Dental Implants
Are missing teeth making you miss out on life?
Around two thirds of Australians have at least one missing tooth, either through trauma when teeth are knocked out during sport or other accidents, or due to decay, gum disease or old age. Whatever the reason for losing your teeth, they need to be replaced both for aesthetic and functional reasons. The most common treatments for missing teeth are either a removable denture or a fixed bridge. However, dental implants are now becoming a more popular treatment to replace missing teeth as they provide a long-term solution, slow down bone loss and preserve nearby healthy tooth tissue.
Missing teeth and loose dentures cause too many people let life pass them by. However, today's modern treatment plans can replace everything from a single missing tooth to an entire missing arch. Ask your dentist at Jorgensen Mutzelburg Dental about the different dental implant options that are available to you. Don't let another day go by without taking this important first step to restoring your confidence and your smile!
Losing one or more of your teeth starts a chain of events that can have dire physical and cosmetic consequences. The most obvious result is a gap in your smile. So many people are self-conscious when they smile and avoid showing their teeth during conversation or in photos. A less obvious result of tooth loss is the loss of chewing function and the inability to eat a complete diet. Everyday, we hear comments from our patients about what foods they can no longer eat due to their missing or severely weakened teeth. While these are certainly serious issues, a potentially bigger problem related to a missing tooth lies hidden beneath the surface: bone loss.
Your jawbone needs the chewing action of the teeth to stimulate it and keep it strong. In much the same manner that the unused muscles beneath a plaster cast supporting a broken bone get smaller, your unused jaw bone where a tooth is missing becomes weakened (atrophied). This is known as Wolff's Law and has been known by scientists since the 19th century. Without the support of your teeth and facial bones, your face will begin to look prematurely aged. The good news is that tooth replacement with dental implants offers a solution to help prevent bone loss.
The use of Dental Implants is a proven solution that has been used since the mid-1960s to permanently replace one, several or all teeth in the upper or lower jaw, and is now the standard of care for replacing missing teeth. Dental implants are small screws made of bio-compatible titanium, a metal which is accepted by the body and which heals together with bone in a process called osseointegration.
A dental implant is a titanium "root" that is placed into the jaw bone to support a crown to form an artificial tooth. We use a biocompatible material, titanium which becomes integrated into your bone over the following months. This is the same material used by surgeons in other parts of your body, such as artificial hips. Following osseointegration, the dental implant will be restored in the best method chosen between you and your dentist at Jorgensen Mutzelburg Dental.
Dental implants have many advantages compared to traditional dentures, or crown and bridge solutions. Here are the main reasons for dental implants:
- Dental implants look, feel and function most like your natural teeth.
- Healthy teeth do not need to be ground down to support dental implants - When replacing missing teeth with dental bridges, the teeth adjacent to the gap need to be prepared and healthy tooth structure is removed to accommodate a crown. If in the future one of the supporting teeth is damaged, the entire bridge restoration will be compromised. When lost teeth are replaced by an implant, however, the restoration is independent of any of your other teeth, your bone is maintained, and you are less likely to find your natural teeth experiencing sensitivity due to exposed root surfaces.
- Anchoring dental implants in the jawbone stimulates bone tissue and gums, ensuring an attractive, aesthetic result, while helping to maintain facial structure.
- Improved oral hygiene - To ensure your gums stay healthy, dental implants are cleaned just like your natural teeth. Dentures and fixed bridges require special techniques to maintain adequate hygiene as they tend to collect more plaque around them.
- Dental implants do not require any adhesives to hold the new teeth in place. This also eliminates the discomfort and insecurity of loose, ill-fitting dentures.
- Dental implants are typically the most efficient and economic long-term solution for replacing teeth and maintaining your chewing ability.
Make an appointment today to discuss how our dentists at Jorgensen Mutzelburg
Dental can help you regain confidence in an attractive smile and strong chewing teeth.
Dental implants are among the most successful procedures in medicine. There is no guarantee that an implant procedure will be successful, but studies have shown a long-term success rate of between 90% and 98% depending on the area the implant is placed, the quality of your bone, and the type of appliance with which the implant is restored. Most importantly, patients who have had implants said that they would undergo the procedure again, and would recommend it to a friend.
