Dental Implants

Losing a tooth can be a distressing experience, particularly if the gap is near the front of the mouth and is visible when you laugh or speak. There are several treatment options available if you have missing teeth, ranging from doing nothing and leaving the gap, to partial dentures, bridges and dental implants.

A dental implant is basically a replacement for a natural root, usually it is screw or cylinder shaped. Almost all dental implants in use today are made from titanium or titanium alloy, materials that have been shown over many years to be well tolerated by bone. The terms ‘osseointegrated implants’ or ‘endosseous implants’ are widely used to describe dental implants that can develop and maintain a close union with bone in order to support replacement teeth.

There are clinical and aesthetic advantages of placing a dental implant into the gap left by a missing tooth. The implant placement arrests the bone loss that occurs when a tooth is lost as the bone integrates with the implant to hold it firmly and permanently in place. A porcelain crown is then fitted on top of the implant so that the space is filled by a fixed and permanent prosthetic that looks just like a natural tooth. Patients with multiple tooth loss can also benefit from a fixed solution through the placing of dental implants.

The procedure is usually quite straightforward and pain-free. Following an initial consultation, study models of your teeth are taken to help the planning phase of your treatment. The first stage of treatment commences with the placing of the implant and this is usually followed by a period of some weeks to allow the implant to integrate into the bone surrounding it, a process known as osseointegration. Each implant is placed into a socket carefully drilled at the precise location of the intended tooth. If an implant has a screw-thread on its outer surface, it can be screwed into position and if it does not, it is usually tapped into place. The main aim during installation of any implant is to achieve immediate close contact with the surrounding bone. This creates an initial stability, which over time is steadily enhanced by further growth of bone into microscopic roughnesses on the implant surface. Following this, the top of the implant is exposed and a crown is fitted permanently into place. In order to support replacement teeth, dental implants normally have some form of internal screw thread or post space that allows a variety of components to be fitted. Once fitted, these components provide the foundation for long-term support of crowns, bridges or dentures.

Implants can either be placed to support one single crown to replace a tooth or a series of implants can be placed that will support a denture. This means the denture is permanently fixed onto the implants so avoiding the embarrassment of poorly fitted dentures that impede talking, laughing and eating.

The success of dental implant treatment is very high with a positive and predictable outcome being as high as 95%. Very occasionally, a dental implant can fail to integrate into the bone. If this happens, a new implant will be placed free of charge. We do always recommend that patients who smoke stop smoking during treatment at least and permanently if at all possible.

• Tooth Replacement
• All on 4
• Mini Implants