For many patients at our Newhall, CA dental office, dental implants have proven much more effective at rebuilding their smiles than they would have first expected. The ability to replace your lost teeth roots and support your dental prosthesis in a more lifelike manner offers several immediate, potentially obvious advantages. For example, your dental crown, bridge, or denture won’t shift because it’s anchored in place. However, there are also several less obvious benefits that come with replacing your lost teeth roots, which you may not begin to notice until you’ve enjoyed your dental implants for years.

A brief explanation of dental implants

Dental implants are small posts that mimic your lost teeth roots in several ways. Once the implant posts are placed in your jawbone, the bone fuses to their biocompatible titanium surfaces, making them permanent parts of your oral anatomy. This gives your replacement a sturdy, unmovable anchor to keep them as comfortable and stable as your healthy teeth. It also reestablishes several important functions that were lost along with your teeth roots, such as the stimulation when you bite and chew that tells your body to send your jawbone an ample supply of nutrients.

The long-term benefits

Offering enhanced support for your dental prosthesis and replacing your lost teeth roots means dental implants do a better job than traditional prostheses of rebuilding your smile. In the long term, the advantages of implant-supported replacement teeth include:

• More reliable support – Traditionally, bridges and dentures relied on abutment teeth and adhesives to remain in place (respectively). While effective, these solutions are a significant reason why traditional replacement teeth eventually lose their grip and shift in place. By contrast, dental implants perform more like natural teeth, with their support system implanted in your jawbone so they can function more reliably.
• Reduced risks of tooth loss – When your jawbone loses the stimulation of a tooth root, your body sends it fewer minerals and nutrients in response. As far as your body’s concerns, there’s no tooth there to support, so those nutrients would be better spent elsewhere. However, your jawbone suffers, and over time, it can lose mass and density, making it less able to support the healthy teeth that remain. Dental implants reestablish this stimulation, and your jawbone’s nutrient supply, to keep your smile’s foundation strong and well-nourished, reducing your risks of losing more teeth.

Learn if you can benefit from dental implants

The fact that dental implants more closely resemble the natural structures of your healthy teeth makes them much more beneficial to your smile and oral health than you might notice at first. For more information, or to find out if you can benefit from dental implants, schedule a consultation by calling Newhall Dental Arts in Newhall, CA, today at (661) 259-7760.