If you've lost several teeth as you've aged due to decay, gum disease, or injuries, you may be concerned about how the loss of those teeth will affect your ability to eat and maintain oral health when you're older. Strong teeth are important so you can eat a healthy diet well into your senior years. One way to have strong teeth after you've lost several of your own is to get dental implants. Here are some reasons to consider having one or more dental implants.
You're Having Trouble Chewing Hard Foods
If you've given up eating raw carrots and other hard food, you may be looking at all of your options for replacing some of your teeth. Depending on how many good teeth you have left, you might consider dentures, a partial denture, or a bridge. These options might work, but they have their drawbacks. The main disadvantage is they don't stimulate your jawbone so your bone will slowly shrink. This could cause a change in your appearance and it could create a small pocket at the top of a bridge that allows food to collect.
Implants function like real teeth because they attach to your bone. Implants help you avoid bone loss while increasing your ability to chew. With a few implants, you can chew raw veggies and other foods so you can eat a varied and healthy diet.
You Don't Want To Deal With Denture Problems
One solution for your dental problem is to get dentures. If you have some good teeth left, your dentist can have dentures made that fit around them so you can save your good ones while replacing the missing ones. However, you've probably heard many people complain about dentures, and that may have you leery. Dentures tend to slip and even fly out of your mouth at times. You have to be careful about what you eat and be cautious when you speak or laugh that the dentures don't dislodge. Plus, all that slipping around can make your gums sore.
Implants eliminate all of these problems. You can get implants to hold your dentures snug against your gums so they don't slip, even when you bite and chew. Implants with dentures could be an excellent choice when you need to replace several teeth yet you don't want to deal with the slipping problem that's common with dentures.
You Have A Single Gap In A Front Tooth
An implant is especially useful for replacing a single tooth. If you're having a tooth pulled, the implant can often be put in the same day and topped with a temporary crown so you don't have to put up with a gap for several weeks while your implant heals and your permanent crown is made. An implant fills the gap left by your lost tooth, and the crown part of the implant is designed to match the shape and color of your other teeth perfectly so it blends in well and doesn't look fake. By having an implant, that part of your bone will be stimulated as you eat and you won't have to worry about bone loss affecting your smile. An implant is often a good choice for a single tooth you've lost due to decay or injury. It looks and acts like a natural tooth and the nearby teeth don't have to be affected when the implant is put in.
Our oral surgery and general dental website offers important information on how to prevent dry socket following a tooth extraction. After getting your tooth pulled, a protective blood clot develops over the extraction site. Many of our blog posts explain how this protective clot helps promote healing after an extraction.
You'll learn that if the clot is accidentally dislodged, dry socket may occur, which can raise your risk for infection and heavy bleeding. We'll provide you with important tips on how to prevent this by avoiding smoking and drinking through a straw. You'll also learn that swishing water around your mouth should be avoided for a couple of days following your extraction because doing so creates a suction that may dislodge your clot, leading to dry socket.