Maintaining Healthy Dental Implants – A Template For Success

Some essential advice from our Ipswich dental implant team.

Dental implants are now much better known than they were a few years ago and more and more people are turning to them as their first option to place a missing tooth. Although a larger investment than dentures, the benefits that they offer are worth a little extra if you want to have the look and feel of a natural tooth rather than having to work to try to keep your dentures from moving around.

When a denture breaks, it can be repaired or replaced. However, replacing a failed or damaged tooth implant requires a more extensive (and expensive) treatment and therefore, it makes sense to take care of it from the get go. The good news is that this isn’t hard to do but just requires a little care and attention on the patient’s part. Let us take a look then at what you need to do to keep your new dental implant strong and healthy for a long time to come.

Immediate care

Immediately after your implant is placed at the Foxhall Dental Practice, this is when it is at its most vulnerable and very good care should be taken to protect it until such time that the implant has fused with the bone. This should take approximately three months but can vary.

Initially you should be extra cautious and should follow the dentist’s advice closely. The first thing that you should do is to rest. Do try to take a few days from work as this is an invasive procedure and resting will help you to recover quicker. A couple of days or so on the sofa watching TV will also give the implant time to start the integration process without any challenges.

You should follow a liquid diet for a while before advancing to soft foods such as mashed potatoes. You will not be able to brush the tooth initially but it is important to keep it clean. Your dentist will advise on this but this will most likely involve very gently tipping a warm saline solution around the area.

If you are keen on exercise or play sports, you should avoid anything that impacts your body. For example, jogging can jar the body and at the early stages, this could loosen the implant. It goes without saying that sports like football should be avoided for a while.

You should also avoid smoking and excessive alcohol consumption and we will look at the reasons for that now.

Smoking (and alcohol)

You will have noticed that we emphasise the importance of people not smoking either side of their treatment. The reason for this is that not only will the smoke aggravate the site of the procedure but that the nicotine narrows the blood vessels in the gums and will slow down the healing process. This is critical for a dental implant as it needs to start the integration between bone and implant as quickly as possible.

Even when this process is complete though, smoking should not be on your agenda. This is because smoking and too much alcohol are both significant contributors to gum disease. This can not only affect the gums but at its advanced stage of periodontitis, can also attack the bone and weaken it. This weakening may cause the implant to become loose and fall out.

Careful cleaning

As periodontitis and a similar condition, peri-implantitis, are the main threats to a dental implant other than accidents and injury, it is very important that you keep your teeth implants clean. Unlike dentures which have to be removed for cleaning, your dental implant remains in the mouth for cleaning.

To clean the implant you should brush around it well, paying attention to the area around the gum line. Although the crown won’t decay as it is not a natural material, gum problems should be a concern. Make sure that your toothbrush has ‘healthy’ bristles and angle them so that they remove food particles and bacteria from the gum line. For the same reason, you should also use floss to remove anything that your brush will not.

Finally, make sure that you have your teeth professionally cleaned at our popular Ipswich dental clinic by the hygienist at least every six months.

Professional care

Following the above advice gives you a great chance of having a healthy dental implant for a very long time. You should also remember to make sure that you have a scale and polish from the hygienist at regular intervals to remove the hardened tartar or calculus that gets stuck to the teeth. This will not be removed by brushing alone and the scale and polish will help to protect your teeth and your implants.

You should also see your dentist for regular checkups so that the health of your teeth and gums can be monitored. Finally, if you feel that there might be an issue with your new implant, however minor you might feel this is, do contact us straight away. It is better to be safe than sorry and it is what we are here for.

If you would like to discover more about dental implants or any other treatment, our friendly dentists are always happy to help and answer any questions you might have. For this purpose or to book an appointment etc, please contact the Foxhall Dental Practice by giving us a call on 01473 258396.