Dental implant treatment is a lasting way to replace one or more missing teeth caused by disease or injury. It involves using dental implants (metal posts), often made from titanium, to act as roots for your artificial teeth. This way, you can have steady, natural-looking, and functional teeth.
Ways Dental Implants Improve Your Oral Health
The following are some ways dental implants can enhance your oral health:
1. They Help Preserve Jawbone
Dental implants promote the jawbone by serving as a root for a prosthetic tooth. This stimulation encourages the jawbone to stay strong, preventing it from weakening over time.
2. They Improve Your Bite
Replacing missing teeth with dental implants can improve how you chew and bite food, making eating easier and more pleasurable. They are designed to imitate natural teeth, so they match your bite quickly and securely without affecting other teeth or causing pain when biting down. This makes them comfier than dentures, which often slip around and cause irritation or discomfort.
3. They Help Prevent Tooth Decay
Having tooth gaps makes it harder to keep your teeth clean, increasing the risk of tooth decay, cavities, and other oral health problems. With dental implants, you can floss and brush like normal, decreasing the risk of these issues.
How Dental Implants Improve Your Smile
Missing teeth can be unsightly when you talk, smile, or laugh. Teeth implants can enhance your smile by providing a natural-looking and sturdy replacement for missing teeth. Unlike removable dentures, you don’t need to stress over them slipping out of place or being visible when you talk or smile, which many people find embarrassing.
Also, the metal posts utilized in dental implant treatment are created to blend in with your natural teeth and look indistinguishable from real teeth.
How Dental Implant Procedure Is Done
Here’s what you can expect to happen throughout your dental implant treatment:
- Initial consultation. Throughout this session, your dentist will discuss the treatment plan and ensure you meet the candidacy requirements for dental implants. They will also perform X-rays and other necessary tests to examine your teeth, jawbone, and gums. At this stage, ask about all your concerns, including the expenses and payment plans. You can get more details here.
- Additional procedures. Before your implant surgery, your dentist will perform additional treatments, such as bone graft, sinus lift, and tooth extractions (see tooth removal on the web for more info), if necessary.
- Dental implant surgery. Your dentist will start the procedure by administering local anesthesia. Sometimes they also offer sedatives or general anesthesia, depending on an individual’s case. Then they’ll make an incision in the gum to access the jawbone. After preparing the implant site, they insert the metal post and close the cut with stitches.
- Recovery time. Throughout this stage, your dental implant will require time to fuse with the jawbone, called osseointegration. This process can take up to 5 months, and your dentist will monitor it through X-rays or CT scans.
- Attaching the abutment and restoring the teeth. After the implant has successfully fused with your jawbone, your dentist will attach an abutment to it and put your replacement tooth/teeth over it to restore your tooth’s function and appearance.
While it’s generally safe, dental implant treatment is an invasive procedure requiring minor surgery. That’s why you must choose a reputable dentist in Poughkeepsie, NY. Your dentist must also utilize cutting-edge equipment and materials to ensure a good outcome.