If you’ve lost teeth because of dental disease or trauma, living with gaps or dealing with dentures aren’t your only options. Dental implants offer a solid, functional, and beautiful replacement for missing teeth that restores the look, feel, and health of your mouth.
At Advanced Care Dentistry in Woodinville, Washington, Thomas O. Marxen, DDS, MSD and Andrew Keith, DDS offer dental implants to patients who desire a successful tooth replacement with lasting function and look. Read on to learn why we recommend dental implants as the best choice for your missing teeth.
Dental implants replace the function, look, and structure of missing teeth. The implant consists of a titanium “root” implanted into your jawbone. To the implant, a metal abutment and porcelain crown are attached.
The end result is a replacement tooth that looks, feels, and functions just like your natural tooth. Dental implants are long-lasting; with proper care, you can have the same implant forever.
Dental implants are lauded as an excellent choice to restore your smile. Unlike dentures or bridges and crowns, implants fit snugly into your jaw and never slip or slide. Other benefits include:
Implants help you maintain your jaw integrity and prevent the resorption of bone that can occur when a natural tooth is lost. This means your remaining teeth don’t slide into the space left by a lost tooth or that your smile and jaw shape change due to bone loss.
Once you go through the implant surgery and crown placement, your tooth looks just like the natural ones that surround it. You can smile with confidence. Implants mean you can eat just about anything and don’t need to learn new care methods — regular brushing and flossing provides adequate hygiene.
Unlike dentures, bridgework, or other similar restorations, implants are a permanent solution to missing teeth. As long as you take good care of your teeth and the implant, your smile persists a lifetime.
When you receive a bridge, surrounding healthy teeth must be filed down to attach the bridge. An implant doesn’t endanger the integrity of other teeth.
If you’re determined to have healthy gums and enough jawbone to support an implant, you come to Advanced Care Dentistry for an appointment to surgically place the implant. After this procedure, you then wait several weeks or months for the jawbone to grow around the implant and heal.
When your implant is ready, the doctors attach an abutment and then a crown. The crown is designed to match your natural teeth in color, shape, and size. We make sure the crown feels natural in your bite as well.
If you have a missing tooth, or teeth, we at Advanced Care Dentistry want to help restore your smile. Call for an appointment to learn if you’re a candidate for a dental implant or schedule online.
