Dental Implant Procedure

Dental implants are surgically inserted into your jaw bone while you remain under anesthesia.ﾠﾠ If you have more than one implant placed this procedure will be lengthy.ﾠ Surgery time will vary greatly depending on the number of implants. For each of the two visits placement of one implant takes more than an hour.

Once you're under local anesthesia, the first step for implant procedure is the exposure of the bone where the implant is being placed.ﾠ Once the bone is exposed the implant will be placed into the jawbone.ﾠ The actual fixtures that are inserted into the bone are called endosteal implants.ﾠ They are made of titanium or a titanium alloy because this metal does not adversely interact with biological tissue and it fuses really well with the bone. ﾠ

Once the dental implant is inserted a cover screw is placed in and then the wound is closed with stitches and allowed to heal.ﾠ Typically placements in the lower jaw need to heal about three months, while placements in the upper jaw usually take about six months.

Once the healing is finished, in a second surgical procedure, the implant is uncovered, the cover screw is removed and a healing abutment or a temporary crown is inserted in the implant. These temporary crowns are generally used for esthetic reasons, when the implant can be seen. Both healing abutments and temporary crowns allow the tissue around the implant to be trained to grow around the final implant ﾖ a prosthetic tooth.ﾠ After about two months the soft tissue will be healed enough to accept the prosthetic tooth.

In order to create a perfect tooth impressions are taken to make a custom abutment that takes into account the shape of the neck of the implant.ﾠﾠ On occasion the prosthetic tooth is attached to a gold cylinder that can be screwed into the abutment or it can be directly cemented onto the abutment.ﾠﾠ This is a process that takes more than one stage -- the two surgical procedures are separated by a lengthy healing time in order to ensure stability in the final implant.

Implants, if they are successful, are like having a permanent tooth. If the procedure goes well this dental implant can allow a patient who might have lost an anchor tooth continue being able to have a bridge or just partial dentures as well. Occasionally dental implants are the only answer for people who have lost all their teeth and are not able to wear dentures.ﾠ Dental implants are very expensive and are really time consuming to have done but having them not only improves aesthetic appearance but also quality of eating ﾖ chewing is finally possible and easy!

Make sure you only have a qualified dentist do your implants. You must research and find out how many implant surgeries the dentist has done ﾖ try talking to other patients.ﾠ Make sure you contact the American Dental Association to see if your dentist has been reported.