Have you been unfortunate to have lost a tooth even though you’re still in good health? You might have lost one due to infection, injury, or periodontal disease. If you have experienced this, a dental implant can serve as a great long-term, safe, and excellent solution! A dental implant is an artificial tooth root that the dentist at High Desert Dental will put in your jaw. This will hold a replacement tooth or a bridge in place. Implants look and function just like natural teeth.
The surgery to place a dental implant will take several visits to High Desert Dental. First, the doctor will take the tooth out and prepare your jaw for surgery. This requires bone grafting. The procedure will regrow and replace bone that’s been lost and can help with restoring facial contours. S your tooth, there’s a good chance you might have lost some bone as well. The bone near your jaw also may have begun to deteriorate because of this. A bone graft creates a solid base for your dental implant to be placed in.
How does it work? Well, the procedure will involve removing a piece of bone from somewhere else on your body or jaw and moving it to the jawbone. You can also have bone removed from a cadaver or an animal. It can take months after this graft for the new bone to grow enough to start supporting the placement of a dental implant.
Once the jaw is finished with its healing process, the implant procedure can begin. This starts with placing a titanium dental implant post into your jawbone. This can take several more months to heal from.
Finally, once you’re healed enough, the dentist at High Desert Dental will put in the abutment, an extension of the metal post, into your jaw. Then you’ll have to wait for that tissue to heal. Afterward, molds of the teeth and jaw are created, and the insertion of the final teeth can take place. It might seem like it takes a lot of time for all of this to happen, but bone grafts are essential to the implant process. You might have some discomfort afterward, but the side effects pass quickly.