Dental Implants

Complete Dental Implants in Brooklyn, Marine Park

Whether you have one missing tooth or several, missing teeth impact not just your physical health, but your mental health as well. Don’t wait to have your missing teeth replaced. Make an appointment at our Brooklyn dental clinic to start the process of getting dental implants. Our patients tell us their replacement teeth have changed their life.

Reasons for Missing Teeth

Unfortunately, quite a few people develop dental phobia over the years, and this prevents them from getting the regular dental care they need. All children and adults should get a checkup at the dentist office at least every six months.

At these checkups, the dental hygienist will perform a professional tooth cleaning, including removing any built-up plaque and tartar from your teeth. Forgoing this type of treatment for any length of time can lead to bacteria buildup and gum disease such as gingivitis and periodontitis. Although gum disease is generally curable, if it is allowed to progress for any length of time, your teeth could become loose and fall out, even if the teeth themselves are healthy.

At your checkup, the dentist will examine your teeth, gums and mouth tissues, looking for anything unusual or problematic. In the early stages, cavities are hard for anyone but a trained dentist to identify. In fact, this is one reason dentists take X-rays — to help them identify cavities as early as possible.

An advanced cavity, however, should be easy for anyone to spot and often causes pain for the patient. The treatment for a small cavity is a filling, but if the cavity is large, the patient may need an inlay or an onlay. Larger cavities that require removal of much of the tooth may be repaired with a crown.

However, some cavities are so far gone that the tooth must be extracted.

Although top reasons for missing teeth are decay and gum disease, they aren’t the only reasons. Injury and trauma account for many missing teeth. This could be the result of an automobile accident, a sports injury, a physical altercation or another type of accident.

Regardless of why you have missing teeth, you will want to visit a dentist office to get replacement teeth as soon as possible.

Teeth Replacement: Time Matters

Waiting to replace a missing tooth can bring about a number of problems. Your jawbone supports healthy teeth, but when you have missing teeth, the jawbone in those areas begins to recede and shrink because it is no longer needed to support the tooth. Thus, if you wait years to get a replacement tooth, you may need a bone graft first if your jaw is not health enough to receive the dental implant.

Additionally, when a tooth (or teeth) is missing for a period of time, your other healthy teeth may start to drift into the gaps left behind by missing teeth. Not only does this create extra unattractive gaps between your teeth, but it also may create the need for orthodontia before our dentist can begin the tooth implant process.

Depending on your age and the amount of time you have had missing teeth, you may notice partial facial collapse in the area where there are no teeth to support facial structure. Replacement teeth correct this issue, but you may have some irreversible wrinkling in these areas.

Tooth loss is also associated with other health problems, including heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes.

How Dental Implants Work

Once the dentist at our Brooklyn dental clinic deems you ready for dental implants (after any necessary bone grafting, orthodontia or healing after extraction), he will place the posts.

A replacement tooth is made up of three parts — the titanium post, the abutment and the crown. First, the dentist implants the post into your jawbone. This is followed by a waiting period during which your jawbone heals and grows tightly around the post. Once this is complete, the dentist can attach the abutment and the crown.

All-on-4 Dental Implants

The dental implant procedure for those missing many or all their teeth is different. For many years, those with many missing teeth had only one choice: dentures. While traditional dentures are certainly better than not having teeth, they come with distinct disadvantages.

Because they sit on the gumline, dentures tend to move around when patients eat or talk. This can be embarrassing and problematic for patients. The problem gets worse over time, because dentures do nothing to stimulate the jaw and gums, so they continue to atrophy. This is why dentures need to be relined every year or two. In the meantime, they tend to fit poorly be uncomfortable.

All-on-4 dental implants are a type of teeth replacement that relies on four posts implanted in the top arch and four in the bottom. All-on-4 replacement teeth are far superior to traditional dentures because they are secure and not removable. They never need to be relined because the implants keep the jaw and gums healthy and strong.

Teeth-in-a-Day Dental Implants

Teeth-in-a-Day dental implants have become popular in Brooklyn, NY, and across the U.S. due to the speed of the procedure. While tooth implants are the best solution for missing teeth, patients are often frustrated by the time this procedure takes. Once the post is implanted, patients usually have to heal for months before the tooth replacement process is complete. During this time, they must go without teeth or with a flipper — a false tooth that is more for aesthetics than function.

That might be tolerable for one or two teeth, but for patients who have no teeth, waiting months for the process to be complete is extremely difficult.

With Teeth-in-a-Day, patients get temporary dentures at the same time they get their implants. If they need any teeth extracted, that is done at this time as well. Thus, patients with many missing teeth come into our Brooklyn, NY, dental clinic and walk out a few hours later with a new set of teeth.

Once their permanent teeth are created and the patient has healed adequately, our dentist places their replacement teeth.

Top Brooklyn, NY, Dentist

If you have one or more missing teeth, make an appointment at our Brooklyn dentist office today. Dental implants make a major difference in patients’ lives.