Dental Implants-To Help Save Your Bone
“Just Pull ‘Em Doc”
This phrase has been repeated for generations in dental offices across this country. Most of the patients that say these words are assuming that all their teeth and mouth troubles will go away once their teeth are extracted and a new set of dentures or partials are placed. Little do patients know of the future pain, problems, and possibility of jaw fractures without having natural teeth to support their jaw bone.
How is your mouth is like an NASA Astronaut body?
A person natural body replaces bone every sixty to ninety days with new bone. The new bone is only laid down if the body and brain notice pressure or stimulation on the bone. A good example of this is our NASA Astronauts. We have all seen videos of Astronauts in space working out while they are floating around. They workout, not out of boredom, but to put stress on their bones so that when they return to earth the bone will be strong enough to support their body weight. This works very similar to the upper and lower jaw bones in the mouth. If there are no teeth to stimulate the upper or lower jaw then the bone will slowly melt or wash away. Once a tooth is extracted 50% of the bone will be lost in the first year!!
How can we stimulate the jaw bone to keep the bone in place?
First of all, leaving a good functioning tooth is the best stimulation unless the tooth is abscessed, infected, painful, or not restorable then extraction is the only choice. But we can still stimulate the upper and lower jaw bones with an artificial tooth root-- a Dental Implant. Even though it is a bionic tooth root, it can still do the same things that a natural root can do by stimulating bone product around the tooth root.
What is the process if you have a tooth extracted and a Dental Implant Placed?
It depends on where the tooth is located in the mouth, how much bone loss occurred due to the infection from the previous tooth and how much of the supporting bone was removed in the extraction. There may be a reason to place into the tooth socket some new bone material from a bone bank. This new bone is more like a plug that keeps the tooth socket from losing bone and will be replaced by the patient’s own bone in ninety days. Normally we will wait four months until it is time to place the Dental Implant.
Once you have good quality bone then the Dental Implant can be placed with confidence. Once the implant is placed then the patient begins new bone formation around the artificial tooth root. We have a certain waiting period of time until the implant is fully integrated with the bone. Usually the time frame is three to five months of healing prior to placing anything on top of an implant. After that healing period then the Dental Implant can be completely restored by a regular dental crown to support structures for a partial or full mouth denture.
Let us know if you need more information or see whether you are a good candidate for Dental Implants. For more information you can contact us today for your new Dental Implant patient evaluation at 423.553.8858. Dr. Andrew Lunn performs high quality Cosmetic, Implant, Sedation and General Dentistry at 1606 Gunbarrel Road in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

