How To Look After Your Dental Implant

Implants are an excellent replacement for a missing tooth, especially when you look after them well.

Most of you will probably have heard of dental implants by now. In a nutshell, they are a modern alternative to dentures, but one that not only replaces the visible crown part of the tooth, but the roots also. It is this factor that makes them more secure and stable than other options and enables the patient to eat what they want and treat the replacement tooth like a natural one. No more fiddly cleaning outside of the mouth or wondering if your teeth will cope with certain foods.

Having an implant placed does require a little initial patience as time needs to be allowed for the implant and bone to fuse together (osseointegration) which is what provides it with its strength and stability. Once this has occurred, the rest is, more or less, plain sailing. That is, of course, providing that you look after them well. It isn’t hard to do this but it is important that you do and we are going to take a look at how to do that now.

Initial patience and care

Let us start right after the implant has been placed. This is a very important time to allow the implant to fuse with the bone and it is essential that it is left to do this. You should not poke the implant with your finger, however curious you might be about it, and, for a little while, you won’t be able to brush it either. We will advise alternative cleaning instructions for this short period of time.

Essentially, this period is critical, and patience is needed to help ensure that this part of the recovery process is successful. In addition to not poking the implant, you should initially start by consuming liquid foods only so that no pressure is exerted on the implant. After a while, you will be able to progress to softer foods such as mashed potatoes etc. Gradually, you will be able to re-introduce harder foods into your diet as advised by our Ipswich implant dentist.

During this time, you should not partake in any physical activities that might ‘jar’ the body and cause the implant to work loose. Examples of this might be running or jogging or off road cycling. While we recommend as much rest as possible initially for a few days, when you do re-introduce any exercise into your routine, make sure it is gentle such as walking or cycling on a smooth surface. Contact sports such as football should be avoided altogether.

If you follow this advice, along with the advised cleaning and seeing the dentist at the Foxhall Dental Practice for regular checks on its progress, you should arrive, approximately three months later, with a fully integrated dental implant that is as strong as any natural healthy tooth.

Longer term care

After three months or so, your dental implant is now ‘out of the woods’, so to speak. This doesn’t mean that care should end here. Like your natural teeth, teeth implants can still fail later if you neglect them. The good news is that this really isn’t hard to do, and requires no more care than you should be paying to your natural teeth.

Smoking

This is definitely something that you should avoid, and if you are a ‘hardened’ smoker, then implants may not be for you. Smokers are at a much higher risk of gum disease than non smokers and this can have devastating consequences.

While some people believe that the worst thing that can happen if you get gum disease is that they bleed a little, they couldn’t be more wrong. If not detected early enough and treated, the infection can spread to the supporting bone structure. As this starts to degrade, the implant can work loose (as can a natural tooth), and you may lose it altogether.

Good personal oral care

A dental implant won’t decay, but as you can see above, cleaning it is still important. This especially applies around the gum area. Both periodontitis and peri-implantitis can damage the bone and surrounding soft tissue and cause the implant to fail. To avoid this, make sure that your toothbrush has healthy bristles and that you angle these towards the gums when you brush so that they reach into the gum line. You should also use floss as well, and you can either ask our hygienist to demonstrate how to use this, or look up tutorial videos on the internet, if you find this difficult to do.

Professional care from your implant dentist

It goes without saying that you need to keep regular check up appointments with the dentist. This is usually every six months.

While most people do this, fewer see the hygienist and this is a mistake, and especially if you have implants placed. Even the best home cleaning can leave some hardened bacterial residue around the teeth and gum line and this is not removable by brushing alone. By attending hygienist appointments every six months or so, you will receive professional cleaning of your teeth and implants via a ‘scale and polish’ procedure. This is non-invasive and a great way of helping maintain a healthy mouth.

If you are interested in finding out more about teeth implants and whether you are a suitable candidate, why not contact our Ipswich practice to arrange an initial consultation with our dentist? You can book yours by calling the Foxhall Dental Practice on 01473 258396.