Learn The Benefits Of Dental Implants
The teeth you have are supposed to last your entire life. However, you might already know that teeth sometimes don’t wind up doing this. The replacement of any missing teeth is crucial to your general health and wellness, but it’s also important for the health of the rest of your teeth. Not only can losing a tooth deprive you of chewing ability, but any teeth that go unreplaced can mean other teeth get crowded, tipped, or lost, leading to even more issues.
On top of all that, having one or more of your teeth missing can create issues in terms of lower self-esteem and poor physical appearance. Given all of this, dental implants need to always be thought of as an option for replacing missing or failing teeth. Using dental implants to replace lost teeth has been going on for over five decades, and the dental field widely recognizes this treatment choice as being effective. This type of treatment is generally considered more predictable than endodontic treatment, resin bonded bridges, and bridgework.
The main advantage of dental implants is that they act just like natural teeth. This is especially true in the cases of implants that restore a patient’s full chewing power. The majority of patients aren’t able to distinguish any difference between a natural tooth and an implant tooth. They’re able to eat totally normal, and they even floss and brush like they otherwise would.
Another advantage of dental implants is that they can last you the rest of your life. Dental bridges might only give you a decade of service. Implants are made out of titanium and get integrated with the jawbone. Since they’re biocompatible, they’re not toxic or rejected by the patient’s body.
Dental implants can even prevent bone loss. This happens in a jaw when there aren’t any tooth roots or implants there to keep the jaw bone in a state of stimulation. A lack of stimulation means an empty space which starts deteriorating. Any space that doesn’t get an implant within a year of tooth loss is going to lose around a quarter of its volume with more in the following years.
Dentures might even speed up the bone loss since they can get loose, which is when they start rubbing up against a patient’s bony ridge, wearing it down gradually over time. Since implants replace the tooth and the root and chewing goes back to normal, it gives the natural bone stimulation for growth.
If a patient has a missing tooth, it can make adjacent teeth to start shifting crookedly towards the gap, so dental implants are beneficial in keeping the surrounding teeth in proper and stable positioning. If a gap is left, then the out-of-position teeth can negatively influence a person’s appearance, bite, and ability to chew. That kind of interference can even make tooth replacement harder later on. A poor bite can mean things like pain, headaches, and TMJ issues with a patient’s temporomandibular joint.
The gap created by missing teeth can become a black hole for bacteria and food. As such, dental implants can be a preventative measure against gum disease.
One more advantage of dental implants is how they can prevent premature aging and facial sagging, both of which can be undesirable effects from missing teeth. The lower part of a patient’s face might start collapsing, narrowing the distance between the chin and nose, leading to a more pointed chin, thinning lips, and mouth wrinkles.