How to Place Dental Implants
Dental implants are set by a gentle surgical procedure which must be done by an oral surgeon. You will have a full consultation and examination by the oral surgeon who will help to finish the treatment plan. Most patients are candidates for implant treatment. Your surgeon will observe your oral condition and general health when taking care. This procedure does not depend on age! In most cases, your tooth can be removed and a dental implant can be placed in a step. Multiple steps are only needed if you’ve been missing teeth for a long period.
You can pick from these options when it comes to dental implants:
- Single tooth implants: Each tooth replacement has its own abutment and crown.
- A fixed complete denture implant or a dental implant bridge where posts are fixed at specific locations along the jaw and then a bridge of prosthetics is bound to the posts.
- Removable denture with implant retention, where the implants are placed but the denture is designed to snap on and off of the implants.
Your dentist and oral surgeon team can advise you on which of these options is best for you, depending on the number of teeth that need to be replaced, the location of the replacements, and your health.
After implant placement, you’ll need to take some basic, easy steps to care for your healing implants. Over the healing period, you must not chew on foods with your implant. You must clean them regularly to prevent infection. There is generally little soreness and most people are able to go back to work within one to two days of the implant placement. In most cases, there’s usually less soreness with a dental implant in the socket than if the tooth was extracted with no implant!
After the healing process, your oral surgeon will use an innovative, digital white light camera to make a digital model of your mouth in order to create permanent implant crowns that are artistically designed, shaped and colored to match your existing teeth. There’s usually no need to have a sticky traditional impression! If you’re replacing all your teeth, we’ll make teeth that look attractive and are proportioned to your mouth, jaw, and face shape, so your smile is both natural and radiant.
Once the “new teeth” are fixed or snapped in place, you have to frequently take good care of your teeth, have good oral hygiene habits and frequently scheduled visits to the dentist to make the implant last for many years.