IMPLANTS
What exactly are the dental implants?
Dental Implants are the gold standard for replacing missing teeth today. They are essentially root and tooth substitutes. In the past, when a patient lost a tooth and there were teeth on both sides of the missing space, a bridge was recommended. Bridges function just fine and have been done in dentistry for over one hundred years.
Do you know what a bridge does to your teeth?
Bridges do however, have their drawbacks. They require grinding down both of the attachment teeth on both sides of the missing tooth.
Crowns, or caps are made, both fused to a fake tooth in the middle, resulting in a bridge. If these teeth have not had any dental work done and do not have cavities, a bridge requires grinding down two healthy teeth.
What makes
DENTAL IMPLANTS INDISPENSABLE
The gold standard
Dental implants are the gold standard for replacing missing teeth today. They consist of a metal post, titanium to be exact, being placed into the jaw bone where the root of the tooth used to be. Titanium is one of the most bio-compatible materials in medicine that can actually bond to the bone.
Once connected to the bone, it effectively becomes a tooth root substitute and we can attach a tooth replacement containing a crown, or cap, to replace a single tooth. We can also use implants to support a bridge, or anchor down a denture, to give it superior stability. Dental implants act, feel, and look like your own natural teeth and are as close as we can get to replacing them.
Bridges have their drawbacks
If there is no tooth anywhere behind the missing tooth, a bridge is not an option. Implants provide a modern alternative to these problems. They are new compared to bridges, but we have been placing them for almost 40 years, and have much research and data proving their effectiveness.
Overdenture and Fixed Implant Bridges
Implants have had a tremendous impact on how we make and think about our dentures. Prior to implants we had to depend on the edentulous (toothless) gums to have enough supporting bone to provide an adequate and stable base for the denture.
Implants help prevent bone resorption
Even with great underlying bone support, dentures would still often move in the mouth, requiring the patient to wear special denture glue to hold them in place. Many people who’ve lost their teeth some time ago, have their underlying bone underneath their gums shrink over the year. When there are no teeth, the resulting, diminished stress of chewing, causes the bone to shrink. This is called bone resorption and reduces stability of dentures in the mouth even more.
Dental implants offer us anchors that can stabilize these dentures. Implants, the posts that go into the bone, or root replacements, can have special attachments instead of teeth. These attachments can snap onto the corresponding attachments on the denture, greatly stabilizing it. This is called an overdenture and results in vastly improved comfort, stability, chewing forces, and more confidence speaking.
Why you Should Choose
IMPLANTS AGAINST TRADITIONAL DENTURES
Get 60% more denture stability
Traditional dentures provide about 25 percent of the chewing strength of a full set of healthy teeth, by anchoring the lower denture to just two implants and converting it to an overdenture, we can increase that to over 60 percent, which will go up as the number of supporting implants increases.
We also have the ability to replace the teeth in the entire arch with implant supported bridges. This provides even more stability and does not get removed overnight. A number of Implants, or posts, are placed in specific locations in the jaw bone, where the teeth roots were. Once fully healed and bonded to the bone, special attachments are put on instead of teeth. These attachments allow us to screw in a complete arch implant supported bridge.
These are more complex cases that require a significant amount of planning and a number of implants to be placed. Patients still need to come in every 6 months for us to unscrew the bridges from the implants and clean them.
No fear
NO PAINFUL PROCEDURE
Implant present typically has less pain associated with it than the tooth extraction that resulted in the missing tooth in the first place. Most patients only report minor discomfort following the procedure. There is a significant amount of healing time that has to occur prior to us having a functioning tooth, bridge, or denture.
The Benefit of Grafting and Titanium you didn’t know
If there is a tooth that has to get extracted, we have to wait for the socket, hole, to fill up with healthy bone before implant placement. This can take up to 4 months. In most cases, a bone graft is performed, if an implant at the extraction site is planned. Implants require healthy, dense bone, for maximum stability and best results.
Grafting the site, or adding powdered bone helps in the healing process and ensures a denser underlying bone as the result. Once healed and implanted, tooth root replacement, can be placed. A titanium post is placed into the jaw bone where the tooth root was.
Titanium actually bonds to the bone. This creates tremendous stability of the implant once healed. This second healing process and bonding also takes up to 4 months. Once completed, a tooth replacement or any other desired attachment can be fabricated and added.
The Benefit of Grafting and Titanium you didn’t know
If there is a tooth that has to get extracted, we have to wait for the socket, hole, to fill up with healthy bone before implant placement. This can take up to 4 months. In most cases, a bone graft is performed, if an implant at the extraction site is planned. Implants require healthy, dense bone, for maximum stability and best results.
Grafting the site, or adding powdered bone helps in the healing process and ensures a denser underlying bone as the result. Once healed an implant, tooth root replacement, can be placed. A titanium post is placed into the jaw bone where the tooth root was.
Titanium actually bonds to the bone.
This creates tremendous stability of the implant once healed. This second healing process and bonding also takes up to 4 months. Once completed, a tooth replacement, or any other desired attachment can be fabricated and added.
Rufe Snow provides the latest in dental implants and restorative dentistry technology. Replace your missing and broken teeth with top-quality custom dental implants from our professional dental group. For more information call us or fill out the form to schedule your appointment today!
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