Dental implants have been used since the 1960s to provide people with secure, natural-looking, prosthetic teeth. They have been known to last for over 30 years! If you’ve lost your teeth through injury, accident, or disease, an implant will restore your smile for you and should give you more confidence in your facial appearance.

If you haven’t lost a tooth, but you have one that needs extracting, your dentist may offer to fit an implant at the same time, so your jawbone doesn’t have time to atrophy and you don’t have to experience having teeth missing.

The dental implant placement process

In the first instance you’ll have a consultation with one of our highly trained dentists. This will allow us to see whether you’re a suitable candidate for dental implants, as well as how much preparation will be required beforehand to make the jawbone ready to receive the prosthesis.

When you visit us for your implant placing procedure, we will supply you with local anaesthetic and a sedative, if required. You’ll be awake, but you won’t feel a thing. A small hole is drilled into the jawbone, through which the abutment is placed. This is an internal screw, which will anchor the false tooth to the jaw.

A temporary crown will be fitted initially, but once the gum has healed and the bone has grown up around it; a process known as osseo-integration, you’ll visit us again to have your permanent crown. This will have been custom-made to match your other teeth exactly. People will be unlikely to notice you have a dental implant.

The benefits of dental implants

One the major advantages of dental implants, over traditional dentures, is that they are so securely attached to the jaw. The bone that grows around the abutment holds it in place very tightly, so there’s minimal risk of the implant ever falling out. Once it’s in place, it’s easy to keep clean. It will look and feel like a natural tooth. You can use it to help you eat and it won’t hinder your speech. If your speech had been made unclear by having only a gap where a tooth should be, that problem should be rectified.

An additional benefit of dental implants is that they keep your face from prematurely ageing. The jawbone needs regular stimulation through your chewing motions. Suction-based dentures don’t provide this, but implants do. You should avoid the ‘caved in’ look that is associated with having teeth missing.

If more than one false tooth in a row is required, a bridge of crowns can be fitted by means of a single dental implant at either end. An entire mouth full of dentures can be supplied, anchored to as few as 4-6 implants, meaning you could have a full mouthful of permanent, securely-fitted, natural-looking replacement teeth in just a few months.

To find out more about our team, how we fit dental implants, as well as how they can transform your looks, please get in touch to book a consultation with us. We look forward to helping you achieve a beautiful smile again.