A dental implant is made out of titanium. The body loves titanium. In medicine we’ve been using titanium to fix bones and G screws in that prosthetic procedure for decades. The body sees it as a normal part of the body, integrate with it, meaning the bone is going to grow into the implant. So look at it more than just a titanium screw. The threads are there just really for surface area so that you have more area for the body to bond into that titanium surface. The next part is the abutment. The abutment connects the implant to the outside world. From the abutment, you have the crown that goes on top of the implant and that’s what makes it look and feel like a normal tooth again. So there’s a few reasons why you should always replace teeth. The idea of not replacing a tooth is not truly an option. You want to replace a tooth because one tooth need other teeth in contact to stay where they’re supposed to stay. Teeth only stay in position by contact with adjacent and opposing teeth. So if you lose one of those, now your teeth are going to drift around and they are going to start to move. Secondarily you’re going to lose bone.

A lot of people don’t think about bone being present and why you would lose it. So a bone need stimulation to stay where it is. If you don’t have a tooth to stimulate that bone, the body doesn’t see a legitimate reason to keep that bone around, to put energy towards keeping that bone. So you lose that bone and that can result in changes to your face. As you lose bone, you can age yourself. The next thing is really psychological. We’ve all been missing a tooth when you’re a child and so now missing it as an adult is a much bigger deal. First, it’s something that you’re just getting used to but over time it becomes a nuisance. You need it to function properly, to chew your food up, to be able to digest and to be able to get the nutrients out of your food that you ideally need. Then the other one is TMJ issues. If you don’t have teeth to support your jaw, those muscles in that functional area, need that proper support. If not, then you’re going to get issues with the jaw joint, whether that’s pain, clicking or popping, all are really important reasons to replace your teeth.

Your next step after you know you need to replace the tooth is to come in and see me at Bluegrass Dentistry, let’s ideally find out what options are available to you. In a lot of cases, we’re going to take a 3D scan to find out if an implant can be placed immediately to get that tooth back in there and get you back to 100% again. So one of the big goals is always to look at the end result first and that is to place that implant or that crown where the implant would ideally be. Place the crown digitally and then let’s find out where the implant needs to be in order to support that crown. So almost everyone is a candidate for implants. Some patients are candidates for immediate implant placement. They have enough bone to support that implant right now. Other candidates may not have enough bone at this time, but everyone is an option or everyone isn’t, they can’t have an implant. We may just need to graph that site first to build the bone, which is a relatively simple procedure to do for the patient. It may involve a little bit more time. But in the end it’s completely worth it to have that foundation set up for the long-term success.