Dental Implants

Dental implants are essentially a titanium replacement for a tooth that's been lost. They're very versatile actually but I think the average person knows that an implant can be used to replace a tooth that either needs to be removed or has been removed. At this point in time they're the closest replacement for natural teeth because when we restore the tooth in most cases, especially an individual tooth, you have the normal function that you would with the original tooth.You can brush it, you can floss it, you can chew with it in the exact same way that you did with your original tooth. Historically when someone was missing a tooth, the options that we had to replace a tooth were much more limited and it would mean either crowning multiple teeth around the missing tooth and in many cases teeth that didn't need it so it could be actually quite destructive. The long-term implications of that are not only dentistry on teeth that didn't need it but also the lack of cleansability.Now you've just led to more and more extensive problems than if you just dealt with that one individual tooth. If you have a problem in the future, you have a three-tooth problem. When you have an implant, even though the chances are rare, if you were to have a problem around any one of those teeth, whether it's the implant or the adjacent teeth, you have a one-tooth problem.The long-term implications are much much better but I'd say just the ability to cleanse things normally is one of the biggest benefits that we have, not to mention the restored function and aesthetics. Anyone is a candidate for a dental implant. The initial step in the process in every case is going to be figuring out anatomically how much bone does that particular person have because the one parameter that you need is you needed a bone to support the implant.Even if it's not currently there, there are a number of technologies and ways to gain that if you don't have it. But first and foremost, that's going to be the one thing we want to assess. If you have the appropriate amount in the right places and if you don't, how do we get it? As implants have become much more mainstream and prevalent, I think we're realizing that there is that possibility for problems around implants just like there are around teeth.Routine maintenance and having the ability to intervene in scenarios where something may be happening is important. By and large, my expectation is that the chances are great that if someone invests in an implant they're going to be able to keep that the rest of their life.