Dental Implants 101: What Are They, Who Needs Them And How Do They Work
Posted By All On Dental Implants
Dental implants replace your weak, damaged, or missing teeth for a permanent solution by installing stable structures in your jaw. It’s a process that cleans up the dysfunctional teeth so that you can have a fresh start from your history.
Many people feel so self-conscious about their teeth that the last thing they want is to go to a dentist for an examination. When this is the case, periodontal disease can worsen, leaving your mouth in an even more dire state. Whether you need only one tooth or several teeth replaced, it’s essential you understand your dental implant options and discuss them with your dentist as early as possible.
How Can An Implant Be So Stable?
If you’ve ever seen a diagram of your mouth, the teeth actually extends downwards past the gums into a socket that exist in your jaw bones. Your dentist will remove the old tooth and insert a metal or ceramic post that will fuse to the bone as your mouth heals from surgery. Since titanium and zirconia are strong, they make for a good structure to secure teeth that will have to chew and grind food.
After the implant finishes healing from the surgery, your dentist will have modelled replacement teeth for you that will fit in with the rest of your mouth, matching colour, shape, size, and thickness and affix it to the post. In other cases, if you’re replacing several teeth, instead of individual teeth, your dentist may be giving you dentures or bridges that will be stabilized by several points of supportive titanium posts.
Cleaning Up The Damage
Periodontal disease will have weakened your jaw bone, which we will go in and clean-up for you in addition to extracting problematic teeth. A bone graft may also be used to strengthen the underlying area. In many cases, only local anesthetic is necessary for the procedure. There will be a healing period as your gum had to be lifted away from teeth and bones – during this time you may be supplied a temporary fixed tooth replacement.
Dental implants have an incredibly high rate of effectiveness of up to 98%, so with good care they can last you for many years to come. You’ll be able to do the simple things again headache free, like smile and dine out without restricting your diets or dealing with the hassle of dentures.
Come in for a consultation today to see how we can help you!