What are Dental Implants?

Dental implants are artificial tooth roots that are inserted into the jawbone to replace missing natural teeth. Implants and their attached crowns closely mimic the look and function of real teeth. They can make an attractive alternative to dentures and bridges.

Dental implants techniques can replace one or several missing teeth. In some cases, an entire set of artificial teeth can be carried on dental implants. Dental implants are one of the most significant advances in modern dentistry. The dental implant will be self-supporting and offers superior strength, allowing you to speak and chew with confidence.

A dental implant is designed to last for many years, but poor oral hygiene can shorten its lifespan. Good oral hygiene and regular maintenance by periodontist is crucial.

A dental implant is one of the most effective ways to replace a missing tooth. The restoration provides durability, comfort and longevity. Our specialist team can help determine if implant dentistry is right for you.

You are a candidate for dental implants if you:

• Meet the general medical requirements. Certain medical conditions decreases the chance of success and will be evaluated individually. Smoking, heart disease, diabetes and gum disease may make it difficult for you body to heal after placement of implant.
• Have good bone quality and volume. A comprehensive oral examination and a 3D Cone Beam CT scan will be necessary to determine this. Adequate bone in your jaw is needed to support a dental implant. However, if adequate bone is not present then additional bone augmentation procedures are required before or at the time of implant replacement.
• Healthy gums free from periodontal disease and have good oral hygiene standards. If you do not, we will improve your periodontal conditions first by removing periodontal infection and provide you with some customised oral hygiene instructions to follow.
• Have enough space to replace the missing tooth or teeth. A missing tooth can cause neighbouring teeth to move out of their original position and tilt into the edentulous space. To prevent any movement from the neighbouring teeth, it is advised to place the implants within the timeframe suggested by your periodontist.

Dental implant surgery is considered to be a routine procedure and can be comfortably performed under local anaesthesia in the dental surgery. At the beginning of the surgery, a small incision is made at edentulous (where there is no tooth) jaw sites in order to expose the underlying bone. After the initial pilot hole has been drilled into the appropriate jaw site, it is slowly widened to allow placement of the titanium dental implant. Once in place, surrounding gum tissue is secured over the implant and a protective cover screw or a healing abutment is placed on top to allow the site to heal and osseointegration to occur.

Sometimes patients do not have enough bone volume to support dental implants due to various reasons as the followings:

• History of gum disease (loss of bone support from periodontitis)
• Dental traum
• Severe bone resorption following extraction
• Wait for too long following extraction
• Wearing dentures for long term
• Narrow jaw bone in nature

Therefore, bone augmentation or grating procedures are required before or at the time of implant replacement. The aim of this procedure is to replace missing bone with a material called a bone graft. Over time the newly formed bone will replace most of the grafted material. Bone graft materials mainly comes from your own available bone, a mineral bone substitute or processed bone elements from animals.

Please click here for the pdf of Post-op instruction for implant.