Dental Implants in Phoenix: A List of Benefits and Advantages

This article provides a brief overview of the benefits of dental implants as a tooth replacement technology.

Has the dentist told you that you need to have one or more of your teeth replaced? Are you considering dental implants, but are seduced by the lower cost of bridges? Do you want to know what you’re signing up for? Experts from Dental implants in Phoenix have compiled the following bullet-point list of the benefits and advantages of dental implants. All of these points highlight solid reasons why dental implants are considered superior to any other tooth replacement technology out there!

Dental Implant Benefits and Advantages

• Dental implants are fixed and non-removable, so they don’t move around and they can’t fall out.

• Dental implants are supported by the jaw bone, just like your natural teeth, so they typically don’t damage any of the neighboring teeth or cause any pain of the surrounding soft tissue.

• Dental implants support a strong and natural bite force, enabling you to eat all the foods you like. Forget surfing the menu for something soft and more manageable.

• Dental implants can be used to support ceramic crowns to replace single missing teeth, or prosthetic dental bridges to replace multiple adjacent missing teeth or even an entire missing dental arch!

• Dental implants in Arizona have an incredible lifespan of 20, 30 years and, if cared for properly, even longer! Dental bridges, on the other hand, last about 10 years before they start requiring restoration and possibly even replacement.

• Dental implants are carefully fabricated to resemble natural teeth. The material from which the crowns are made actually mimics the optical properties of natural dental enamel, so your friends and family won’t be able to tell the difference between your real teeth and your implant teeth!

• Dental implants offer a great tooth replacement solution to elderly denture wearers. The “All-on-4” is a breakthrough protocol in the treatment of edentulous (toothless) and near-edentulous people. It makes it possible for patients to receive a brand new set of non-removable teeth in as little as a single surgery of a few hours only. These teeth are highly aesthetic – far more so than dentures – and immediately functional.

• By transmitting the forces associated with eating directly into the underlying supporting jaw bone, dental implants ensure that this hard tissue remains stimulated and ‘exercised’. This prevents atrophication and promotes the health of the jaw bone.

• Dental implants prevent atrophy and the remodeling of the jaw bone from upsetting the stability of the dental arch. For the same reason, they prevent the deterioration of one’s natural youthful facial contours.

• Dental implants are cleaned just like your natural teeth and don’t require any fancy or expensive technology to maintain them.

• Dental implants are inserted with the aid of computer imaging maps, which help dentists find precise locations for them. This reduces the number of incisions and sutures necessary for surgical placement, thus eliminating much post-operative pain and discomfort!

A Final Note on Dental Implants

Dental implants offer a sophisticated and comprehensive solution to missing teeth, whether you have lost one in an accident or all of them to periodontal (gum) disease. There is no other dental technology that can match their benefits and longevity, so make that investment in your oral health by choosing the right tooth replacement solutions!

A Look Under the Microscope at Dental Implants, Arizona

This article provides a close-up on dental implants and addresses questions including “what are they, how do they work and do they cause any pain?”

You, like many people, probably have the term ‘dental implant’ in your vocabulary. But if your dentist told you that one of your teeth had to be pulled and replaced with one of them, the gaps in your knowledge would begin to show! What IS a dental implant / all on 4 dental implant anyway? You know that they are used to replace missing teeth, but how do they work? And most of all, do they hurt?

Dental Implants: A Closer Look at the Hardware

You’re right; dental implants are used to replace missing teeth. But there’s quite a bit more to them than that. Dental implants consist of three separate components:

• An artificial ‘root’, which is made from medical grade titanium; a very strong, lightweight and non-corrosive metal.
• An abutment or ‘collar’
• An artificial crown, constructed from high quality ceramic material.

The surgery required for the placement of dental implants involves the insertion of the titanium screw or ‘artificial root’ into the jaw bone at the location of the missing tooth. The dentist then affixes the abutment to the top of the screw, before attaching a temporary porcelain crown. In other words, once the procedure has been concluded your missing tooth will be completely replaced!

What you can expect from Your Dental Implant

Dental implants generally take a couple of weeks to heal. During this time, your jaw bone will actually be fusing with the titanium root of the implant in a very special process called ‘osseointegration.’ Thanks to this phenomenon, once healing is complete, the dental implant will be firmly planted in your jaw bone, just like the rest of your natural teeth! This is part of what makes dental implants so strong and able to withstand natural biting forces.

Dental implants in Arizona enable patients to eat most foods. There are certain things you’ll have to be wary of if you want to prevent damaging your ceramic crown, such as chewing ice or sticky sweets, but you should be avoiding these anyway. Otherwise, your dental implant will enable you to eat all the foods you love and to smile as much as you want!

After a set recovery period, you will need to return to the dentist to have your temporary crown replaced with a permanent crown. This will be fitted to facilitate a snug bite relationship between the lower and upper jaw. And that’s it!

Do Dental Implants Hurt?

Once they’ve healed, dental implants feel just like natural teeth. If they cause any pain or discomfort, there is something wrong and you should arrange an appointment with your dentist as soon as possible. Anesthesia is generally used during the placement of dental implants, so the procedure shouldn’t hurt at all. There can be some post-operative swelling and discomfort in the days following surgery, but this is easily managed with the medications prescribed to you by your dentist.

Overall, any pain or discomfort associated with the placement of dental implants is totally manageable and should not be a cause for concern. If you are especially worried about this, speak to your dentist beforehand and they will go to additional measures to ensure that your experience is as pain and anxiety free as possible.

