Are you a good candidate for dental implants?

When a tooth is beyond repair, it’s often possible to replace it with a dental implant, which is a titanium fixture, generally a screw that fixes a false tooth into the jaw. Eventually, the screw will fuse with the bone. This technique can be used to replace one tooth or whole rows of teeth and is a great and natural looking alternative to dentures. However, not everyone can have dental implants.
Whether or not someone is going to be a suitable candidate really boils down to a matter of general health. When someone is generally healthy, the prospects of them being a candidate for dental implants is good. That said, certain health-related issues might have an impact on whether someone can have dental implants.
Uncontrolled diabetes, cancer, radiation to the jaws, impaired bone healing or uncontrolled gum disease are risk factors that can adversely affect the successful outcome.
People who take certain medication , such as steroids, drugs suppressing the immune system or drugs used for the treatment of osteoporosis may not be suitable for implant therapy either. Other questions of interest might be:

My dental hygiene isn’t great. What about dental implants in that case?

Dental implants are hugely successful, but their success really relies on someone being able to maintain good oral hygiene and regularly visiting his or her dentist. Unfortunately, if you have a poor oral hygiene, you’re not really a suitable candidate.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I still smoke – can I have dental implants?

Nobody is going to lecture you about smoking, except it is known for sure that patients who smoke have a lesser a success rate when it comes to dental implants. We can still do implants for a smoker, but you really need to be mindful that smoking substantially diminishes the success rate of the implant therapy.

Other than that certain habits such as severely clenching or grinding the teeth which may put too much pressure on the implants and cause long-term damage.

However, it is important to remember that dental implants have a very high success rate and the individual assessment of your situation together with your doctor helps to increase a successful outcome.

For more information about dental implants, please click here.

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