Hi, my name’s Doctor Robert Antolak. I’m the owner of the Gentle Dentist. We’re located off of Shelby Township, Michigan. Our phone number is (586) 247-3500, and our website is, The Gentle Dentist. Pretty easy to remember.

One thing I’d like to talk to you today about are dental implants. You know, I know that most all of you have heard of what a dental implant is, but I’d like to just go over some brief things. As you can see, over my shoulder here’s a scenario of what a dental implant is. A dental implant is basically a titanium (which is a metal type ) of alloy screw that’s actually placed in the jawbone. And, even though it sounds scary, it’s pretty darn simple process. There’s actually, where the tooth usually is, dental implants fit in that socket, that area. If a tooth goes bad, and needs to be removed, we can then place an dental implant ion that same visit, or at a subsequent visit. And what an implant is, as you can see, is the screw. It’s screwed into your jawbone, and we need to get a certain amount of  holding ability, and then, over a period of time, about a 4 month period of time, bone actually grows into the little threads on a microscopic level, and helps to secure the dental implant.

Dental implants, that’s doing surgical aspect, which we do here at the office. And then once that implant is placed in there, we can do many things with it. We can actually replace a single missing tooth. Therefore, rather than having to place, let’s say, a front tooth that’s had something go wrong with it. Rather than having to grind down the adjacent teeth to that, with what’s called a fixed bridge. We can keep those teeth alone and just replace the missing area. Which makes the most sense. It’s actually the most conservative type of care that we can do.

We do a lot of those in the front which can be aesthetic and then also we do them in the back part of the mouth. And in the back part of the mouth it’s used for either a space, a wide space that’s there we can connect two of them or three of them together and put separate crowns over the top of them, giving you a biting surface that you can use which you may not have had before. You know, it’s something like that can replace one of those partial dentures that’s removable that has to come in and out of your mouth. This actually will stay fixed in your mouth like your own natural tooth. And so that’s used in the back part of the mouth.

Also, a really valuable use for an implant is to hold a denture, a complete denture in place. It’s like 2 snaps. In this scenario, like, you can see in the new picture here behind me. This actually has snaps, as you can envision on a piece of clothing. One part of the snap is like the male part, and one is the female part. Well, the female part stays inside the denture itself. And then the male part is what, it’s actually screwed down into the jawbone. And that part is what allows the denture to snap over the top of it, and keep it retentive. Therefore, you can chew the types of food that you want to eat, not the kind of food that you have to eat. In other words, you know, if you want to eat fresh vegetables, which are the healthiest for you, you can do that. And your lower denture won’t move around for you.

There’s quite a bit that involved with dental implants and at our office at thegentledentist.com we actually do provide the placement of dental implants. We provide  the care for the restoration of dental implants. Once again with single crowns, single teeth, or we can also do it where we replace, combine them together to give you a whole segment where you may have been missing before. Or we can use them to hold in dentures which is a full lower or upper for that matter, that can snap down in place. So if this sounds good to you and you want a dentist who’s had quite an experience with not only placing the implants, which we do, but also restoring them, then you can give us a call.

You know, there’s one advantage of having the same dentist being able to do both things. You know, when I treatment plan a patient, we walk through what we are going to do for them. I actually will work the case up, so that by the person’s placing the dental implant, I know where I’m going to be putting it. It’s almost as if, if you didn’t you’d have a carpenter who’d come and place a nail on the wall for a picture. But not really know where the picture’s going to go. By being the carpenter and the artist, I know where to put it in. And then know where to put that picture. So it’s important to know that there’s good communication whether with yourself, or if you use a couple of different specialists, then you really have to have great communication. And that’s usually where things break down is the communication part of it. So, give us a call at (586) 247-3500, or visit our website at thegentledentist.com. We’re located off the Shelby Township, Michigan. Thank you.