If you have lost several of your natural teeth, then you may need more than an individual dental implant. Instead, we could take on advanced tooth loss by supporting a dental prosthetic with implant dentistry. In today’s blog, your Brooklyn, NY, periodontist and implant expert talks about treating advanced tooth loss with All-On-Four!
The Factors Behind Missing Teeth
How do we lose so many of our natural teeth? When you have advanced tooth loss, missing most or all of your natural teeth, this could potentially be caused by gum disease. When we develop gum disease and this reaches a more advanced stage known as periodontitis, the connective tissues between your teeth and gums are severed, which creates loose and missing teeth. In fact, this is the number one cause of adult tooth loss! When you suffer from tooth loss, you should let us know, even if years have elapsed since you started losing your teeth.
With missing teeth, you could be limited in your meal options, which leads to poor nutritional intake and lower quality of life. You could have difficulties with clear speech and may feel embarrassed and avoid social interactions. Missing teeth could also allow your jawbone to weaken and erode, a complication that not only causes additional missing teeth, but could lead to a prematurely aged appearance too! But we can help with the placement of dental implants, supporting a full set of teeth with the All-On-Four system.
Assessing Your Smile
To begin, we will conduct a detailed examination of your smile with digital x-rays and CT imaging. With these images, we assess the state of your jawbone and the presence of disease, so we can identify the severity of your tooth loss and manage it. We can then decide if you have a jawbone strong enough to support one or more dental implants. If not, we can strengthen the area with jawbone grafting.
Grafting
If your lower jaw cannot support dental implants, we can use grafting to add structure to it, in the form of donor tissues, synthetic tissues, or bone taken from other parts of your own body. We apply this to the weakened areas, where it bonds with current jaw structure and provides a new base to support dental implants. Once we insert these implant posts, this will keep the jaw intact and prevent further erosion. For the upper jaw, we could conduct a sinus lift to raise the sinus floor and uncover new tissues to support new teeth.
Managing Periodontal Disease
If you have periodontal disease, then we may need to manage this to prevent dental implant failure. With periodontic treatment, including deep cleanings and dental lasers, our team can manage the issue and ensure we can keep inflammation in control with treatments like routine cleanings and better at-home oral hygiene habits.
Sedation and Anesthesia
The placement of dental implants requires oral surgery, and want to ensure the experience is a comfortable and positive one, even if you have dental anxiety or a phobia about the dentist. In addition to a local anesthesia to numb areas of your smile directly, we can provide sedation to help you enter a deep state of calm and relaxation, often with little to no memory of the experience at all. Our team can choose from nitrous oxide and oral sedation, and we could even offer IV sedation for people with a phobia of the dentist! Don’t let your anxiety stand between you and the full, beautiful smile you deserve.
Dental Implant Placement
Each dental implant is a small post that is screw-like in appearance. This will bond with the jawbone and act like a new tooth root. The post encourages the body to resume the flow of essential nutrients to the jawbone around the new root, so the jaw remains intact and won’t lose mass and density. Since it doesn’t break down, this means your new roots and the denture we attach to them can last for years to come, decades or a lifetime in some cases!
All-On-Four
With the All-On-Four system, we can support a full set of new teeth with just four dental implants per arch, using smaller posts that require less structure to stay in place, so you may not need grafting or a sinus lift even if your jawbone has weakened. We insert the posts and attach the teeth in only one visit, so you leave with a full smile!
Schedule Your Visit for a Full Smile with Brooklyn Periodontics
Our team wants to take on missing teeth and help you smile with confidence again. For more information on addressing your missing teeth, then please call Brooklyn Periodontics & Implantology in Brooklyn, NY at (718) 444-3800 today.
