Losing your teeth can create a space or gap in your smile, the loss of mastication and the inability to eat a nutritious diet. While these are certainly serious issues, a potentially larger problem lies out of sight under the surface: loss of bone.
Without the tooth to stimulate the jaw, the bone below it will start to wither in the same way that muscle underneath a cast shrinks. Since your facial bone supports the skin and muscles on top of it, losing bone volume can cause your face to look prematurely aged.
The good news is that dental implants offer a remedy to halt the loss of bone. Conventional treatment options for tooth replacement; Crown & Bridge and full or partial dentures, address the short-run cosmetic problem of the missing teeth, but do nothing to stop the bone loss. Crown & Bridge also requires that two or more good teeth be ground down to serve as abutments for a bridge, leaving them at a much greater risk for cavities and endodontic failure.
With implants, however, the healthy teeth are not lost. Plus, dental implants, like your real teeth, transmit chewing forces to the jaw, stimulating it and stopping the bone loss.This is why numerous top dental organizations turn to dental implants as the standard of care for replacing teeth.
- Dental implants transmit chewing forces to the jaw, stimulating it and halting the bone loss associated with missing teeth. Typical treatment options don’t offer this crucial benefit.
- Unlike usual Crown & Bridge tooth replacement, dental implants do not require the grinding down of healthy teeth for abutments.
- Implants restore the ability to chew properly, allowing a complete and healthy diet.
- Whether you are without one tooth or many, there is usually a dental implant treatment plan that can bring back your smile.
- Implant treatment can be paired down into these phases: treatment planning, implant placement, abutment placement, and crown placement.
Your dental professional will take x-rays and prepare a model of your current teeth to determine how the implant should be placed. On occasion, a bone or gum tissue graft will be needed to provide an adequate site for placement. The implant is then placed in the bone and provided a period of time to heal before attachment of the crown and abutment. In some cases, you can receive an impermanent crown the same day.
The final crown is usually placed 3-6 months after implant placement. Maintaining your dental hygiene is the most critical role you will play in the long-run success of your implant. Your doctor will provide specific instructions for brushing and flossing the area and put you on a routine check-up cycle. Given proper care, implants can give lifelong gratification. In the less frequent instances that implants do not function as expected, your dental care professional can usually perform a procedure to remedy the issue .
