What Is a Dental Implant?
(Part 2)
Let us now continue our discussion regarding dental implants in this week’s column.
So how do dental implants work?
An implant works by fusing the device with the patients‘ jawbone to provide a way to anchor the artificial teeth or denture or bridge.
The dental implant provides a stable support for the denture or bridge as the implant is screwed right into the mandible.
The dental implant provides the denture or bridge a natural teeth feeling so that it doesn’t only look like natural teeth but provides a natural feeling of having teeth even though the original teeth were already removed.
Dental implants will help make the bridges and dentures stable and prevent any movement. This is important if the patient speaks or eats a lot. The natural teeth that are left in the mouth will no longer move because the dental implants are in the area where there used to be a tooth.
We need to kmow that natural teeth move to fill the gap created by missing teeth over time.
One of the benefits of having a dental implant is giving the cap, crown, bridge, or denture get a secure fit. This will help the patient feel more confident.
This means, that unlike conventional dentures and bridges that depend on teeth that were turned into abutments for stability, the dental implants provide firmer base and feel more natural. There is no need to destroy perfectly healthy teeth so that the crowns or dentures will fit.
For many people, ordinary false teeth are not comfortable and the discomfort comes from gagging, poor ridges, sore spots, among others. Dental implants make the use of bridges and dentures comfortable.
Moreover, some kinds of bridges require the dentist to attach them to perfectly healthy teeth on either side of the space where the missing tooth or teeth used to be. The dentist may use one tooth (cantilever bridge) or two and several other teeth.
A dentist needs to shave or ground those healthy teeth down into ugly little abutments, so that the bridge or dentures can fit.
Next week we will be discussing what should the patient expect after the dentist has fused the implant to the mouth and jaw, and other expectations when using dental implants.