At Ponte Vedra Complete Dentistry, we are dedicated to educating Ponte Vedra and surrounding communities about oral health issues. In today’s blog, we feel it necessary to discuss dental implants. If you would like to read more about a wide variety of dental topics, feel free to check our or past blog topics.
Dental implants are the present and future of dentistry. In the past, when teeth were missing there were several methods to replace the teeth. These include bridges and dentures. Both of these methods have drawbacks. Dentures can be partial or complete depending on how many teeth are missing. Complete dentures can slip, slide, and irritate the soft tissues inside of the mouth. Partial dentures rely on existing teeth to be retained in the mouth and they too can slip and slide. Bridges require adjacent teeth to be prepared and can significantly reduce the prognosis of teeth involved in the bridge. Dental implants have answered many of these problems.
Dental implants are essentially artificial root replacements. The implant is a titanium screw that is gently placed inside the bone. After a period of time, the implant integrates with the bone. This results in an incredibly stable base in which a tooth replacement is placed. For single tooth replacements, this can be completely indistinguishable from a natural tooth. This can benefit the patient over bridge treatment because it is a single tooth replacement for a single tooth problem.
When multiple teeth are missing, dental implants can be used to anchor dentures. The result is that the slipping and sliding can be virtually absent. This can come in two different main forms; over dentures and hybrids. An overdenture utilizes implants by snapping onto the implant in a fashion similar to a snap shirt. Hybrids dentures are screwed onto implants and are not removed at night or for cleaning.
If you are missing teeth and are interested in replacements or have any questions at all, we encourage you to visit us for a consultation. In addition, feel free to learn more from the American Dental Association.