How Implant Dentistry Can Benefit You

The primary focus of implant dentistry is to provide you with a strong, stable, and great looking replacement when you have lost a tooth. For your natural teeth, the job of stability and strength falls to the root. The root also has a symbiotic relationship with the jawbone that helps it to provide additional support for your tooth. In order to replicate the work done by the root, we use a tiny titanium screw that is placed directly into your jawbone, in most cases, which not only gives your new tooth the security it needs but also imitates the relationship with the jawbone. There are numerous reasons we can give you as to why you should consider using implant dentistry to replace a lost tooth. The most popular reason we have heard from our patients is the convenience. Since the dental implant is virtually the same as a tooth, in many aspects, it requires no additional maintenance and places no further limitations on what you can and cannot eat. For many people this ability to carry one with their lifestyle, despite having lost a tooth, is the critical component to choosing implant dentistry over some of the other alternatives.

As implant dentistry continues to make great stride in improving the quality of people's lives after they have lost teeth, there is more information available about them and more patients who actually come in with some information about implants. This is good because it then allows us to work with you on understanding the process even better and explaining some of the nuances. It also allows us to create a plan that will help you reach your goals with implant dentistry. For example, most people know about implant dentistry using a tiny titanium screw that is placed directly into the jawbone. This is known as an Endosteal Implant, and is definitely the most common type of implant that we use. However, we base the type of implant we use on the amount of bone density available and if the jaw bone can actually sustain an implant. If we find that your jaw cannot sustain a regular implant, we have the option of doing what is known as a Subperiosteal implant. A Subperiosteal implant is placed in the gum but slightly above the jawbone, or resting on the jawbone so that there is no added pressure placed on the already weakened bone structure.

Another small nugget that we like to sometimes share with patients is that there are two schools of thought when it comes to the healing process after the implant has been placed. One group favors a one-step approach. This approach completes the implant surgery by covering the implant with tissue and then leaving it to heal naturally. The bone and the gum tissue heal over a period of 4 to 6 weeks. The other school of thought is to use a two-step approach. In this method, the dentist places a small device known as a dental abutment over the implant, allowing for the bone and tissue to heal around it. The healing takes exactly the same amount of time as the one-step approach though the abutment does provide some additional protection.

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