Dental implants can be placed in patients of any age (with fully developed jawbones) provided that they have sufficient quality and quantity of bone tissue available. If your dentist finds you don't have adequate bone to place an implant, they will discuss with you the possiblity of adding bone through grafting. Most healthy individuals who maintain a good oral hygiene programme are suitable candidates for dental implants. Situations that have an increased risk of implant failure include:
- Heavy smoking - this slows down and hinders the healing process
- Excessive alcohol intake - disrupts healing of the gums
- Periodontal gum disease - all active gum disease must be treated prior to any implant procedure to ensure long term success of any treatment. Periodontal disease is a major cause of bone loss, which would hinder the success of any implant procedure.
- Immuno-compromised individuals - disrupts healing of the gums.
Your dentist at Jorgensen Mutzelburg Dental will discuss your suitability for dental implants following full assessment of your mouth and medical history.
As discussed previously, when you lose your teeth, you gradually lose the bone that supported them. As this bone disappears, support for dentures and bridges is reduced and problems with nearby teeth increase. These problems could include pressure pain; mobility; lack of retention for prosthetics; sharp, painful ridges; mobile gum tissue and sore spots. The surrounding teeth usually show signs of root exposure due to gingival (gum) recession, which can cause sensitive teeth and increased tooth decay. The tongue will move into the space created by missing teeth to assist normal speech and eating habits. With tooth loss, a five-fold decrease in function occurs and the diet shifts to softer foods. Also, when bone is lost, numbness to the lower lip or even the possibility of fracture of the jaw arises. The deterioration of the bone will spread to around healthy teeth and ultimately cause the loss of those teeth as well. The "domino effect" easily describes what is happening. Teeth do not work on their own: they are part of a bigger unit of all the teeth in your mouth - much like bricks in a wall. If you remove a brick from the middle of a wall, eventually the brick above starts to collapse due to lack of support. The bricks to the side start to shift inwards toward each other and eventually they fall out too; then the process starts all over again. It's a similar process in the mouth, and it can occur quite rapidly in some individuals. In addition, this progresssion will affect the ability to provide the same treatment in the later stages of bone loss compared with if treatment had been started earlier. It's much better to replace a tooth before all of the side effects kick in. By waiting, you risk the possibility of not being able to have the same, simple type of treatment that would have been possible earlier.
To discuss how the skilled team at Jorgensen Mutzelburg Dental can help prepare your smile for use for a lifetime, call
Kathryn on 3354 1077 to arrange an appointment to speak with our caring dentists today.
Our gentle, caring dentists at Everton Park provide a full range of quality dental services and regularly attend continuing
education courses with staff to ensure the highest quality of patient care and best practices. Our dentists have special
interests in paediatric dentistry, cosmetic and aesthetic dentistry, reconstructive dentistry for missing and worn teeth,
implants, temporomandibular joint disorders, sleep disorders, Invisalign orthodontics for straight teeth, and endodontics.
Jorgensen Mutzelburg Dental maintain a patient focus and will design a care plan to meet your needs.
We have the latest, cutting edge technology, and deliver the highest quality care, service and exceptional dentistry at an
affordable price.
Servicing all of Brisbane and Pine Rivers, with our regular patients travelling from the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, the Darling Downs, Central and Far North Queensland, Darwin and Northern
NSW. From our practice location at Everton Park - Brisbane, Jorgensen Mutzelburg Dental offers emergency dental services to all its patients as well as the communities from surrounding
suburbs such as Mitchelton, Bunya, Gaythorne, Brisbane, Everton Park, Everton Hills, Albany Creek, Bridgeman Downs, McDowall, Keperra,
Warner, Eatons Hill, Arana Hills, Ferny Hills, Ferny Grove, Stafford, Enoggera, Oxford Park, Upper Kedron, West Chermside, Ashgrove,
Newmarket, Herston, Windsor, the Gap, Grange, Indooroopilly, Bardon, Paddington, Kenmore, Chapel Hill, Sandgate, Strathpine, Cashmere,
Bald Hills, Petrie, Murrumba Downs, Lawnton, Bray Park, Whiteside, Joyner, Kallangur, Carseldine, Taigum, Fitzgibbon, Boondall, Brighton,
Zillmere, Banyo, Nudgee, Virginia, Bracken Ridge, Samford, Draper, Yugar, Camp Mountain, Dayboro, Kilcoy, Highvale and Wights Mountain.
