Teeth play several vital roles in our bodies. They are used to bite into and chew our food. They also play an important role in speech, and in non-verbal communication, forming the smile. When body parts don’t function as they should, it can be distressing, and so it’s important to find a replacement method that gives you back the full functionality of your teeth, for eating, talking and smiling.

That’s why at Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, we recommend dental implants. Dental implants are the only tooth replacement method that gives you new roots as well as crowns. Having roots to your replacement teeth makes a huge amount of difference to their functionality. If you were putting in a new tree, you wouldn’t expect it to function very well if it didn’t have roots, yet somehow, we think our replacement teeth should.

Why you need roots

Roots give stability, and you need a lot of that to be able to bite and chew. The average male chew carries a force of 97kg or 200lbs. Natural roots can withstand that and the fact that chewing isn’t just an up-and-down movement. Dentures, which rely on adherence to the gums, can only withstand about a quarter of that force, so even when they fit brilliantly, all sorts of great foods are off the menu, and you have to live mainly on soft foods. Bridges can cope with more force, but only because they are attached to neighbouring healthy teeth with crowns that require those teeth to be ground down. In effect, you have to give up two perfectly good teeth to replace one missing one.

Roots also play a vital role in the health of your jawbone. Without roots, the jawbone quickly starts to deteriorate in the area where the tooth is missing. It can lose 25% of its size and density in a year after tooth-loss. Lose enough teeth and you start to get that sunken-cheeked, pointy-chinned look that we associate with old age.

Because of this, we recommend that you come in for a consultation for dental implants in Guildford as soon as you can after losing a tooth, or before if your teeth are starting to fail.

Losing your teeth can be a pretty frightening experience. It doesn’t matter whether you are young and get them knocked out playing sport or in an accident, or you are knocking on a bit and your teeth are failing due to neglect, night-time grinding or just plain bad luck. When they go, you could be forgiven for panicking a little.

The thing you must not do is put your head in the sand and tell yourself you will sort out replacement teeth in a few months. This is easy if the teeth you are losing are molars tucked away at the back of your mouth where no one can really see them. If it’s your front teeth that are on the way out, or already gone, you’ll be more on the ball, as the gappy look is not one many people aspire to.

The thing is, when you lose your teeth you also start to lose your gums and jawbone. Both of them start to recede in the area of the gap and if you are going to get dental implants, you need a good strong jawbone to put them in.

Dental implants are the only tooth replacement method that replaces the roots of the teeth. This preserves your jawbone as well as allowing you maximum freedom in terms of what you eat. Because dental implants are embedded into the jawbone, they won’t wobble around like dentures can tend to do.

How to get dental implants

The first thing you need to do is come along for a consultation so that we can take x-rays and do a scan of your jawbone and see what condition it is in. If it’s in good shape, we can get on with implant surgery. If not, we may be able to do some work to build it back up.

Dental implant surgery takes place under local anaesthetic. One implant can carry up to three crowns and there are ways for us to put a whole arch of teeth on as few as four implants. You need to give them a few weeks to integrate, but once they have become part of your jawbone, you may even forget they are not your real teeth.

If you are missing one tooth or many, you can either replace them or leave gaps in your mouth. However, if you fail to replace your missing teeth, you will face a number of complications with your oral health. At the same time, your chances of losing more teeth will also increase.

Nowadays, there are several options for replacing missing teeth, but dental implants are the most reliable one. Unlike conventional dentures and bridges, dental implants are embedded into the jawbone, where they create a strong foundation for natural-looking replacement teeth.

At Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, dental implants are ideal for those seeking to rebuild their smile and restore their oral function. Dental implants do not require support from adjacent teeth, and they keep the jawbone strong and healthy by replacing the roots of the missing teeth.

Effective tooth restoration

Most tooth replacement options, like removable dentures and bridges, just sit on the gums without interacting with the jawbone. While offering an aesthetic result, these options leave you at risk of jawbone degeneration.

