Mini Dental Implants
Fountain Valley, CA
 Losing your teeth is a serious issue that affects every aspect of your life. Basic functions like eating and speaking can become more challenging. The quality of your smile decreases, which can impact your confidence. Tooth loss also impacts the health of your jawbone, leading to bone loss. Dental implants have become a very popular treatment for meeting tooth replacement needs. Bijan Family Dental Practice provides many different kinds of implants, including mini dental implants.
Replacing Missing Teeth with Dental Implants
Dental implants are an alternative solution to bridges and dentures. This treatment is incredibly unique, using small titanium posts that are surgically placed into your jawbone to support your replacement teeth. Your bone gradually fuses to the posts as you heal. This is a natural process called osseointegration. With osseointegration, the posts become replacement roots that are secure within your jaw. Your teeth are held firmly in place and will not slip around or fall out.
What are Mini Dental Implants?
Mini dental implants are a type of dental implant. This type of implant is often used when your bone is too weak to hold a standard dental implant, helping you to avoid the need for a bone graft. Mini implants are smaller than the standard implant and have small balls on the exposed ends of them. They are very useful for replacing teeth that are small or that are in more narrow locations. Mini implants can also be helpful for anchoring a traditional denture into place, particularly in the lower jaw where a traditional denture is more likely to slip out of place.
What is the Difference?
So, if mini implants are a type of dental implant, what is the difference? There are a few key differences. One of these differences is in their size. Standard dental implants are between 3.4 and 5.8 millimeters in diameter. Mini implants, on the other hand, are about the thickness of a toothpick, measuring between 1.8 and 3.3 millimeters in diameter.
Another major difference between standard implants and mini implants is how your dental restorations are anchored into place. With standard implants, there is an abutment or connector, that is placed on your implant post. This abutment provides stability for the replacement teeth. The teeth are secured with small screws and are not meant to be removed unless professional maintenance is needed. Mini implants do not have abutments. The implant posts have small balls on their ends. The replacement teeth use sockets and elastic
O-rings and snap into place on the posts. For anchoring dentures, your denture is created with small sockets and O-rings to help secure it into place. Your replacement teeth can easily be removed and secured back into place as necessary.
Getting Your Mini Dental Implants
The process for placing mini dental implants in not much different than the process for placing standard implants. The biggest difference is that surgery is faster and less invasive and that your healing time is shorter. Surgery is performed under a local anesthetic, and sedation is provided to help you feel more comfortable and relaxed. Small incisions are made in your gums and holes drilled into your jawbone. Next, the implant posts are placed directly inside. Your gums are sutured closed, and temporary teeth are set into place. After you have fully healed from your procedure, impressions are taken to design and create your final dental restorations.
Mini dental implants are an implant solution that makes dental implants more widely available. For more information, and to find out if mini dental implants are right for you, call Bijan Family Dental Practice today at (714) 421-4494.
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