Dental Implants and Implant Dentistry

If your dentist is going to pull one of your teeth, or if you have had a tooth knocked out or one fall out on its own due to decay, you may a good candidate for dental implants. Once the tooth is removed, an oral surgeon will actually drill a hole where your tooth once was and put in a screw. This will be allowed to set properly, usually for a few months, before your regular dentist can apply a crown if it is just one tooth or a bridge if you have several teeth missing in a row.

If you have tooth decay, but your dentist says that it does not need to be pulled, you should consider getting a porcelain veneer and not dental implants. The veneer will be placed over your current tooth and will allow you to maintain your root system which will be better overall for your mouth. Likewise, if you have a chip off your tooth, other options are better for you, including bonding, shaping, and veneers.

One of the great benefits of dental implants is that they are essentially permanent and you will not have to have another implantation procedure done on the same tooth. You may, however, have to have a crown replaced over time. For impatient people, however, this procedure may be taxing. It is not as though you can get your missing tooth replaced in just one visit. The implant procedure has to be given several months to anchor into your gums and jaw before the artificial tooth can be added. As a result, you will have months where you are completely missing a tooth, save for the implant. Some people may be embarrassed by this, but in the long run the procedure will make you feel better about yourself as well as improve your dental health.

Although this is a permanent solution, it is not for someone who is going to continue to be lax in their dental care. You need to work hard to maintain the health of the teeth on either side of the implant so that you do not encounter additional problems.  If you got in this situation because of tooth decay that you could have prevented, now is the time to change your ways and really make the care of your teeth a high priority.