What Are Dental Implants?

Dental implants are a tooth replacement option designed to be as much like your natural teeth as possible. Like your natural teeth, they are anchored in your jawbone. They can be permanently attached so they look, feel, and function like natural teeth.

Structured like your natural tooth, they have an artificial tooth root that is designed to bond with your jawbone. Usually, this is titanium, a metal that your bones will grow not just around, but will attach to. Then the upper part is a crown made of a highly attractive ceramic material that looks like a natural tooth. Together, these two parts make up the dental implant.

Benefits

Dental implants are the best tooth-replacement option available today. That’s because they are more like your natural teeth than any other option. This means that they:

  • Look like natural teeth
  • Let  you eat a full range of food
  • Stay fixed in place
  • Require no special care
  • Can last a lifetime

Because dental implants fix your jawbone and gum tissue grows up around them, they look just like natural teeth. Your dentist and hygienist might not know the difference at first unless you tell them.

Being fixed in your jawbone means that you have about the same bite force with dental implants that you did with natural teeth. You can eat all the foods you enjoyed with healthy natural teeth.

You care for dental implants just like natural teeth: brush, floss, and make regular dental visits. You might have to take some special care in flossing, and some people need to visit the dentist more often, but that’s about all the difference.

Best of all, if you care for dental implants properly, they can last a lifetime, like natural teeth. Some people have had them for 50 years and more.

Are You a Candidate for Dental Implants?

Can you get dental implants to replace your missing tooth or teeth? Probably. There are only three requirements to be a candidate:

  • One or more lost or endangered teeth
  • Be healthy enough for surgery
  • Be an adult whose jaw has stopped growing

If you meet these criteria, you can get dental implants. However, in some cases, you might need additional treatment before you get implants. For example, if you have bad gum disease, we might need to treat your gum disease before placing them. In other cases, we might recommend a bone graft to make sure there’s enough bone to support an implant. Often, a bone graft, like extracting a natural tooth, can be done at the same procedure as placing the dental implant.

Are You Considering Dental Implants in Torrance?

If you have lost one or more teeth and are considering replacing them, restorative dentist Dr. Webber can help. From one lost tooth to an entire mouthful of teeth, Dr. Webber has successfully helped patients enjoy attractive, functional replacement smile. To learn whether this is right for you, please call (310) 534-3477 today for a free consultation with Dr. Webber at Simply Smiles in Torrance, CA.