This is because once a tooth is lost, the body starts to reabsorb the jawbone because it knows there is no tooth to support. Over time, this can cause the remaining teeth to shift out of place into the gap created by the missing tooth.

Dental implants act as root replacement and restore the oral function completely. A small titanium post is placed directly into the jaw to replicate the root of a lost tooth. This not only gives the replacement tooth a sturdy foundation, but it also supports the jaw just like a natural tooth does, ensuring that it will maintain its shape and strength over time. Moreover, dental implants encourage the growth of new bone tissue.

After the post has been positioned within the jawbone, a replacement tooth, including crowns, dentures or bridges, can be attached to the dental implant.

Regain your confidence in your smile

If missing teeth have changed your lifestyle, dental implants may be the solution you have been looking for. If you think they could be right for you, simply contact us today and we will book a consultation appointment for you.

Dental implants are a popular tooth restoration method, ideal for patients who have lost one or several teeth. Unlike conventional tooth replacement options, dental implants are integrated into the jawbone, creating a strong and stable foundation for replacement teeth.

At Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, we offer many implant solutions for patients suffering from tooth loss. However, while dental implants are an effective and long-lasting tooth replacement solution, not everybody is a candidate for treatment. Our experienced dentists will examine your teeth thoroughly and help you decide whether this is the right treatment for you.

Here are some of the things to take into consideration before deciding whether to have dental implants in Guildford:

Good oral and overall health

During your consultation appointment, our dentist will examine your teeth, gums and jawbone carefully and ask you many questions about your oral and overall health. This is to determine whether your body will be able to heal properly after the surgery. Patients in good health are generally good candidates for dental implants as long as they have enough bone tissue left in their jawbone.

Patients with health problems, on the other hand, may still be eligible for dental implants, as long as their condition is stabilised prior to implant surgery. Last but not least, patients with gum disease or other oral health issues should have them treated before implant surgery. This is because, if left untreated, they can hinder the healing process.

What if I don’t have enough jawbone?

While as a general rule your jaw needs to be strong enough to support the dental implants, patients with deteriorated jawbones can still take advantage of this treatment. Modern implant techniques such All-on-4 implants, allow patients to have multiple teeth replaced with dental implants, even if their jawbone has greatly deteriorated. It should go without saying that a thorough consultation with your dentist is needed before any decisions are made on the matter.

Book your appointment

If you are considering dental implants in Guildford and have questions about whether this is the right treatment for you, please contact us to book your consultation.

Since dental implants first came on the market for dental patients over 30 years ago, implant dentists have been experimenting with them to find new ways to make this method of tooth restoration more versatile and therefore available to more people.

What makes dental implants so important is that their invention marked the first time in modern dentistry that there was a way to replace the root of the tooth as well as the crown.

This may not sound like a big deal, until, that is, you lose enough teeth to have to have dentures. That’s when you get the list of foods to avoid, and foods that need to be cut up because your dentures may stay stuck in them. Roots hold the teeth in place so that they can withstand the multidirectional forces created by biting and chewing. For the average male, these forces are about 97kg or 200lbs. That’s a lot of force. Dentures rely on suction to the gums for stability and therefore can only deliver about 25% of that force.

And that’s not the only thing that dental implants do that dentures and bridges can’t. They can also maintain a strong, healthy jawbone. Roots have another job, which is to transmit tremors created when the crowns meet in biting and chewing down into the jawbone. These tremors tell the surrounding bone cells that the jawbone is still in use, triggering cell renewal. If those signals cease, very quickly the jawbone actually starts to dissolve itself, thinking it’s no longer in use. From the outside, this appears as the chin seeming to get pointier and nearer to the nose, and a collapse inwards of the cheeks. Unless you’re into gurning, it’s not a good look.

At Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, dental implants can replace more than one tooth at a time. That would cost a fortune. One implant can hold up to three teeth. A whole jaw of teeth can be inserted on between four and six implants. Another option is to get your dentures customised so they can be stabilised with mini implants.