Hello, this is Dr. Robert Antolak from The Gentle Dentist in Shelby Township, Michigan. Our phone number is 586-247-3500. One of the most popular ways of replacing missing teeth is using dental implants. We’ve all heard what dental implants are. I would just like to give a little explanation of what it is.
I’ve been placing dental implants for quite some time and they are very effective at replacing teeth because we don’t have to cut down neighboring teeth if there’s a missing tooth. So this is a model right here of what a dental implant is.
A dental implant is made of basically three components. One component is the implant itself. Then there is a crown and the abutment. The abutment is the gold colored part right here.
The dental implant itself is the part that goes into the jawbone. Obviously, this is quite larger than it would normally be. Implants are usually quite small. Depending on the size and availability of the bone that exists for the patient, we will select the appropriate size for the implant to go in.
Occasionally we can put the implant in at the same time a tooth is extracted. But sometimes we need to take the tooth out and put a grafting material in there to allow that bone to heal. In those cases, we create a little hole where the implant goes in. The implant gets screwed into place and then it takes about 4 months for the healing to take place.
After that four month period of time, we can add the abutment. This is the second component to an implant. The abutment gets screwed down and acts like a tooth. So, if you can envision, the implant, would be like a tooth root and the abutment part would be the crown on the tooth.
After the abutment is placed, we can take an impression and make a crown over the top of it. So that would replace your missing tooth.
I’m going to use the analogy of what a tooth root would look like with this model here.
Obviously this is more like the size of a dental implant. We have the root portion of the tooth right here, which is the yellow colored material. Then there’s the crown part, which you can see right here. You can see how this model is a natural tooth.
So remember the implant goes into the jaw, similar to a natural tooth root. The dental implant basically grows into the bone and then we can add teeth and there are all different types of things that we can do.
If your teeth are bad, if you have a missing tooth, if you have a tooth that cracks or breaks and sometimes we can’t restore those teeth, then we’ll have to remove it, and then place a dental implant.
Contact Shelby Township Dentist, Dr. Antolak About Dental Implants
If you do have any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them for you. You can even come in for a free consultation on dental implants. If you want to give us a call, our phone number is: 586 247 3500. Thank you and have a blessed day.