What's the Best Dental Implant for You? How Healthy Is Your Jawbone?

Posted on: 2 November 2016

Dental implants have become a popular dental-replacement option due to the natural look and the more natural feel compared to some other replacements. The standard type of dental implant, formally called endosteal, requires you to have healthy, dense jawbone in order for the root to heal properly into place. If you don't have that healthy, dense jawbone, there are still treatment options available from a cosmetic dentist in your area.

Healthy Bone or Graft: Endosteal Implant

The traditional endosteal implant involves the dentist drilling a hole into your jawbone and then inserting a metal screw-shaped root into that hole. After a healing period, the bone will have healed around the root to provide security and stability. The dentist can then snap a post onto the root, allow the gum tissue to heal around the post, and then finally snap the artificial tooth crown onto the post.

The entire process relies on the presence of healthy jawbone that can fully heal around that root. If the bone is lacking and doesn't perform this function, your dental implant could feel loose or even fall out while you chew.

If you don't have healthy jawbone, an endosteal implant isn't completely off the table if you're willing to undergo a bone-graft procedure. The graft can use bone from elsewhere in your mouth or jaw or bone from a donor. Your cosmetic dentistry specialist will insert the bone into areas of weakness and then wait for those graft areas to fuse together before the dental-implant process can begin.

A bone graft can make your endosteal implants successful, but the procedure also adds a lot of time to the already lengthy implant-installation process.

Decent Bone, No Graft: Subperiosteal Implant

Do you have jawbone that isn't healthy enough for an endosteal implant but is still in moderately good shape? Do you have no desire to undergo a bone graft? A subperiosteal implant might work better for you.

The subperiosteal implant trades in the screw root for a metal plate that straddles over the jawbone ridge. The root doesn't actually go into the bone but instead sits on top of it and below the gum tissue. Once the gums heal in place, the dentist can place the post and then the artificial tooth crown.

The subperiosteal implant process takes far less time since you don't need to wait around for bone to heal around things. The time saving is even better if you would have needed to undergo a bone graft to qualify for the other type of implant.

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