The Scoop on Dental Pain, Fear and Anxiety from Tooth Implant Experts in Arizona, PART 2

This two-part article series discusses why many patients experience fear and anxiety at the prospect of their bi-annual appointments.

For many people, shaking hands, an elevated heart beat and a cold sweat is par for the course during their bi-annual appointment with the dentist. Just like a fear of spiders, snakes, heights and closed spaces, dental phobias are all too common amongst the members of our society. Perhaps you yourself are a sufferer! The difference between the afore-mentioned fears and a phobia of the dentist and dental treatment is that the primal phobias are an atavistic response to imminent danger. A spider or snake bite could be potentially fatal. Heights too; but a visit to the dentist nowadays is, at its best, mildly uncomfortable.

So why do we fear it so? And why is this fear so pervasive? In our previous article post, we discussed the media, movies and our friends and family as being a source of dental anxiety and fear. Just from hearing the way our parents and friends talk, we grow up thinking that a trip to the dentist is something to be nervous about. Then of course there are needles to worry about.

But of all the various sources of dental anxiety and fear, perhaps the over-arching theme is pain. A fear of pain and discomfort.

Tooth Implant Experts: Pain Management in Dentistry

“It is completely normal for patients to worry about pain,” say tooth implant experts. “But what people seem to have forgotten is that dentistry has advanced quite substantially over the last few decades. Even in the last 10 years, we’ve made incredible advancements in the fields of patient care and pain management.”

Nowadays your dentist will use:

• Anesthetic gels to numb the gums before needles are used, so you don’t feel a thing.
• Sedative medications to send you off safely to la-la land so that you won’t remember a thing about your procedure.
• Anesthesia for more complex surgeries.
• Prescription pain medications to manage post-operative pain and discomfort.

But perhaps the greatest advancements of all, as far as pain is concerned, are the sophisticated technologies that allow general and cosmetic dentists to offer non-invasive solutions to ailments that have traditionally required surgery. Computer imaging software is now a standard tool in the dentist’s office, which can be used to provide a comprehensive understanding of jaw bone structure and tooth orientation. This in turn allows the dentist to plan procedures in great detail, thus minimizing the need for incisions and sutures: a primary cause of post-operative pain and discomfort.

Modern Dentistry: Don’t Worry, Be Happy

A combination of newer, less invasive dental procedures and pain management medications and techniques really has rendered the modern day dental office a place of pleasant experiences rather than pain and anxiety. “Our services really have changed over the years and while dentists have always had a bad rap in the past, this is - for the most part - unfair and even exaggerated,” says a cosmetic dentist in Sun City.

Bear all this in mind the next time fear and anxiety make you consider skipping your appointment with the dentist!

The Scoop on Dental Pain, Fear and Anxiety from the Cosmetic Dentist in Arizona, PART 1

This two-part article series discusses why many patients experience fear and anxiety at the prospect of their bi-annual appointments.

People avoid going to the dentist for many reasons. Some just don’t regard it as an important part of their general health care, while others are ashamed of the poor condition their teeth are in. However, the greatest reason people avoid the dentist – the greatest reason by far - is fear.

Odontophobia is actually a very common fear, with the majority of all patients experiencing some degree of anxiety when they go for their bi-annual appointment. This anxiety might manifest itself as a mildly elevated heart beat and sweaty palms, or it could bring on a full-fledged panic attack. Some patients have been known to become physically ill at the prospect of undergoing a dental procedure.

The question is: why does a visit to the dentist bring on such panic? And why is this reaction so pervasive amongst patients? The cosmetic dentist in Arizona gives us some answers…

Arizona Cosmetic Dentists Discuss Patient Fear and Anxiety

“The greater majority of patients experience some degree of fear and anxiety at the prospect of an appointment with the dentist because they are told to,” says an expert in teeth implants Arizona. “Perhaps not directly, but we learn about a fear of the dentist from movies, media and from our friends and parents.”

This is quite an interesting point to learn; probably because it’s true! Of all the people you know, few actually have a negative story of their own to relate. Most of the time we go for an appointment with the dentist, it goes by without incident, discomfort or pain. It just takes one bad experience and the story gets trumpeted about for everyone to hear. So, instead of just one person being affected by their experience, countless more are made wary and fearful.

“Movies are another source of fear and anxiety for patients,” say the teeth implants expert. “The Dentist 2 is a perfect example of the fear-mongering the media indulges in when it comes to general and cosmetic dentistry.”

When you think about it, it’s not hard to be afraid of the dentist or of dental appointments. First of all, your mouth is quite an intimate organ, so you feel very vulnerable sitting there with a masked individual peering into its depths. Secondly, there is an array of rather sharp and intimidating-looking implements within arm’s length of your head. And thirdly, a visit to the dentist could end up with you requiring a needle injection.

“Many of the patients I see are terrified of needles more than anything else,” says an Arizona cosmetic dentist. “Once they understand that anesthetic gels can be rubbed on the gums to totally eliminate the pain associated with injections, they become a lot more amenable to treatment!”

The Important Message…

Whatever the source, there are things you can do to overcome fear and anxiety associated with dental treatments. Oral sedative medications, depending on dosage, can be taken to either take the edge off anxiety or eliminate it altogether. “The important message to remember is that skipping dental appointments is not the answer,” stress cosmetic dentists in Arizona. “You’ll only end up requiring more extensive, invasive and expensive work to fix problems that could have been avoided with regular preventative treatment.”

Stay tuned for the second installment of our two part series in which we will be discussing modern dentistry and pain management.