Dental implants come with so many benefits, from restoring your smile and the function of your teeth to being incredibly durable and low-maintenance. However, perhaps the most revered aspect of dental implants is that they are the only thing that can prevent bone loss caused by missing teeth.
Interested to find out how dental implants preserve the jaw bone and why other tooth restoration options are unable to do the same? Read on in this blog from Cibolo Family Smiles.
When you lose a tooth, you must have it replaced. This is because tooth loss can lead to many problems, such as shifting teeth, facial structure changes, and ever-dreaded bone loss. Deterioration of the jaw bone can occur within just 6 weeks of losing a tooth.
This occurs because the roots of your teeth are no longer stimulating the jaw bone through the pressure that is transmitted when you chew.
The life cycle of bone involves generating new cells when old ones die. However, in the absence of stimulation, the rate of replacement in the cells slows until it comes to a complete stop, resulting in bone deterioration.
Over time, you will lose jaw bone density and strength, which will result in changes in the structure and appearance of your face which can cause premature aging. Bone loss can also affect your temporomandibular joints, causing TMJ.
Dental implants preserve the existing jaw bone and prevent additional bone loss, but how do they work? A titanium post is implanted into the jaw bone and over 3-6 months, the bone will grow around the implant and fuse together, through a process called osseointegration.
This not only ensures that your tooth restoration is secure and acts just like a real tooth, but it also restores the function of the tooth’s root and provides stimulation to the jaw bone when you chew, resulting in the regeneration of cells needed to preserve bone density. Because of this, bone resorption never occurs.
If you waited too long to replace a missing tooth or if you have never had an adequate amount of bone density, that does not necessarily mean that you cannot receive dental implants. However, you will need to undergo bone grafting to meet the requirements as a suitable candidate.
A bone graft will rebuild the structure and strength of the jaw bone so it can support dental implants. The reason a strong and healthy jaw bone is so crucial for the support of dental implants is that it can impact the osseointegration process.
Inadequate bone density or unhealthy jaw bone can prevent the implant from fusing with the jaw bone properly and lead to implant failure. A weak or unhealthy jaw bone is also more susceptible to destruction from gum disease or trauma.
Dental implants are the only method of tooth restoration that can preserve and prevent additional loss of jaw bone. Dentures and dental bridges do not restore the tooth’s root so no stimulation of the jaw bone is provided and there is no cell regeneration.
Dentures even accelerate bone loss due to the pressure of the dentures on the ridges of the bone they are placed on. The only exception is if you opt for implant-supported dentures or implant-supported bridges.
These procedures involve holding a denture or bridge into place by placing a series of dental implants in the mouth that hold the artificial teeth in place. Implant-supported dentures relieve the irritation associated with traditional dentures on the gums.
Are you interested in dental implants and wondering if you would be a good candidate? Contact us at Cibolo Family Smiles today for a consultation. Schedule an appointment with Dr. Niraj Patel, who will perform an oral exam and take x-rays to examine your bone density and jaw health.