Enjoy Your Favorite Foods with Dental Implants

After tooth loss, eating food and speaking properly becomes very different. Tooth loss has profound effects on our everyday lives. For example, eating a meal comfortably and confidently can become quite cumbersome with missing teeth. Fortunately, patients have many options for replacing lost teeth. One wildly popular method for restoring oral function and lost dental structures is dental implants. Replacing a lost tooth with a dental implant makes eating food far easier because implants support neighboring teeth and are very similar to biological teeth. Our implant dentist has experience restoring the smiles and oral health of patients throughout our community.

How Dental Implants Improve Quality of Life

Losing teeth has an impact on a patient’s quality of life. Tooth loss diminishes self-esteem and confidence along with affecting oral function. With time, tooth loss will lead to the loss of more teeth because empty tooth sockets cannot support neighboring teeth. To remedy these negative effects of tooth loss, dental implants address the psychological distress of missing teeth, the impaired oral function, and they help support all structures in the oral health system by replacing both a lost tooth’s crown and roots. Once the implantation process is complete, patients enjoy a restored smile with an improvement in both appearance and oral function.

How Dental Implants Work

Dental implants replace the two major parts of teeth, the roots and the crown. First, a titanium post is surgically embedded into the jawbone. With time, bone mass will fuse to the implant and eventually stabilize the post in place. This process will replace the roots of a lost tooth and provide a durable base for a prosthetic tooth. Once a patient is ready for his or her permanent prosthetic, a dental crown will be attached to the titanium post. A crown will fill in the missing space of an empty tooth socket and complete a patient’s smile. Crowns are tooth-shaped, custom-made prosthetics that can appear as natural as a biological tooth, depending on the materials chosen by the patient.

To schedule a consultation with our implant dentist, call Charlottesville Oral Surgery & Dental Implant Center today.