The Lifelong Benefits of Dental Implants: Improving Oral Health and Function for the Long Term
What Are Dental Implants?
They are oral appliances in modern dentistry in Frisco that focus on tooth replacement. Dental implants feature small screw-like metal posts featuring titanium. They are ideal for restoring tooth roots, offering a permanent solution to tooth loss.
What Is the Process of Getting an Implant?
Getting Dental implants involves an intricate and invasive surgery to place the metal post in the jawbone. Therefore, the dentist will first numb your mouth with local anesthesia. Its role in Dentistry in Frisco is to numb your mouth beforehand so you experience a pain-free process. Sometimes, dentists employ sedation dentistry to counter dental anxiety and keep you calm during treatment.
The dentist begins the surgery by making an incision on your gums, then drilling the jawbone. The hole should match the size of the dental implant. After erecting it in the jawbone, the dentist sutures the gums to support the implant. In a typical implantation procedure, the dentist will allow you to heal before further dental work. Healing should occur between 3-4 months.
On a different dental visit, your dentist will crown the implant to complete the treatment. Crowning involves dental crowns, bridges, or dentures. It depends on the number of teeth missing.
Improving Chewing, Speaking, and Eating with Dental Implants
Dental implants are primarily helpful for improving oral function. It is possible through the following ways:
- Improved chewing ability: Dental implants function like natural teeth since they have a root and a crown. Therefore, they allow you to bite and chew your food with ease. Besides, their secure anchorage in the jawbone makes them withstand the pressure of biting and chewing without slipping or moving around like dentures.
- Improved speech: Missing teeth affect your ability to speak clearly. If you get dentures, they can address this problem, but sometimes they slip or move around, causing speech difficulties. Dental implants provide a stable, fixed replacement for missing teeth, improving your speech in clarity and confidence.
The Aesthetic Benefits of Dental Implants: Improving Your Smile
Other than improving oral function, dental implants also offer significant aesthetic benefits. They can better your smile’s aesthetics in the following ways:
- Natural-looking appearance: Dental implants look and feel like natural teeth. The dental crowns or bridges dentists on Lebanon Road attach to the implants are custom-made to match the color, shape, and size of your existing teeth. Therefore, they blend in seamlessly with your smile.
- Improved facial aesthetics: Missing teeth cause the face to sag or look sunken in, giving the appearance of premature aging. Dental implants can restore youthfulness by accentuating the natural face contours, giving you a fuller and more vibrant appearance.
- Increased self-confidence: Missing teeth can embarrass you and cause self-consciousness. It can affect your confidence and overall quality of life. Dental implants restore your smile to improve your self-esteem, making you more confident and comfortable in social situations.
- Improved bite alignment: When you lose a tooth, the surrounding teeth start shifting out of position, causing bite alignment problems. Implant dentistry in Frisco helps to maintain proper bite alignment, improving both the function and appearance of your smile.
Who is a Candidate for Dental Implants? Factors to Consider
While dental implants are an effective and popular way to replace missing teeth, not everyone is a candidate for implantation surgery at Millennium Smiles on Legacy. Some factors that determine whether or not you are a good candidate for dental implants are:
- Excellent oral health: This includes healthy gums and sufficient bone density in the jaw to support the implant. If you have gum disease, significant bone loss, or other underlying oral problems, you need a different treatment before dental implants.
- Age: While there is no age limit for dental implants, the ideal candidate should be over 18. The reason is that the jawbone is fully developed at this age. There is no particular upper age limit since older patients can be good candidates as long as they have good overall health.
- Commitment to oral hygiene: The long-term success of dental implants depends on good oral hygiene. It includes regular brushing and flossing and regular dental checkups by a dentist on Lebanon Road.
- Overall health: Your general body health can be a factor in determining your qualification for dental implants. Health conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, necessitate additional testing and treatment before dental implants.