Dental implants are today’s best option for replacing missing or damaged teeth. These prosthodontic appliances bond with your jawbone to provide a solution that looks and feels as natural as a healthy tooth.
Many patients want dental implants but feel unsure about investing. This blog will help inform your decision, explaining in detail how dental implants work and the process of receiving them.
What Makes Dental Implants Unique
Bridges and conventional dentures may replace the tooth’s crown, but they do not replace the roots. Dental implants are the only appliances that replace the tooth both above and below the gumline.
Without the natural stimulation chewing provides, the jawbone may begin to break down around the socket. A dental implant allows the jawbone to receive natural stimulation and stay healthy and strong.
Benefits of Dental Implants
Keep Teeth in Place
Implants keep their neighbors from drifting out of place, causing crowding, bite problems, and other alignment issues.
Protect Oral Health
Since they keep teeth in their proper positions, dental implants reduce rates of tooth decay and gum disease that can rise when patients have missing teeth.
Restore Chewing Function
One of the most considerable advantages of dental implants is that they provide excellent chewing ability. In fact, dental implant patients have no restrictions on what they eat and drink, provided they practice excellent oral hygiene.
Easy Care
Unlike bridges and dentures, implants require no extra work to keep clean. Caring for a single-tooth dental implant is as easy as caring for healthy natural teeth. Brush twice daily, floss, and visit your dentist on a routine basis.
Parts of a Single-Tooth Dental Implant
- Implant: The implant is a small titanium device surgically placed in your jawbone. Over several months, the implant bonds with the jawbone in osseointegration, which means that the tooth both feels and works naturally.
- Abutment: This small stainless-steel cap protects the implant and provides an attachment point for the crown.
- Dental Crown: This appliance replaces the portion of your tooth visible above the gumline and matches your natural teeth.
How Dental Implant Surgery Works
Step 1: Consultation
Your dentist will check whether you are a good candidate for dental implants by performing a complete examination and taking detailed digital images, including a 3D scan of your jaw. They will also review your medical history and if you are a canidate for a dental implant, they will take a scan of your teeth to join with the 3D scan of your jaw. This helps create a surgical guide for placing the implant exactly where it’s planned.
Step 2: Extraction if needed
If you have a damaged tooth, your dentist will gently extract it. In some cases, the extraction and anchor placement can happen during the same appointment. Othertimes, you will need to have a bone graft placed and then wait several months for that to heal prior to placement of the implant.
- If your tooth has been missing for years, you may not have enough bone to support an implant. In this case, you may need to visit an oral surgeon and receive a more extensive bone graft or sinus lift.
Step 4: Implant Placement
Your dentist will make a small opening in your jawbone and insert the implant. After insertion, they will carefully suture the gum closed, if needed, and allow the area to heal. It may take several months before completing osseointegration.
Step 4: Check and Scan for permanent abutment/crown
This appointment is generally 3 months following the implant placement. At this appointment the dentist will check to make sure the implant has integrated into the bone and that it has healed correctly. If it’s ready, a scan will be taken to fabricate the permanent abutment and crown that sits onto the implant.
Step 5: Crown Placement
Your dentist completes the process by installing your implant crown onto the implant and ensuring good fit and esthetics.
Tips to Maintain Your Dental Implants
- Treat Pre-Existing Conditions: Before you receive your implants, you will need to control any medical conditions, such as diabetes, gum disease, and tooth decay, that could interfere with healing.
- Practice Excellent Oral Hygiene: Brush and floss as your dentist instructs.
- Look Into a Night Guard: If you grind your teeth or clench them, a night guard can help protect your implant.
- Stop Using Tobacco Products: Tobacco use interferes with the healing process and could cause implant failure.
Frequently Asked Questions About Dental Implants
Who is a good candidate for dental implants?
Good candidates for implants share the following characteristics:
- Excellent oral hygiene
- Healthy jawbone or the ability to receive a bone graft
- No chronic conditions like uncontrolled diabetes, cancer, or osteoporosis that could impede healing
What is the success rate of dental implants?
Success rates depend on how well the patient cares for their implant. When patients properly care for implants, they succeed over 95% of the time.
Call Chagrin Falls Dental
If you have a damaged or missing tooth, you may want to know more about dental implants. Please call our Chagrin Falls, OH, office at 440-247-8641 to schedule a consultation and ask how these appliances can improve your oral health and quality of life.