Dental Implants: Why They're Your Best Choice for Replacing Missing Teeth
Did you know that 178 million Americans are missing at least one tooth? While your teeth are designed to serve you for a lifetime, life can get in the way, forcing you to seek out effective replacement options. If you want to replace your tooth with one that serves both form and function, dental implants can’t be beat.
At Sokoly Dental, with Dr. Thomas Sokoly at the helm, our team partners with our Washington, DC, area patients for great dental health. While our goal is to preserve your existing teeth, sometimes a diseased or traumatized tooth presents more of a liability than an asset. When this happens, you want a replacement option that doesn’t disrupt your life, allowing you to chew, speak, and smile as you normally would. The one prosthetic that has you covered on all fronts is a dental implant.
Here’s a look at why dental implants are your best choice for replacing missing teeth.
Gone missing
As we mentioned above, your teeth are designed to go the distance, providing you with a lifetime of service. Unfortunately, tooth decay, gum disease, and trauma can wreak havoc on your dental health, causing the loss of one or more teeth. In fact, studies show that 15-20% of adults in the United States have some degree of gum disease. More alarming still, 30% of adults between the ages of 65 and 74 have no natural teeth.
Beyond the tooth loss
While a missing tooth presents some challenges when it comes to chewing, speaking, and smiling, the loss goes far deeper — right down to your bone. Each of your teeth is secured by roots that go down into your jawbone, holding your tooth firmly in place. To ensure the stability of your tooth, your bone is constantly regenerating and renewing itself as it senses activity in the area.
When you lose a tooth, you lose these roots, and your bone registers the inactivity. As a result, you start to incur bone loss in your jaw as your body ceases to send in the necessary resources for regeneration. Before too long, this loss of bone can cause your existing teeth to shift out of place, making your problem a much bigger one than when you started.
Down to the bone
One of the biggest benefits of our dental implants is that they mimic your teeth, right down to their roots. To accomplish this, we insert a titanium post into your jawbone and then let your body take over by growing new bone tissue to fuse the post into place. Once your implant is secure, we place a crown over the post that fits in seamlessly with your existing teeth.
Since your replacement tooth is securely anchored by your jawbone, you benefit with superior stability while also preventing bone loss.
An immovable object
Because your dental implant is fused into place by your existing bone, you don’t have to worry about removable prosthetic devices. Once your implant takes up its position, you simply treat it as you would your existing teeth — brushing and flossing regularly and coming in to see us for your biannual exam and cleaning.
There may come a time when the crown over your implant wears down, but all we need to do is simply custom manufacture a new one, which fits easily over your existing post.
If you want to close the gap with a replacement tooth that for all intents and purposes is a real tooth, simply give us a call at 202-280-2428. Or you can use our convenient online scheduling tool to request an appointment.