It is important for individuals who are missing one or more teeth to consider getting dental tooth implants. Leaving gaps in the teeth will, over time, result in medical problems on top of the obvious cosmetic diminishment of ones appearance.
Missing teeth may cause a person to neglect certain aspects of a healthy diet. Several missing teeth create the equivalent of vacuum in the side of the mouth, or behind the lips, causing the skin to draw inward, prematurely wrinkle, and collapse over time. Worse than all of these negatives, however, is the deterioration of bone mass in the jaws.
Bones need teeth just as much as teeth need bones, because active bone growth requires a structure to form around. Without the structure of a tooth root, or a dental tooth implant, the bone atrophies, smoothes, and eventually loses both tone and mass. This can result in a permanent, irretrievable bone loss if left for many years.
While it is true that all forms of standard teeth replacement, including generic dentures, will help to maintain the structure and integrity of facial muscles, only dental tooth implants can provide the effective anchorage that jaw bones require to recover from a period of deterioration and maintain any semblance to normal strength and functionality.
Crown and bridge treatments will often provide chewing surfaces equivalent to those of dental tooth implants, but again, they can do nothing for the bone mass beneath the gum line unless they are used in conjunction with dental tooth implants in full mouth reconstructions.
Sometimes a combination of implantation and bridgework is necessary in cases where most of the jaw bone has deteriorated, and only strategic, key points along the bone can be used for a few key implantation points to serve as a framework for permanent bridges. Only a trained expert in this highly specialized form of dental surgery can make such a determination.
The good news is, most cases of missing teeth are not this severe. When a person acts quickly enough, or when only a few teeth need replacing, restorative work can almost always be done exclusively with dental tooth implants that are custom made to the specific tooth size and jaw bone structure of the patient.
The genius of this procedure lies in its unique combination of simple components with advanced planning, surgical techniques, and cosmetic restorative dentistry.
The dental tooth implant itself is essentially an artificial tooth root made from a special, bio-friendly Titanium alloy known as Tivolloy. The bottom of the implant is shaped like a screw so that it can be twisted into the bone itself.
This is not nearly as painful as it may sound. It is actually much more painful to have tooth removed than it is to have an implant placed. Dentists either perform implantation under local anesthetic if there are only one or two implants to be placed. Multiple implants, or implantation requiring gum or gone grafts and full mouth restoration work, may require outpatient care under general anesthetic.
Regardless, the dentist first makes a scale model of the existing teeth and jaw line, studies where best to position the replacement teeth, then surgically places the dental tooth implants. If necessary, he or she covers the titanium with a temporary crown to protect it during osseointegration (the healing process during which the bone accepts the replacement tooth root).
After 3-6 weeks, the dentist then secures the dental tooth implant with an abutment, which is really just another, smaller screw that holds the implant more firmly in place. A porcelain crown is then custom made to match surrounding healthy teeth, and it is placed over the abutment to create a new, resilient, fully functioning, and cosmetically appealing replacement tooth.
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