If you’re missing a few teeth, you might want to try dental implants. These prosthetics happen to be the gold standard for tooth replacement. However, there’s something you should know: treatment candidates must meet certain criteria. To qualify, then, you may need preliminary work before getting dental implants. Luckily, your Coppell dentist can further explain things. Read on to learn why implants have requirements and the services you may need before treatment.
Implants Have Requirements
In truth, your mouth must be healthy for implants to work. A solid jawbone and similar structures give the prosthetics crucial support.
The reason stems from how implants are placed. Since the posts fuse with your jaw, they require healthy bone tissue as a foundation. Implants also rely on non-infected gums to aid the fusion process. If either factor is lacking, the prosthetic teeth will likely fail. From there, you’ll have to get replacements.
What Could You Need Before Implant Surgery?
As it happens, certain procedures can help you qualify for implants. More specifically, these services ensure your mouth can handle placement surgery. They include the following:
Bone Grafting
If you didn’t already know, teeth stimulate and maintain your jawbone. Lacking them thus causes your jaw’s bone tissue to erode. That process, in turn, lowers its bone density and makes it smaller. Left unchecked, the process will leave your jawbone too fragile to support implants.
Fortunately enough, bone grafting prevents and even reverses this problem. It uses materials – often from your body – to build up your jawbone’s density. From there, your jaw will be strong enough to handle implant surgery.
Sinus Lift
As it happens, your upper jaw can’t always manage implants independently. Its bone density might be lacking, or you may have a larger-than-normal sinus. In either case, a placed implant would protrude into the sinuses and cause additional issues.
However, a sinus lift offers a neat solution. It would add bone structure between your jawbone and sinus cavity. As a result, your mouth would have room for implants.
Tooth Extraction
Perhaps you’d like an implant to replace a still-existing tooth. After all, it may be a healthier alternative to your currently-infected chomper. The same can also apply when several of your teeth are highly damaged.
As you’d expect, tooth extraction would be ideal in these scenarios. The procedure, you see, could remove your infected tooth to make room for the prosthetic one. You’d then be even closer to a healthy and restored grin.
Ultimately, a patient may need preliminary work before getting dental implants. That said, call your dentist to see if you require one (or more) of the above services.
About the Practice
Steele Dental is based in Coppell, TX. Led by Dr. J. Darrell Steele, our practice strives to give each patient the best in dental care. To that end, we offer preventive, cosmetic, and restorative services tailored to your unique smile. Naturally, then, you can trust us to provide high-quality dental implants for your grin. For more information or to book a visit, you can reach us on our website or by phone at (972)-315-3355.
