Dental Implants

Implants are the ideal way to replace missing teeth. The main part is a titanium “root” that is placed in the gums. A connecting piece attaches to the root and also to a crown, which is what fills in the missing space just like a natural tooth.

Benefits of dental implants

• Helps you chew normally again
• Enables you to smile again
• Helps keep the jawbone from shrinking due to bone loss, which can cause esthetic concerns such as collapsed profile, loss of lip support & wrinkles
• Preserves the health of the surrounding bone and gums
• Helps keep adjacent teeth from shifting
• Improves quality of life

While there are multiple ways to restore missing teeth , an implant is usually the gold standard. Implants have many advantages over other ways to replace teeth, including:

• Do not have to work on the adjacent teeth. The implant fits entirely in the empty space caused by the missing tooth, and does not need to be anchored to other teeth.
• Easier to clean. You can floss normally around an implant, unlike a bridge which needs a special flosser.
• The implant stands on its own. By contrast, with a bridge, all the teeth involved in the bridge are tied together. This means that in the future any issue with a tooth that is part of the bridge will likely require working on the whole bridge.
• An implant stays in place, and does not need to be removed at night the way a partial or complete denture does.

Implants can be used if you are missing just one tooth, multiple teeth, or even all of the teeth in one or both jaws. Depending on how many teeth you are missing, implants can be used in a few different ways, as shown in the diagram below.

• A single implant supporting a single crown (left)
• Two implants supporting a bridge to replace 3 or more teeth (center)
• Multiple implants (usually 2-4) to help secure and stabilize a loose complete denture (right)

If you think you may need an implant, call us or schedule online for an evaluation.