Do you remember what life was like before you had teeth?
You probably don’t. You were just a baby, after all.
Even so, you have a pretty good idea what your diet was like. Back then, you drank milk. You ate carrots that had been mashed into a pulp. You ate peas that had been pureed. You ate bananas that were mushed together.
As many people get older, they will lose a complete row or both rows of teeth. Many of them get dentures, but it doesn’t take long for them to find out that eating with dentures isn’t the same as eating with real teeth.
Assuming that you don’t want to go back to mashed carrots and pureed peas for dinner, what other options do you have? You could get dental implants, like All-on-4 or All-on-6, if you visit Dental Implants and Periodontology Of Arizona in Phoenix.
How Dental Implants Came To Be
Like most advances in human history, modern dental implants are the results of small improvements that have occurred over several centuries.
Archeologists have discovered skulls from the ancient Mayans (600 A.D.) with pieces of stone and seashells that were used to replace missing teeth. Over the centuries, people have replaced lost teeth with animal bones, ivory, and teeth removed from dead bodies.
The big breakthrough that led to our modern dental implants occurred in the 1950s. Swedish physician and researcher Per-Ingvar Brånemark was studying rabbits when he placed a titanium cylinder in their leg bones. He made a surprising discovery when he tried to remove the cylinders.
The bones had fused to the cylinders in a process known as osseointegration.
This knowledge led to the development of today’s titanium dental implants, which are the best replacement for lost teeth that humans have developed to date.
How Implants Help
Dental implants are not meant to replace your whole tooth. Instead, implants replace the roots of your teeth.
To understand what this means, let’s consider what our roots do.
First, the roots are like small anchors that secure your tooth into your jawbone or your upper jaw.
Second, your roots support the crowns of your natural teeth. This support is what allows you to bite into foods that are hard or crunchy and to chew foods that need to be ground into smaller pieces.
Third, roots keep your jawbone healthy. When you bite and chew, your root pushes into your jaw. Your jawbone reacts with new growth, which keeps the bone strong.
Dental implants do all those same things. Implants hold dental crowns, bridges, and dentures in place. Dentures provide the foundation to allow those same crowns, bridges, and dentures to function like natural teeth. And implants provide the stimulation that your jawbone needs to continue growing anew.
How To Get Implants
The procedure for getting dental implants starts with a visit to our dentist office in Phoenix, AZ.
We will examine the condition of your mouth. We will take X-rays to assess the health of your jawbone, and we will determine if your mouth is healthy enough to support dental implants.
Two of the most efficient and effective dental implant placements that we offer are our All-on-4 and All-on-6 dental implants.
Using the technology in our office, we can precisely plan the placement of your implants to provide the maximum support and stability for your dentures. As their names imply, we can do this with as few as four or six dental implants.
This reduces your recovery time after the implants are placed. This technique also allows us to place implants in patients who may not otherwise be able to receive them.
With All-on-4, two of your implants are placed vertically in your jawbone. The other two implants are placed at an angle so they can be anchored more securely.
Not only does this save money (since you need fewer implants), but it can save you time as well. With All-on-4, it’s possible to place your dentures sooner than you could with some other implant options.
Find Out What Implants Can Do For You
Dental implants can do a lot of things.
By supporting a full set of dentures, they can restore the appearance of your smile. By providing stability and security, they allow those same dentures to function more like real teeth than traditional adhesive-secured dentures ever could.
And by doing both those things, implants allow many of our patients to feel more confident about enjoying an evening out with their friends.
It’s hard to explain how losing your teeth can affect your quality of life. Thankfully, dental implants from our Phoenix dentist office allow you continue doing the things you could do before you lost your teeth.
If you have questions, call 602-842-6841 or use our online form to request a free consultation at Dental Implants and Periodontology Of Arizona.
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