And if you want to get the most from your dental implants, follow this 7-step plan.
Step 1: Choose Your Dentist
Your dentist will make the biggest difference in your dental implant procedure and experience. That’s why it’s important to choose your dentist with care. Choose a dentist who is highly trained and experienced in the use of dental implants to replace teeth. Talk to dentists about their success rate and carefully scrutinize their smile gallery.
Make sure your implant dentist understands the importance of your bite in getting comfortable, long-lasting results from your dental implants and can employ neuromuscular dentistry to make sure your implant fits with your bite.
Step 2: Plan Your Procedure
You and your dentist need to have detailed discussions about your cosmetic and functional goals for the procedure. Even the best dentist can’t read your mind: you need to tell them what matters to you and what you’re trying to achieve. Talk about whether you want to just replace the one tooth so it blends in or if you want a more general smile makeover so your entire smile will look more attractive.
Step 3: Heal
Once your dentist places the dental implant, the ball is back in your court again, and you have to take this responsibility seriously. Your dental implants are most at risk during the first year after they’ve been placed.
Listen carefully to your dentist’s instructions and follow them precisely. Eat a proper nutritious diet and clean your implants thoroughly. Report any signs of complications you notice.
Step 4: Eat Well
We mentioned that you should pay careful attention to your diet as you’re healing, but eating is also one of the great pleasures you can enjoy with your dental implants. Eat all the meats, fruits, and vegetables you had to give up, either because of your failing teeth or because of poorly fitting and functioning dentures.
You’ll be delighted at your restored bite from implant dentures–it’s essentially the same as your bite when you had a full set of healthy teeth.
Step 5: Smile Big
Dental implants are highly attractive, so you should take every opportunity to show them off. That won’t be too hard to do: with the change from either failing teeth or uncomfortable dentures, you’ll feel like smiling every day.
And you won’t have to worry about a gap in your smile–with dental implants, you can usually get a tooth replacement on the very day teeth are removed.
Step 6: Maintain Your Implants
Another benefit of dental implants is that maintenance for them is exceptionally easy: just brush, floss, and make your regular dental visits.
That’s all. Flossing may be a slightly different task than you’re used to: dental implants are a little bit different than teeth, but it’s close. If you’re a high risk patient, we might ask you to visit the dentist more than twice a year.
Step 7: Make Long-Term Plans
Dental implants are also capable of lasting a lifetime with proper maintenance. That means that you can make plans for enjoying your teeth ten, fifteen, even fifty years from now–that’s how long some people have had their dental implants!
Your implants may need some minor repair or adjustment every 7-8 years, but that’s a minor consideration.
Are you ready to implement your plan for dental implants in Hilton Head? Please call (843) 706-2999 today for an appointment with a Hilton Head implant dentist at Beyond Exceptional Dentistry.
