What are dental implants?
Dental implants are permanent and highly effective ways to replace missing teeth. Whether you are missing teeth due to dental extractions, accidents, advanced periodontal disease, or even simply old age, dental implants offer excellent treatment solutions to boost your quality of life — and your self-confidence in your teeth and smile.
Dental implants work by attaching artificial teeth, crowns, and/or bridgework to titanium implants that are anchored to your jawbone. In time, your bone grows over the implants, securing them in place much like natural tooth roots. This provides stability and security that are unparalleled in other tooth replacement solutions.
If you are missing teeth, you have options. We understand the anxiety and shame that you might be feeling about your missing teeth, but we want you to know that we are here for you. Losing teeth and needing options for replacing them is simply a part of life. In support of your whole health, having reliable teeth is essential for your nutrition and quality of life — not to mention your mental health.
Ready to talk about your options? Call us today to schedule your initial consultation for dental implants.
What are the benefits of full dental implants over dentures?
Full dental implants are used to replace all missing teeth in a mouth — just as dentures do. However, while dentures are fully removable, full dental implants function just like natural teeth because they are permanently implanted into your jaw. Full dental implants will be designed to fit perfectly and naturally in your mouth, providing a well-aligned bite, aesthetically pleasing smile, and fully functional teeth for biting, eating, and speaking.
Since dentures are removable, they often have a tendency to slide around in a patient’s mouth and cause issues with eating favorite foods or even pronouncing words they never had trouble saying before.
What is the process of getting full dental implants like?
There are two procedures practiced when it comes to getting full dental implants. They include:
- Freehand placement: Freehand placement of dental implants used to be the preferred procedure so that professionals could adapt as they worked to what looked best for the patient. However, there are numerous pitfalls that could crop up, including issues with alignment and bite.
- Guided surgery: Guided surgery for full dental implants is often preferred because it leads to more consistent and predictable results. Here at Garine & Boza Prosthodontics, we are proud to offer the latest technology and techniques with guided surgery. Before the actual dental implant procedure, we will take comprehensive images of your mouth with our advanced devices. We will use these images to construct a model of your mouth, which we will utilize to plan your implants. During the procedure, the model is used as a guide to ensure that all implants are properly aligned when placed.
After the implants are placed, the patient is given time to heal so that the bone may fuse with the anchors. Once healed, we affix the permanent artificial teeth and bridgework to the implants.
