It’s a fact of life that everyone needs strong and healthy teeth. And it’s not just to bite down on food and chew in order to ensure proper nutrition. A full set of teeth also helps with speech and social interactions, and for many, the confidence to smile and wear it as their best accessory.
Unfortunately, it’s also a fact that life happens, in ways that can forever change one’s strong and healthy teeth, and beautiful smile. An accident that causes injuries to the mouth, knocking out a tooth or two. Severe tooth decay can also require a diseased tooth to be extracted. Finally, bone loss and other diseases can cause several teeth to fall off as they lose structural support to remain in place. But dental implants can help.
Dental Implants can Replace Missing Teeth
The good news is, dental care has advanced significantly over the past decades, resulting in many treatments for replacing missing teeth. The most advanced and state-of-the-art, dental implants, offer a permanent, lifetime solution to restoring your smile.
Unlike other tooth-replacement methods, dental implants can help replace missing teeth permanently. Now, you can get new, artificial dental crowns that are securely anchored in place, and look and function like natural teeth. Keep reading to learn more about dental implants and how they work.
What are dental implants?
Dental implants are a permanent tooth replacement system. There’s a common misconception that implants are the replacement teeth, but that’s not exactly the case. Instead, implants are the supportive structure that permanently anchors artificial teeth in place. Let’s go over how.
How Dental Implants Work
The dental implant itself is a titanium post that is surgically attached to the jawbone. It serves as an artificial root of a replacement tooth, called a dental crown, in place of the one you lost. Then, your periodontist attaches an abutment—a connecting device—to the implant body, extending through the gums and into the mouth. The abutment allows the dental implant to support the replacement tooth.
Once healed, an artificial dental crown can be attached to the dental implant. The implant, now functioning like the natural root of a tooth, supports the artificial tooth and anchors it in place. Because they’re fused to the jawbone, dental implants provide extremely stable support for your new teeth, which are custom-made to fit in your mouth and look and function like natural teeth.
Advantages of Dental Implants
When it comes to replacing missing teeth, only dental implants offer a permanent solution. With proper oral hygiene—looking, feeling, and working much like strong and healthy natural teeth.
Periodontists recommend dental implants because, unlike other tooth-replacement methods, they’re the only treatment that fuses directly into the jawbone. Within 3 to 6 months, the implanted titanium root becomes osseointegrated with the jawbone, essentially becoming part of it. This gives dental implants their lifelong strength and stability, and your new teeth health and function.
Here are some of the most notable advantages of dental implants:
- High success rate
- Permanent and fixed, meaning they don’t need to be taken out and cleaned separately (unlike dentures)
- Support natural-looking, strong, and fully functional dental crowns or artificial teeth
- Provide ease and comfort, enabling normal biting, chewing, and talking
- Strengthens and revitalizes the jawbone at the site of the lost tooth and nearby teeth
- Prevents bone loss and preserves your facial structure
- Lowers risk of developing cavities in adjacent teeth, and decreases tooth sensitivity.
Missing several teeth? The Power of a Single Dental Implant
Dental implants are a lot stronger and more efficient than you think. A single implant alone can provide a lot more value than a set of partial or even full dentures, and multiple dental bridges. One implant can support a few dental crowns, functioning as their artificial root.
In fact, as few as 4 implants can replace an entire arch of missing teeth. This makes dental implants incredibly cost-effective. And because they enable teeth to be permanently replaced, they also eliminate the cost and hassle of periodic fit adjustments, as with dentures, or replacements, as with bridges.
Types of Dental Implants
A major part of undergoing dental implant surgery is finding out what type you’re getting. Your periodontist will conduct a full dental exam to assess your oral health, and examine your jawbone. This allows them to confirm that you’re a good candidate for dental implants, and recommend the right type.
- Endosteal: The most common type of dental implant, embedded in the jawbone. Each endosteal implant can function as the artificial root for one or more dental crowns.
Get Strong and Healthy Teeth with Dental Implants
Looking for a permanent fix for missing teeth? See how dental implants help replace missing teeth, so you can talk and eat naturally, with restored strong and healthy teeth:
- Preserve the jawbone: Often, missing teeth can cause bone loss or degeneration of the jawbone, since it no longer needs to maintain its strength. Over time, this can alter your facial structure. The addition of dental implants can restore and preserve the jawbone, allowing it to better support remaining natural teeth, while providing a new root for artificial teeth.
- Normal talking and eating: Once dental implants are fused with the jawbone and artificial dental crowns are attached, you won’t even know the difference. You’ll have a full set of teeth that look, feel, and function like natural ones. They’ll be strong and stable, unlike dentures that can fall out or fit poorly over time. With dental implants, you’ll be able to bite, chew, and talk with ease and confidence.
- Improved oral health: Dentures and bridges can create gaps between your teeth and the gum line, causing plaque and bacteria to build up. Dental implants eliminate this risk because they’re fused directly with your jawbone and fix artificial dental crowns in place. This means all you need to do is practice good oral hygiene as you normally would to keep teeth and gums clean and healthy.
Visit Our Periodontists in Mississauga Today
No one should go through life missing teeth. But with dental implants, you can eat, talk, and smile again, with utmost ease and confidence. At Periodontal Associates, our board-certified, highly trained and experienced periodontists make all of these possible. We can restore your healthy, beautiful smile with state-of-the-art dental implants, and replace missing teeth for good.
Book a consultation with our periodontists in Mississauga to learn more about dental implants, and find out if they’re right for you.
