Dental implants can improve a smile in many ways. Here are some things to think about.
Dental implants are the cutting edge method of replacing lost teeth. These are artificial prosthetics that look quite natural and are implanted into the jawbone with a titanium screw and abutment. This method of attachment was stumbled upon accidentally by a doctor in Europe who discovered the amazingly strong bonding ability of titanium with human bone. Now,
instead of having to wear dentures that often slip around, cause speech impediments and keep the wearer from eating certain types of foods, dental implants give individuals a reason to smile. When people have missing teeth or ill fitting dentures, they will often keep from showing their pearly whites by covering their mouths when speaking or laughing. This is unfortunate because the ability to grin freely affects their quality of life as well as others around them. Here are some things to think about:
-Longevity: A recent study of baseball players revealed that the guys with the biggest grins lived nearly five years longer than the less happy chaps and seven years longer than the ones who rarely grinned. The researchers attributed the longevity to the fact that when a person smiles, he is feeling positive and making others feel better, too. This is a great reason to grin.
-Contagious: Studies have shown that when one person is appearing happy, it spreads to two people beyond that. One jolly person can have a domino effect on a roomful of people.
-Unconscious effects: When individuals were shown flashes of photos of laughing and grinning people, even for a millisecond, it altered their moods. They may not have even connected the two because it happened, so quickly but humans are wired to respond to others’ facial expressions.
-Real or fake: In order to tell if a person is sincere behind his or her smile, check the eyes. The emotion should register there, too. In some cultures, such as in Japan, a person’s mood is judged by their eyes while Americans tend to judge their fellow countrymen’s moods by their mouths.
-Change your own mood: If a person is in a bad mood, fake smiling for a period of time can turn his or her own doldrums around. The physical action of grinning can signal one’s own psyche to have a more pleasant attitude.
When people have lost one or more teeth, they can improve their quality of life with this dental device. Individuals of all ages, except for children who are still growing, are candidates for dental implants. If a person has adequate and healthy bone in the jaw region, it will be the best case scenario. If the jawbone is inadequate, further work with bone grafts can be done to build up this region in order to achieve implantation successfully.
If you or a member of your family has lost one tooth or more, it would be wise to make an appointment with a dentist who specializes in dental implants. After a series of appointments, the implantation technique will be completed and there will be lots of reasons to smile.
