How to ensure the longevity of dental implants? This post covers everything you need to know. Dental implants Windsor are one of the most popular forms of tooth replacement. During the last fifteen years they have risen in popularity tremendously, with more and more patients understanding their benefits. Implants do have the capacity to last a patient’s entire lifetime if taken care of correctly and with that in mind, we’re going to take a closer look at exactly how patients can take care of their implants in order to make them last.
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What Are Dental Implants?
Dental implants are a two-part system surgically inserted which is usually made from titanium. The anchor is placed into the jawbone during the first stage of fitting, left to heal, and later fitted with the crown/false tooth element. In some cases, there may well be a call for a bone graft in order to make the jawbone dense enough to take the strain of the new implants. For those who need it if this step is missed, it could result in the failure or rejection of the fitting.
Dental Implant Failure
There are cases in which dental implants fail, the vast majority of these are caused by peri-implantitis which is an infection of the gum around the implant site.
The symptoms and causes of this are very similar to gum disease in that you’ll see a reddening and inflammation of the gum caused by a lack of or poor oral hygiene.
How To Ensure Longevity For Dental Implants
Oral Hygiene
Lots of people, in fact, thousands of people in the UK, are currently suffering with gum disease and this is largely down to a lack of proper oral hygiene. It’s simply not enough to have a quick scrub of our teeth twice a day.
In order to protect the health of teeth and gums we need to commit to really engaging with good cleaning and if this is done you’ll also be ensuring the longevity of your dental implants.
Practical Guide
Brushing teeth for at least two minutes twice daily is standard practice. This brushing should be divided equally in time by the four quarters of our mouth: upper left, upper right, lower left and lower right. It can be useful to set a thirty second timer to ensure you’re spending the right amount of time on each quarter. Flossing is non-negotiable. If more people flossed there would be less gum disease this is a fact.
If you want to ensure that your dental implants are going to stay in place for as long as possible then you really need to engage with flossing. Flossing is the only way in which we reach deep down into the gum line to remove any build-up of plaque and tartar. Flossing doesn’t need to be complicated or take heaps of time, it just needs to be done every day. There are lots of handy resources online to show the best techniques for flossing.
Regular Check-Ups
It’s very easy to let time pass and pass before we head back to the dentist, however, this is a mistake. More often than not dentists are able to pick up on issues long before the patient will notice symptoms and this couldn’t be more important than for those with implants.
Final Thoughts
We hope you found our post about how to ensure the longevity of dental implants, insightful and that you will implement some of these tips. Dental implants can be a costly affair, so you need to do what is necessary to get a return on your investment and retain your beautiful new smile for years to come.