What You Should Know About Dental Implants

By R.S. Mayberry, DDS

Mayberry Dental

. https://www.mayberrydental.com/

More Dental Health Articles

What You Should Know About Dental Implants

Dental implants have been around for more than 50 years now. If you have diseased or missing teeth, and your gums and bones are relatively healthy, dental implants are usually a great option. Compared to other solutions like dentures and bridgework, today's implants are a permanent solution with many advantages. But like any surgical option, the success of your implant procedure depends on many things including your dentist, the implant system itself, and you the patient.

Why Consider Dental Implants?

Today, leading dental organizations will recommend clinically proven implant systems as an option for tooth replacement. Implants are a truly permanent solution more like a natural tooth.

The latest implants are made with titanium or zirconium (the same metals used in joint replacements). Assuming the quality of your jawbone is good enough to place the implant and heal normally after surgery, titanium and zirconium will fuse with your bone. The implant is a complete replacement, not just a fixture designed to fit into your mouth.

Older techniques may not be as comfortable, may be harder to keep clean, and require more work for you and your dentist to maintain. In addition, with proper surgical technique, implant success rates exceed 95%.

One major advantage of implants over other tooth replacement options is that the structure of the implant does not decay as tooth structure does. For example, you can't get a cavity on an implant, whereas you could on the tooth that is part of a fixed bridge.

Implants also conserve tooth structure. You don't have to “cut into” other teeth in order to place an implant, whereas placing a bridge requires removing/drilling into other teeth in order to place the bridge on top of them.

Not everyone is a candidate for an implant. A proper assessment by your implant dentist is necessary to determine your eligibility.

Implant Systems The Basics

Dental implants are mechanical systems that have parts and “installation”, or placement techniques, best suited for each system. The most common and widely used implant systems have three basic parts

1. The anchor (body),which is placed into the jawbone

2. The extension (abutment), which sits on top of the anchor to hold the crown

3. The crown itself

Although most manufacturers supply the same basic parts, it's important to understand that each manufacturer makes the parts differently this means that your surgeon's choice of manufacturer may affect your long-term satisfaction as well as your ability to have the implant worked on in the future.