Dental Implants (Full Procedure)

Missing one or more teeth can have a big impact on your life. Missing teeth can affect the way your mouth functions. They can make it more difficult to chew, affect your speech, and even change the way you look.

Thankfully, restorative dentistry provides several options for replacing your missing teeth and restoring your smile’s function and appearance. Perhaps the most popular option for replacing one or several missing teeth is a dental implant.

What Are Dental Implants?

Dental implants are a permanent tooth replacement option. Dental implants consist of three parts:

• a medical-grade titanium screw, post, or anchor that mimics a natural tooth’s roots and affixes to the jawbone through a process called osseointegration,
• a cap or crown that replaces the natural tooth,
• and a metal abutment that attaches the crown to the anchor.

The Benefits of Dental Implants

Dental implants are the most popular tooth replacement option. Of all available replacement options, dental implants look, feel, and function most like your natural teeth and roots.

Dental implants also offer the following benefits:

• Permanent tooth replacement option
• Low-maintenance and easy to care for
• Improve your ability to chew and speak normally

Additionally, when you lose a tooth, the jawbone beneath the tooth’s socket can slowly begin to deteriorate as a result of lacking stimulation from the tooth that once sat above. Since dental implants are permanently anchored in the jawbone, they provide the bone the stimulation necessary to avoid deterioration.

Dental implants help prevent a person’s appearance from changing due to bone deterioration. This also helps to maintain the health of neighboring teeth.

The Dental Implant Procedure

Getting a dental implant begins with a consultation, examination, and x-rays. Dental implants require you to have adequate jawbone structure to accommodate a dental implant anchor. Depending on your existing bone structure, you might need a bone graft before your implant can be placed.

Once you’ve recovered from receiving a bone graft, if necessary, and adequate bone structure has been developed, your implant will be placed in a separate surgical procedure. This is followed by another healing period, after which the abutment and crown are affixed to the anchor.

The process of getting a dental implant can be fairly lengthy depending on your individual needs. Our dentists will help you estimate how long it might take for you to get a dental implant and help you navigate every step of the process.

Complete Dental Implant Preparation, Placement, and Care at Eastgate Dental Excellence

While some dental offices might require patients to see an outside specialist, our patients at Eastgate Dental Excellence have all their dental implant needs met in one location with our in-house implant placement specialist, Dr. Jodie Yildirim.

When it comes to dental implants, our dental clinic is fully equipped to handle everything you need, from dental implant consultation, preparation, and placement to ongoing care and implant restoration.

To learn more about your tooth replacement options or to find out if dental implants might be right for you, we welcome you to schedule a consultation at Eastgate Dental Excellence.