Dental Implants
Fountain Valley, CA
A dental implant is a titanium post designed to replace missing teeth. The post is surgically placed into the jawbone where the tooth is missing, and provides a more permanent solution.
Crowns and conventional bridges or dentures may not be your only options when replacing missing teeth.For the majority of people, dental implants offer a smile that looks and feels very natural. Implants are surgically placed below the gums over a series of appointments, and fuse to the jawbone. Implants offer stability because they fuses to your bone, a process called osseointegration. Integration of the implants into your jaw also helps your replacement teeth feel more natural, and many people find the secure fit more comfortable than conventional substitutes. Candidates for dental implants must have healthy gums and adequate bone to support the implant.
How Missing Teeth Can Change Your Life
Computer Guided Surgery—NobelGuide
NobelGuide works to give us a live video overlay not only of your jaw, bone, and teeth but our drilling tools in relation to them. It shows us the exact angle, depth, and placement of every action we take in your mouth. This gives us the ability to precisely control the placement of every implant we perform having done the surgery on a computer beforehand and adjusting for all the variables prior to the actual surgery. It has shown Significantly lower swelling, edema and pain, as well as use of analgesics, with guided flapless surgery compared with freehand surgery.
Reasons for Dental Implants:
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Replace a missing tooth
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Maintain healthy bone levels
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Help support overdentures
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Keep the look and feel of a real tooth where one is missing |
What Does a Dental Implant Involve?
Implant Site Preparation
The gum tissue is opened to expose the bone area where the implant will be placed. In situations where there is insufficient bone structure, bone grafting may be a recommended procedure. Once healthy bone has been established, a special drill is used to prepare the bone to receive the implant.
Placing the Implant
After the bone has been prepared, the implant is placed using Guided surgery. The healing process takes three to six months. This is the amount of time it usually takes the implant to become part of the bone of the jaw. It is important to note that there is minimal discomfort for the first couple of days only. After 3 to 6 months of healing time, the bone fuses to the implant.
Attaching the Post
When the gum tissue is ready, impressions are taken and a special post is attached to the implant; it is the support for the new porcelain crown. Today's technologies often include custom abutments (posts) attached to the implant, to assure that the new porcelain tooth possesses enough depth for translucency properties similar to a natural tooth.
Placing the Crown
After 3-6 months a crown is made and shaded to match your existing teeth. The crown is then slipped over the post and screwed into the implant or on occasions cemented. This final prosthetic crown appears as a natural tooth.
There is a high rate of failure of implants in patients who smoke, so dental implants tend to not be an option for patients who are actively smoking. We will help you determine whether dental implants will be a good tooth replacement option for you. Proper brushing and flossing will maximize the longevity of your new dental implant.
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