Dental Implants - They’re More Than Just Cosmetic

If you are missing one or more teeth, you may be considering your options for tooth replacement in order to fill gaps in your teeth and improve your appearance. Past options only included dentures or bridges, but today, dental implants can comfortably and affordably replace missing teeth without altering your dental hygiene routine or diet, and they offer more benefits than just improving your appearance.

Better Speech

Dental implants have no risk of slipping or sliding out of place, which can be embarrassing when you slur of mumble over words due to failed denture adhesive. Dental implants, by comparison, are anchored in your jaw. This prevents them from moving or slipping because they act just like natural teeth.

Improved Comfort for the Wearer

Dentures involve an adjustment period, which can be uncomfortable and deter the individual from wearing them regularly. Implants eventually fuse with the surrounding jaw bone, making them a permanent fixture in the mouth and just as durable as natural teeth.

Improved Oral Health

Dental implants offer improved oral health over other types of teeth replacement options. There is less change of bone and gum loss and oral infections with dental implants than with dentures and bridges. Individuals with dental implants are also less likely to have denture breath due to inadequate or improper cleaning and/or old dentures.

Improves Chewing Function

When you are missing teeth, your ability to chew is compromised, and your other teeth are subjected to increased pressure, which can result in further tooth problems and oral health concerns. Dentures and partials cover soft tissues, which decrease your ability to taste and enjoy food. Dentures and partials can also result in avoiding certain foods for fear of the food getting stuck between the dental appliance and your gums or the roof of your mouth. Since dental implants take up the same space as a normal tooth, there is no need to alter your diet.

Maintains Jaw Bone Density

Missing teeth can cause a loss of bone density because there is no tooth or root to stimulate the jaw. This can result in nearby teeth becoming loose and the need for further extractions. Since implants contain a post that is inserted into the jaw, the loss of bone density in the area of the previously missing tooth is better maintained.

No Need to File Surrounding Teeth

For certain type of tooth replacement treatments, like bridges, the anchor teeth may need to be filed. This results in more tooth loss, and if the bridges do not work as intended, the filed teeth will need to be covered and protected with crowns. An implant cannot get a cavity; if a bridge ever gets, typically the entire bridge must be replaced.

No Need to Remove

Dental implants do not need to be removed in order to be cleaned, and special cleaning methods are not needed to kill bacteria and remove food particles. This means that you will not need to adhere to any new teeth cleaning regiments. Instead, you can brush, floss and use mouthwash as normal.