Why are Dental Implants Necessary & How Crucial Is It to Replace Missing Teeth?
Dental implants are tiny and incredibly strong titanium alloy screws that help replace missing or damaged natural teeth. Implants are embedded deep into your jawbone to ensure the screw helps provide a stable base to connect an artificial tooth or teeth onto them.
Besides using implants to replace broken or missing teeth, they are also helpful in providing support to removable dentures. Now that you know how dental implants help, let us consider why it is crucial to replace missing teeth.
What Are Dental Implants?
Dental implants are not artificial teeth but a tool for replacing natural teeth with these titanium posts surgically embedded deep into your jawbone. Three essential parts comprise a dental implant requiring two surgeries before you can have artificial teeth placed over them.
The titanium post represents the implant inserted into your jawbone in a surgical process requiring two to four hours, depending on the number of teeth you want replaced.
The second portion of the dental implant is an abutment that is attached over it to function as a holder for your dental crown to function as your artificial tooth.
Firstly the implant goes into your jawbone and must fuse with it in a process called osseointegration, needing three to six months. Osseointegration is essential to convert the implant into your artificial tooth to provide the stable support required by your artificial tooth. After the implant fuses with your body, you undergo a second surgery for abutment attachment over the implant requiring another two weeks to recover before you can eventually have your artificial teeth custom created by a dental laboratory from porcelain resembling your remaining teeth to fit over the implant. Therefore, it helps to understand why dental implants are considered the gold standard for replacing missing teeth.
Why Are Dental Implants Necessary?
Dental implants become necessary when you become a victim of tooth loss because of injuries or infections, making it essential for you to have your teeth extracted. Getting your permanent teeth removed not only impacts your smile but also makes you vulnerable to several issues impacting your dental and overall health.
Loss of teeth affects your ability to bite or chew foods compelling you to swallow larger chunks and become a victim of digestive problems. In addition, the edentulous gaps in your mouth become a place for food particles to remain trapped, inviting your mouth bacteria to make it a breeding ground for themselves to create additional infections like tooth decay and gum disease.
Your aesthetic appearance impacts significantly because besides making it challenging for you to smile before friends and family members, tooth loss also causes jawbone resorption to make you appear older and change your facial appearance. In addition, any remaining teeth you have started drifting towards the vacant spaces to create misalignments in your mouth needing orthodontic treatment.
You can prevent all the above by seeking dental implants in Encinitas, CA, by scheduling a free consultation with them to determine your eligibility to receive this excellent remedy to replace your missing teeth.
Eligibility Criteria for Dental Implants
When you visit the dentist in Leucadia to consult for dental implants, the professional evaluate your oral and physical health and inquires whether you are affected by any autoimmune conditions like diabetes that delay the healing process after getting dental implants in your jawbone. The dentist also takes x-rays, and CT scans to view jawbone density and determine whether other strategies like bone grafts or sinus lifts are needed before dental implant placement.
If your oral and physical health is optimal, the dentist advises that you quit smoking if you are a smoker to prevent implant failure after surgery. If you commit to adhering to the dentist’s instructions, they schedule an appointment to provide your implants to give you the replacement teeth you need desperately.
Why Consider Dental Implants and Not Alternatives to Replace Teeth?
We mentioned earlier that dental implants are the gold standard for replacing missing teeth. However, there are reasons why dental implants have achieved a reputation alternatives have not. Replacements like dentures, besides slipping and shifting in the mouth, need replacements every five to seven years. Although dentures are affordable, costs increase over time, and repeated appointments for adjustments and replacements take longer than getting implants.
If you choose dental bridges, structural damage to the adjacent teeth beside the missing tooth damage your natural teeth, and the dental bridge held by supporting teeth with dental crowns become a victim of plaque remaining trapped around and between them to make you prone to gum disease. In addition, you need three dental crowns to replace one missing tooth costing you nearly $ 3000, and at least two appointments with the dentist near me to get them.
However, if you decide to have dental implants as replacements for your missing teeth, you invest in a solution lasting you for your life because implants are standalone applications that don’t need replacements with time to prove as natural looking and functioning artificial teeth indistinguishable from your natural teeth to anyone. Therefore you make a sensible decision when considering implants over other alternatives for replacing missing teeth.
Steve B Horne, DDS, Encinitas, CA, provides dental implants in Encinitas to all adults without physical and oral health problems. If you have lost teeth and want a lasting solution, kindly do not hesitate to contact this practice to receive dental implants to overcome tooth loss.