Missing teeth in Ajax is miserable, but many people experience tooth loss. Traditional ways to replace missing teeth include partial and complete dentures and tooth-supported bridges, but dental implants are primarily regarded as the gold standard.
When considering dental implants in Whitby, most people think about the cosmetic benefits of treatment and the ability to chew food comfortably once more. However, one often overlooked benefit of implant treatment is its positive impact on the jawbone. While dentures and dental bridges can replace missing teeth, they will not protect the jawbone and cannot prevent bone loss.
What Makes Dental Implant Treatment So Special?
One factor that makes dental implant treatment unique is how an implant replaces the tooth root artificially. When you lose teeth, the entire tooth is removed, including its root that extends into the jawbone. The tooth root helps anchor the tooth firmly in the jawbone, but it has a second purpose: to help prevent jawbone loss.
When you bite or chew on a natural tooth, the action creates pressure that passes through the tooth crown, the part you can see in the mouth, the tooth root, and the surrounding bone. These micro sensations ensure that your body knows they should be replaced once old bone cells die. The repeated action of biting and chewing food helps stimulate your jawbone, keeping it healthy and robust and preventing jawbone loss. After you lose a tooth, these micro sensations are lost, and restorations like dentures and dental bridges in Pickering cannot replace them because they merely sit on your gums. Wearing dentures can accelerate jawbone loss because of the pressure on your gum tissue. As a result, your jawbone will deteriorate after teeth are removed, and the loss of bone in the first year after losing teeth can be considerable.
With dental implants in Oshawa, the implant post is inserted directly into the jawbone. When you bite and chew food, micro sensations are created, ensuring the bone around the implants remains healthy and robust. Continued stimulation helps prevent bone loss.
What Is the Process for Having Dental Implants?
If you are facing tooth loss in Newcastle and are interested in implants, schedule an appointment to come and see us at Durham Dental Solutions. One of the first things our dentist wishes to do is assess the bone mass and density available for implant insertion. We take a cone beam CT scan to create high-quality 3-D images of your jaws. Because the jawbone is often destroyed by gum disease or can occur if you lost teeth some time ago, it’s not unusual to require a bone grafting procedure. This is a very straightforward process of building up the jawbone. If you need a bone graft in Clarington, it may be possible to carry it out simultaneously with implant insertion or as a stand-alone procedure beforehand.
Implant insertion is by computer-guided surgery, so we devise your treatment plan using 3-D scans and fabricate a custom-made template or stent that fits over your gum and guides our implant dentist during surgery. This results in implants being placed extremely accurately during a quicker and smoother process, so healing is faster and more comfortable. We can often fit a temporary implant tooth soon after surgery, so there is no need to worry you will be left without teeth. Even if this isn’t possible, we can temporarily restore wear while your implants heal, which takes several months. Once complete, you can receive your final dental implant teeth in Courtice.