My dentist wants me to replace an old silver filling with a white one (not sure of the technical term) because the old filling has caused some cracking/fissuring. He also says I should get a crown on the tooth in the near future. If I get a crown, is it necessary to replace the old filling at all? I thought the crown would do the job of a filling too. I asked him and he said that yes, he had to replace the filling prior to the crown.
I've had 2 crowns done before and they've grinded the tooth down to very little and it seems like a filling would just disappear at that point.