Losing a tooth can significantly affect your ability to chew and speak. Moreover, losing a tooth can also diminish your smile and appearance. Over 170 million Americans are missing at least one tooth, many of whom hail from California.
People heavily focus on artificial tooth replacement options, but they often overlook the importance of selecting the right type of dental implant. Visiting a dental implants specialist in Redlands, CA, can help you select the most suitable implant for your needs.
Who can benefit from dental implants?
A natural tooth has a crown and a root that holds it in place. Similarly, dentists insert a dental implant into the jawbone for it to act as an artificial root for artificial crowns and dental bridges. A dental implant is usually made of metals like zirconium oxide or titanium. The dentists use an abutment to connect the artificial crown to the dental implant and replace the missing tooth.
Dental implants are highly suitable for individuals with the following dental issues.
- If you’re missing one or more teeth
- If your existing denture is loose or slipping
- If your dental bridge needs a replacement
- You are experiencing bite problems and pain due to a missing tooth
- You don’t want to face the hassles of dentures and adhesives
- If you want to improve your bite, speech, smile, and facial structure.
What solutions do dental implants offer
Dental implants can provide permanent and excellent solutions for those who have one or more missing teeth. However, one must have a fully grown jawbone with enough bone mass and healthy gums to secure the implant. Nonetheless, here are some solutions dental implants offer.
- Dental implants offer excellent support for artificial teeth like crowns, bridges, or dentures.
- Dental implants can help you regain the natural look, feel, and functionality of a missing tooth, allowing you to smile and talk with confidence again.
- Unlike a conventional dental bridge, a dental implant doesn’t require cutting down the neighboring teeth.
- Dental implants can reduce the load on your existing teeth, which helps in preserving your jawbone.
- Dental implants have a very high success rate as compared to other dental restorative procedures.
- Dental implants don’t decay like natural teeth and can preserve neighboring teeth.
Exploring different types of dental implants
Dental implants can replace one or many teeth. A single-tooth implant is suitable for replacing a single tooth; multiple-tooth implants are helpful if you have more than one missing tooth, whereas if you don’t have any teeth left in the mouth, you may require a full-mouth implant. Based on your condition, your dentist may recommend one of the following types of implants.
- Endosteal implants: Endosteal implants are highly preferred by dentists in cases where the patient already has dentures or bridges. Shaped like a screw, blade, or cylinder, endosteal implants go into your jawbone and hold the prosthetic teeth in place.
- Subperiosteal implants: Unlike endosteal implants, subperiosteal implants are placed above the jawbone. It’s more like a metal post that is placed under your gum and stuck throughout for firmness. Subperiosteal implants are useful for those who don’t have sufficient jawbone and can’t wear regular dentures. With an endosteal implant, you don’t have to undergo a bone augmentation procedure either.
- Mini-dental implants: The size of a toothpick, mini-dental implants are narrower than other types of implants and highly suitable for stabilizing a lower denture so that they don’t slip when you talk or eat. They require the least amount of invasion for placement and are highly suitable if you don’t have a lot of bone mass in the jaw.
Final takeaway
Whether you are missing a single tooth or entire rows of teeth, dental implants can provide you with excellent solutions in terms of durability, longevity, and functionality. However, you must select a highly professional and experienced dentist for dental implant procedures to ensure that you don’t face any complications during the procedure.