Dental Implant Healing and Recovery Times

Getting dental implants requires you to have surgery which will replace the roots of your teeth with metal posts that dentures can screw onto. The posts must be inserted into your jawbone (or in the cases of some more sophisticated implants, slotted under the gum or inserted into your cheekbone.

Dental implant surgery is complex and can have a long recovery time, but it is worth it in the long term because the implants will stay in place better than dentures and you will be able to eat hard or crunchy food without worrying. You also won’t have to struggle with trying to keep under your dentures clean when eating food with pips or seeds.

Dental implant recovery must be taken seriously. The dentist drills into your jawbone and while the implant is setting into place and fusing with the bone, you must keep the area around the wound clean. You may need to follow a special diet to ensure that you don’t hurt your jaw, that the implant area does not get infected, and that you don’t disturb the implant while it is setting into place.

Not everyone can have standard implants. Someone who has a very small jawbone or a jawbone that is not strong may need surgery to augment their jawbone before they can have implants put in. Also, if someone has a health condition that will stop the bones from healing properly then that could cause additional problems as well.

Risks and Side Effects

There are some risks with dental implant surgery. The most common risk – infection – has already been discussed. Other risks can include sinus problems if a dental implant in the upper jaw is allowed to protrude into the sinus cavity, and also nerve damage or injury to the surrounding structures in the jaw.

Dentists mitigate those risks by making sure that if they perform surgery, they get a good 3D image of the jaw first. They will also give you a detailed treatment plan, which may include antibiotics to help fight infection.

If you are told that you need bone grafting, then this will be done as a separate surgery which will have its own recovery time. The bone graft will make your jaw stronger, but it will take time for the new bone to be accepted by your body. It can take several months for the transplanted bone to become secure and strong enough to support the implant. Once the bone graft is strong enough, then a hole will be drilled into it to support the implant. You will then need to wait for that post to heal into place and become strong and sound before you can add a proper implant to it. You will be given a temporary implant that you can wear during the recovery process. You should remove this denture to clean it, and take it out when you go to bed as well.

Getting implants is not a simple process, but it can be a life-changing one, and it is well worth going through so that you can eat, drink and talk without fear of your teeth letting you down.