Success of Dental Implants in Monterey and Cookeville

Here at our two friendly convent locations, Cumberland Dentistry & Monterey Dental Center, we offer Dental Implant Treatment.

Let’s talk about extractions.  Extractions happen when decay has entered the tooth, and has caused significant loss to the structure of the entire tooth or even your tooth could have simply broken off.  Extractions are the last thing anyone wants to do because you’re taking your natural tooth out which will cause a gap between your teeth. Now, depending where the gap is, either in the smile zone or in the back where no one can see, it’ll affect many different actions that could occur, such as teeth shifting, your speech, smiling, & most importantly how you eat! The entire propose of having teeth are to eat, right? Exactly! Well, once you lose those teeth that you like to eat with, you’re forcing more pressure on the teeth that are still there which is very bad. Not only is the pressure bad, but once your teeth start shifting they can go forward causing more plaque traps which leads to periodontal disease. 

Now, people might prefer a removable appliance, but they still have their own downfall.  Examples are, stick adhesive, rocking of the prosthetics when trying to eat, the clasps that hold onto the teeth to keep the partial in place will show when you smile. Someone might also prefer a bridge. A bridge might sound like a great fix, but the point is to fill the gap and take constant pressure while eating. We have to file healthy teeth down to place a three or more connected bridge, just to have one tooth back.

So therefore, Dental Implant Treatment is the absolute best way to go for these situations. The process might sound very intimidating, but you’ll be completely numb under local anesthetic, inhalation laughing gas, orally taking a pill, or IV intravenous.

What is a Dental Implant?

A dental implant is made up of three parts:

• The Implant
• The Abutment (Post)
• The Restoration (Crown or Cap)

The implant itself is made up of a titanium rod-like post that was made to fit the abutment like a screw.  The abutment is what holds the restoration in place.

How it’s done!

We’ll extract the bad tooth and then place a bone graph in the area where the tooth was naturally positioned. Then the Implant is placed and a screw is placed to prevent any debris & gum tissue to enter. Now, the healing process takes awhile to heal. You Might experience some pain with tenderness, but that is completely normal with the healing process. The bone has to fuse to the implant in order to have stability in order to eat. Remember, that’s why we have teeth! Once the healing process is coming to the end, the doctor will remove the screw and place the abutment.  The gums will then be allowed to heal around the post. Once healing is complete, the restorations are placed. It’ll look like your original tooth down to the shade color.

Now, the most important part is how you take care of the implant. Since the tooth is artificial you will not have to deal with tooth decay, but still brushing and flossing will keep the area clean and away from periodontal disease which causes bone loss. Also, you can get what’s called peri-implantitis which is very likely to happen if you smoke. So dump the cigarettes and start you journey with a healthy mouth.