Nothing beats the confidence that comes with a great smile. However, things don’t always go as planed and we end up with broken or damaged teeth, and that’s when we need dental implants to look our best. Dental implants restore your smile without the need for dentures. They look like your real teeth with minimal maintenance.
What are dental implants
Dental implants have come a lone way since their invention. Today’s implants are made from durable titanium, and are screwed into your jawbone where they look and function like real teeth. You don’t even have to remove them to clean them. They are virtually maintenance free.
Dental implants just feel good in your mouth. Placed by a professional cosmetic dentist, these false teeth give you all the benefits of having real teeth without the discomfort and paint you get from other types of false teeth. Dental implants also last a lifetime. You will never need to replace them ever. We design them to fit perfectly within the profile of your mouth, smile, and facial structure. They look so real no one will ever know you have false teeth.
How dental implants work
Dental implants replace your lost or damage teeth though titanium rods (or screws) set into your jaw with an artificial crown affixed on top of he screw. The crown looks and feels like real tooth enamel. We even color and shape it to match your existing teeth. An extension sits between the crown and screw to control the comfort of the tooth.
Requiring the skills of a specialized dentist, dental implants take 3 to 4 stages to install. During your first visit, your clinician will take a CT scan and create a mold of your teeth and gums so we can custom built your implants to your mouth. We will then remove your broken teeth under local anesthesia. Depending on your needs, we can insert your implants right then, or we can wait a few days for your gums to heal before we move on to the next step.
Once ready, we will inset your implants base screws into holes drilled into your jaw, and cap them with an antiseptic covering. Your dentist will remove this protective covering two weeks later to let your gums heal and the implants to set in place. At that time, a temporary crown will be installed to protect your implants while they heal.
Your implants will integrate into your bone, becoming solid and firm over the next four to six months. During this healing period, your dentist will apply a fixed bridge or a removable denture as a placeholder for the gap where we will install the implant.
We will install your permanent crowns during your second treatment visit. Your dentist will secure a precision fitting post to your healed implant. We will affix your porcelain crown to this fitting post. These crowns will be made to appear to look like your natural teeth, and will be adjusted to match your existing teeth.
The entire process:
- Requires NO preparation of adjacent teeth
- Preserves your jawbone, maintaining the integrity of the facial structure
- Uses superior long-term aesthetics
- Achieves the closest replacement possible for your natural teeth
- Restores any lip support lost due to the gap in teeth minimizing wrinkles around the mouth
- No more ill-fitting dentures
- Implants are long-lasting and strong
Most people have a 90% to a 95% success rate for their dental implants, and most failed implants are repairable. If there are complications with the dental implants, the worse case scenario is for these surgical implant installation procedures fail. Most failures for dental implants placed within the bone (if they happen) occurring within the first year. After the first year, the implant fail rate drops to 1% per year.
Tobacco use and single-stage dental implant procedures increase the chance for failure. We recommend all our patients to quit smoking and use the two-stage implant procedure to minimize the risk for failure.
If you have missing or broken teeth, feel free to come in for a free dental implant consolation today. Dr. Praff will give you high quality dental implants to help you restore your bright, white smile, and correct your bite.