What Happens If I Need a Dental Implant but My Jawbone Is Too Thin to Hold It?
Without prompt replacement, a lost tooth can cause bone loss and subsequent tooth loss. Here’s what can happen when your jawbone is too fragile to support an implant.
Here’s Why You Should Replace Missing Teeth with Dental Implants
After losing a tooth or being told one needs to come out, you’ve probably got one thing on your mind: how to fill the gap in your smile. Fortunately, you have options.
Unfortunately, some of them come with drawbacks. Dentures can feel awkward in your mouth and you need to replace bridges periodically.
Dental implants are different. With these replacement teeth, you get a solution that looks and feels great and should last your lifetime with proper care. Our oral surgeon, Michael Issakharian, DDS, offers dental implants here at Lancaster Dental Care Associates in Lancaster, California.
Should you choose this option? To help you decide, let’s look more closely at how implants work.
Understanding implants
Dental implants are robust and long-lasting solutions to dental problems. They consist of three components:
- A metal rod that we implant into your jaw
- An abutment that goes on top of the rod
- A new replacement tooth that we cement to the abutment
Getting your dental implant starts with a small incision so Dr. Issakharian can insert the rod into your jaw. The rod serves as the root for your new tooth. But we don’t place that new tooth right away.
Instead, once the rod is embedded, we wait for the bone to regrow around it. The rod fuses to your jawbone, creating a stable anchor for your new tooth.
Once that process is complete, usually after 3-6 months, we create your color-matched, precisely shaped replacement tooth and position it in your mouth. You leave with a full, beautiful smile.
Why implants trounce other tooth replacement options
While getting an implant takes longer, it comes with notable benefits, including:
A tooth that feels and functions like your original tooth
A dental implant duplicates a natural tooth as closely as possible. Because the rod is firmly secured, you can talk, laugh, and eat with the same confidence.
A tooth that blends seamlessly with your smile
We precisely match the replacement tooth that’s attached to the implant with your natural teeth. Your new tooth blends in with the shape, color, and size of your remaining teeth. We make the replacement tooth out of durable material that can hold up to normal eating and drinking while looking great through the years.
A way to maintain your jawbone
Throughout your life, your body eliminates old or damaged bone in your jaw and replaces it with new, healthy bone. Jawbones require stimulation from teeth and their roots to keep regenerating. The pressure from chewing translates down through the root into the jaw, triggering this remodeling process.
Since a dental implant uses the rod to recreate the root, it continues to preserve the health and strength of your jawbone. While you have other options for replacing missing teeth, you only get this bone-preserving effect with an implant.
A way to avoid impacting your other teeth
If you choose a bridge to fill the gap in your smile, the replacement tooth is held in place by the existing teeth on either side of the bridge. To secure it, we have to grind down the enamel of the teeth on either side, essentially ruining two healthy teeth to accommodate the bridge. With dental implants, we can preserve the surrounding teeth.
Dental implants come with some significant benefits. Call our office or request your appointment online today to explore if they’re right for you.
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