If you lose a single tooth, we could place an individual dental implant. But what if you are missing most of your natural teeth, or possibly all of them? In this scenario, we can help with implant-secured smiles, such as All-On-Four. In today’s blog, your Brooklyn, NY, periodontist and implant expert looks at addressing total tooth loss with dental implants.
The Factors Behind Advanced Tooth Loss
How do we lose so much of our smile? For some, factors like advanced tooth decay or an untreated dental infection could be the source of tooth loss. Others could lose one or more teeth due to a serious injury or accident. However, the most common cause of adult tooth loss is the advanced stage of gum disease known as periodontitis. Regardless of the cause, you should seek replacement for your missing teeth to avoid major oral health complications and issues with your overall quality of life. Even if years have elapsed since you lost your teeth, we still want to see you to discuss possible replacement options.
The Long-Term Complications
When we lose most of our teeth, this could force us to subsist on soft foods, depriving us of our favorite meals and even essential nutrients. You could also have difficulties with speaking clearly, and may feel embarrassed in social situations or avoid them altogether, which further impacts your quality of life. Your body will also stop sending key nutrients to the jawbone around your missing teeth, which means these portions of your smile erode and weaken, which means further tooth loss and possibly a prematurely aged appearance! With dental implants, we can fill the gaps and offer a new smile, so you preserve your youthful facial features!
Planning Your Tooth Replacement
Our team will start by gathering detailed digital x-rays and CT images of your smile from multiple angles, using these panoramic images to assess the cause and severity of your tooth loss. We can then understand the causes of your tooth loss, and may recommend treatment for underlying issues like periodontal disease to prevent implant failure. We will also make sure your jaw can support new teeth. If not, we can strengthen the lower jaw with grafting and the upper portion with a sinus lift. Our team also chooses the best angles, positions, and depths to insert your new dental implant posts to ensure you can enjoy long-lasting tooth replacement, as dental implants can offer replacement that lasts decades or even a lifetime with proper care and attention!
Inserting Your New Posts
Our team will plan the placement process in detail and then guide them into place with digital technology. We also use anesthesia and sedation to ensure you are comfortable throughout the placement process. Once in place, the body will see these as new roots, which means the flow of nutrients to your jaw resumes and your smile remains intact, and your new teeth can stay strong for years to come.
All-On-Four
With All-On-Four, our team can offer a complete smile in only one visit. This system uses four small dental implants, which also need less structure to stay in place, so you could potentially receive new roots without the need for grafting or a sinus lift ahead of time. We will insert these four posts at specific angles in the smile. In the same visit, we will connect a complete set of new teeth to them. These could be temporaries that we will replace down the road, or this could be your final set of teeth. Either way you leave our office with a complete smile.
Our team can then discuss proper care and maintenance to ensure your new teeth truly last. They will be fixed in place and never sip when you eat or speak, and they don’t need to be taken out for soaking or cleaning. Instead, they look and act like natural teeth, and last far longer than removable alternatives. If you have any questions about how our team will support a full smile with implant dentistry, or if you want to schedule an initial consultation to start the journey, then contact our team today to learn more and get started.
Schedule a Visit for Lifelike Tooth Replacement with the Team at Brooklyn Periodontics
You can enjoy a full smile again, potentially in only one visit! To find out more about improving your oral health and smile stability or to schedule a consultation, please call Brooklyn Periodontics & Implantology in Brooklyn, NY at (718) 444-3800 today.
