Dental ImplantsOne of the common issues that cause patients to visit a dental office is a missing tooth (or teeth). At Lakeside Dental, we see this situation quite often, as individuals can wind up losing teeth for a variety of reasons. If you find yourself in this situation currently, you’ll be happy to know that you have options for replacing your missing teeth. In this post, we are going to talk about one of the main treatment options – dental implants. Going with implants is an attractive choice because they offer numerous advantages with limited drawbacks.

To learn more about dental implants1 than what we can include in this article, or to schedule an appointment to speak with a dentist about your situation, please contact us right away.

Regain Your Smile

One of the main motivations for choosing dental implants is the opportunity to get your full smile back once again. If you are missing a tooth, or multiple teeth, you might find yourself hesitating to smile in public. You may have some self-confidence issues related to the hole in your smile, and those feelings might wind up translating to other parts of your life. It’s important to feel good about the way you look as you go through day to day life, so don’t underestimate how important it would be to once again feel proud of your smile.

Enjoy Your Meals

Depending on which teeth you are missing, you may have found that chewing your food is not as easy as it once was. In fact, you might not be able to enjoy some of your favorite meals because they are simply too hard to consume. With a sturdy dental implant, that will no longer be the case. You’ll have a solid replacement tooth in place, and it should function almost identically to your original tooth. Once your dental implant is done, you can open up your menu options once again and start enjoying all the foods you love.

Be Nice to Nearby Teeth

Other options for replacing a missing tooth may wind up having a negative impact on nearby teeth, meaning your overall oral health won’t be improved by as much as it would have been otherwise. With a dental implant, the implant stands on its own without any help from the surrounding teeth. That means you can enjoy the benefits of replacing your tooth without giving anything up on the sides. In the end, your oral health will be positively impacted, and you can look forward to improved quality of life as a result. Dr. Mitrogogos a Sanford dentist adds that another benefit to dental implants is that the implant also stimulates the jaw bone, keeping the bone strong and supporting not only the implant but the surrounding teeth.

Avoid Denture Hassles

One of the other options that may be on the table to replace your missing teeth is dentures. While there are some positive things to say about dentures, to be sure, there are some notable drawbacks that you can avoid by opting for a dental implant. Specifically, when talking about removable dentures, the issue of those dentures moving around a bit from time to time can be extremely frustrating – and even embarrassing. You don’t want to deal with your dentures moving while you are trying to enjoy a meal, or possibly even coming out while you are having a conversation. We don’t mean to say that dentures are a bad choice, because they do offer some nice benefits, but dental implants provide a more secure solution for those that decide to go this direction.

A Lasting Solution

You probably don’t want to come back to the dentist’s office over and over again to deal with recurring issues related to your tooth replacement. The good news is that dental implants are a long-term solution that should need very little attention as the years go by. In fact, if you take good care of your replacement tooth, it’s entirely possible that your implant will last the rest of your life. The durability of dental implants is one of the things that convince so many people to make this choice.

Sound Like Yourself

One perhaps surprising effect of losing a tooth is the impact it can have on your speech. If you are no longer able to pronounce words as you did when you had all of your teeth, you’ll enjoy getting back to sounding like yourself once again. This is an issue which can have practical impacts on your life, as well as an impact on self-esteem. When others can’t understand what you are trying to say, it might be hard to maintain relationships or build your career. And, when you have to repeat yourself all the time, your self-esteem may take a hit. Get back to your normal speech as soon as possible by considering dental implants.

Minor Drawbacks

We have spent a lot of time explaining some of the many benefits of dental implants, so it’s only fair that we highlight a couple minor drawbacks before wrapping up. You need to have the full picture in mind before you decide if dental implants are for you. For one thing, you should know that this option requires more invasive dental work than something like removable dentures. The implant will become integrated with the bone, so there is significant dental work involved to make this happen. Once it’s finished, however, you should have a lasting result that provides better performance than the alternatives. Also, one other minor drawback is that this option takes more time than getting dentures. Again here, it’s about the big picture. Investing some time upfront is an easy choice when you see how well this treatment can serve you in the long run.

If you think that dental implants may be a good option for you, give us a call2 at Lakeside Dental. We will be happy to schedule an appointment for you to come in and speak with a friendly and experienced dentist about your oral health. Whether it ends up being dental implants or another option that serves you best, it all starts with a phone call to make an appointment. We look forward to serving you!

Resources

  1. https://www.lakesidedentalml.com/Restorative-Dentistry
  2. https://www.lakesidedentalml.com/Contact