remove all the decay, which happens because many dentists do not give local anaesthetic for a filling; removing decay completely means going into the sensitive part of the tooth, and that is not possible without it.

Tooth-coloured fillings match the tooth and are imperceptible to the eye. They have gathered a bad reputation in the general public because of a high failure rate, but that rate comes from how technique-sensitive they are, not from the material. Placed under a rubber dam with all the decay removed, with good material and magnification, they last.

One. If several fillings are needed in the same area of the jaw, one quadrant, they can all be done in a single visit. Rubber dam isolation is what makes that practical.

Composite from 3M in Germany, the same brand for more than twenty-five years, with consistent results. Rubber dam from Cerkamed in Poland. Magnification through a German Carl Zeiss loupe, and the dental operating microscope on selected cases, where the range of magnification and light goes well beyond what any loupe offers.

On rare occasions a filling feels sensitive straight after the appointment. If it was a deep one, the nerves in the tooth have been disturbed and need time to settle back to normal.