Dental implant

A dental implant is an artificial root that placed into the jawbone and acts as an anchor to hold the replacement tooth in place, it is made of titanium metal. It usually used when adult people lose their teeth as they age. It completely looks like the natural teeth and act and feel the same as a natural and healthy tooth. A dental implant keeps the overall structure of the mouth and prevents of moving out the other teeth from their normal position and preserve natural biting and chewing.

Who is the right candidate to get a dental implant?

Generally, the requirements for getting dental implants are having healthy gum, enough bone in the jaw to hold an implant and being in good general health. But if your jawbone has not developed normally or has reduced, your dentist will check whether you can do bone grafting to build up the bone. The procedure of adding bone to the jawbone called bone grafting.

The dental implant surgery procedure

Since dental implants apply during several surgeries, so your dentist will do a full oral and dental evaluation including x-rays and teeth models to check whether the dental implant can be matched closely with your natural teeth.

Next, depending on how many teeth you want to replace with implants the condition of your jawbone will be considered. Your doctor also checks your medical conditions as well as any medications you are taking, whether you have any heart conditions or orthopedic implants. In this condition, your dental specialist may prescribe antibiotics to prevent infection before the surgery.

Then the procedure of dental implant surgery will be applied in different stages. Before the surgery, your damaged teeth will be removed and your jawbone will be prepared for the surgery including bone grafting.

During the first stage of implant surgery, your specialist will put a dental implant into your jawbone beneath the gum tissue and stitch back your gum tissue into place. When the tissue heals, the implant will bond with the bone and attach to the gum.

At the second stage of the surgery and when your tissue heals, your specialist will attach an abutment to the implant. An abutment is a post that connects the replacement tooth to the implant.

Then the artificial replacement tooth will be attached to the abutment but it may take several appointments to fit the replacement tooth to the abutment properly.

Dental implant advantages

A dental implant provides you many profits including:

• Improve appearance. A dental implant looks the same as your natural teeth and you even have the same feeling as your own teeth. A dental implant is permanent because it is designed to fuse with the bone.
• Eating easy. Since dental implant function is the same as your own teeth so you can eat everything without pain.
• Durability. Dental implants will last many years, even in case of proper care, they may last a lifetime.
• Improved comfort. The dental implant becomes part of your body so you don’t have the discomfort of removable dentures.
• Modify speech. With a dental implant, you no need to worry that your teeth slip while with dentures, your teeth may slip within your mouth and cause to mumble or slur your words.
• Enhance oral health. A dental implant doesn’t need to support by nearby teeth so more of your own teeth are left intact, it leads to long term oral health. More addition dental implant provides you easier access between your teeth and improves oral hygiene.

Types of dental implant

There are different types of dental implant and they usually categorized based on the type of procedure which uses to place them, two stages or one stage. Two main types of implants are Endosteal dental implant and Subperiosteal dental implant.

Endosteal Dental implant

It is the common type of implant and usually performs in a two-stage procedure. Endosteal dental implant mostly made of titanium and are shaped the same as little screws. During the surgery implant placed into the jawbone and then temporary teeth will be placed over the implant. After several weeks when your mouth heals your dentist will measure the progress and then attach the dental implant abutment and permanent crown.

Subperiosteal dental implant

This type of implant is made of a metal framework and usually placed on top of the bone instead to place directly into the jaw. It is a single stage implant procedure. A subperiosteal dental implant doesn’t place down below the gum and is visible but they expose in order to hold bridge or crown. This option is proper for patients who don’t have a healthy jawbone and can’t do a bone grafting surgery.

Although many trained dentists do the dental implant in their office, it is better the implant procedure apply by two different specialists in this area. At Dorr clinic, an Oral maxillofacial surgeon does the base of the procedure including extraction of teeth, jaw surgery and placing the dental implant in the jaw bone. Then a board-certified aesthetic and restorative specialist attach the artificial teeth that called crown. So you can receive two services in the same place.

The top benefits of dental implant?

We have already discussed variety of topics around dental implants. The benefits stand out as the most important factors in esthetics or beauty of any individual’s appearance. Some of these outstanding benefits are as follow:

• Prevention of facial aging and by dental implants you make your appearance look younger. With missing teeth, your balance of the jaw and mouth tend to be affected and shrinking lower parts of face is nothing you want to have.
• By dental implant, you also keep the other teeth to be stable and future problems like loose and fragile teeth will be prevented.
• Dental implant is effective in keeping the health of gum and preventing gum diseases.
• You can enjoy the long-term results of dental implant. It has been proved to have higher successful rates compared to dentures and bridgeworks.

There are even more advantages of dental implants and we mentioned just some of them.