When you have tooth loss, this could lead to major trouble for your smile down the road, and embarrassment. But we can help with implant dentistry! In today’s blog, your team at Brooklyn Periodontics and Implantology talks about how to address tooth loss with dental implants.
The Onset of Tooth Loss
How do we lose our natural teeth? For some, minor tooth loss could be the result of an issue like untreated tooth decay or severe infection, which could cause teeth to fall out or require removal to stop the spread of infection. More severe cases could be due to an injury to the face or jaw. The most common cause of adult tooth loss is periodontal disease, more accurately, the stage known as periodontitis. Fortunately, in addition to removing missing teeth with dental implants, we can use orthodontic care to manage and control periodontal disease to avoid tooth loss or implant failure, using options like advanced soft tissue lasers to help preserve your smile.
Planning Treatment
How do we start the process? To begin, we will look at your smile to determine the cause of your missing teeth and to assess the severity. For some, we may need to offer periodontic care to manage gum disease, which is a very common cause of missing teeth. Our team also wants to assess the strength of the jawbone around the missing teeth, as this could weaken following tooth loss and we may need support services like jawbone grafting or a sinus lift to strengthen the area and ensure your smile can support new tooth roots. Every smile is unique, and we always take a personalized approach with advanced technology to handle your missing teeth with implant dentistry.
The Need for Support Services
How does jawbone grafting happen? With this procedure, we will apply new structure to the lower jaw, which ensures it can support new teeth. This structure could be taken from other parts of your own body, such as the rear of your jaw, your hip, or your knee. We could also use esthetic or donor tissues too. For the upper jaw, we don’t add new tissues to the area. Instead, we will gently raise the sinus floor to cover enough new structures to support one or more dental implants.
Placing Dental Implants
When your smile is ready for the implant placement process, then our team will guide these into place with surgical guides to ensure the end roots sit at the right angle, position, and depth to ensure the new roots can truly last. Our team could insert one to replace an individual missing tooth, or we could use several to support a prosthetic, such as bridges or even a denture.
Restorations
For an individual one, we could create and attach a custom dental crown. The restoration is attached to an abutment we connect to the post. This ensures we offer a durable chewing surface for the tooth, and one that looks natural and blends with the tooth.
Dentures
What if you have lost several teeth, or all of them? In the case of a larger gap of two to three missing teeth in a row, then we could insert one to two dental implants into the jaw. If you have lost most or all of your teeth, then we could gently extract the last few teeth and then plan the placement of four dental implants per arch. Once we do, in the same visit we will attach a complete set of new teeth, custom-made for your bite and shaded to ensure a natural appearance. These dentures will be fixed in place and never slip when you eat or speak. While removable dentures last about 5 to 10 years before replacement is needed, these could help keep your jawbone intact to ensure your new prosthetic lasts for decades to come, possibly a lifetime!
If you have any questions about how we address lost teeth with implant dentistry, whether you have minor or advanced tooth loss, then contact our team today. Now is also a good time to see us and use your remaining dental benefits and health savings account funds before they expire at the end of the year, and before the holiday season makes your schedule too hectic!
Brooklyn Periodontics Offers Complete Dentures and More
Our team wants to help treat advanced tooth loss and ensure lifelike results. For more information about implant dentistry, then please call Brooklyn Periodontics & Implantology in Brooklyn, NY at (718) 444-3800 today.
