Dental Implants – Lady Lake, FL

Initial Dental Implant Consultation

Your first step on your journey towards a new smile is to come see us for a consultation. Your Lady Lake implant dentist will take the time to discuss your smile goals with you, answer your questions, and inspect your oral health. We’ll help you determine if dental implants are right for you and if you need any preliminary treatments like a bone graft or gum disease treatment. Once you’re cleared as a good candidate, we’ll plan out every step of your dental implant treatment so you’ll know exactly what to expect.

Dental Implant Surgery

Once a plan has been made, we’ll place your dental implant. This minor surgery will begin with completely numbing your mouth with reliable anesthetics and possibly using sedation dentistry to keep you as comfortable as possible. Then, we’ll make a small incision in the gums to access your jawbone and insert your dental implant. Finally, the gums are closed around the implant and a protective cap is placed over the implant.

Dental Implant Osseointegration & Abutment Placement

After your dental implant surgery, it will take a few days of rest and relaxation for you to fully recover. However, your jawbone will continue to heal and start the process of osseointegration. This is when the dental implant integrates with your jawbone, essentially becoming part of it.

This process can take anywhere from three to six months. You’ll then come back to our office to have a small connector piece called an abutment attached to the dental implant. We’ll take impressions of the area and begin crafting your final restoration while you return home to heal for a few weeks.

Delivery of Dental Implant Restorations

Before you know it, you’ll be returning to our office for the final step in your dental implant treatment! We’ll access the top of your dental implant and securely attach your custom-made crown, bridge, partial, or full denture via the abutments. We’ll take the time to ensure your bite feels comfortable and that you’re pleased with the results, making any final adjustments as needed. Then, you’ll be ready to go out and enjoy your newly rebuilt smile!

Day-to-Day Benefits

If you’ve been wearing dentures, you understand the day-to-day challenges that can come with this type of prosthetic. If you’ve been without any form of tooth replacement, you also know how hard it can be to perform many of life’s easiest tasks (i.e., eating, speaking). Fortunately, with dental implants in Lady Lake, you will discover there are many great day-to-day benefits, such as:

• Eating Without Worry – With dental implants, food no longer has to be your enemy. Instead of avoiding your favorite foods because you fear your prosthetics might slip or fall out, you can now embrace a healthy and nutritious diet that is easy to consume. Fruits, vegetables, dairy, lean protein, leafy greens, and those rich in Vitamin C will benefit your body and smile, keeping your implants in optimal shape well into the future.
• Greater Bite Force – Dental implants act just like natural teeth, which makes it possible for you to gain a greater bite force and chewing power. Instead of being mindful of placing even pressure on your prosthetic to avoid potential slippage, you can eat normally with dental implants.
• Easy Maintenance – Unlike dentures that require soaking each night, you can brush, floss, and rinse your dental implants just like you do your normal teeth. There is no need to remove your prosthetic or soak it because your implants fuse with the bone and tissues to truly mimic your natural tooth structure. This makes it easier to maintain good oral hygiene and reduces your risk for tooth decay and gum disease.
• Improved Quality of Life – If you want to rejoin family and friends for social gatherings, you can’t go wrong with dental implants. While 10% of denture-wearers tend to avoid going out to eat or to events because they are embarrassed by their prosthetic, you can feel more confident and comfortable smiling around others.

Health Benefits

While part of your decision to choose dental implants may be based on the natural aesthetic they provide, you should also know they offer many great health benefits as well. Some of these include:

• Jawbone Preservation – Tooth loss can cause your jawbone to deteriorate over time. When opting for a denture or dental bridge, you will continue to notice the bone weakening, causing your facial shape to change. However, with dental implants, the titanium posts are inserted into your jawbone, allowing for continuous stimulation. This, in turn, will keep your bone strong and minimize the potential for facial collapse over time.
• Longer Life – It may seem hard to believe, but tooth loss is closely associated with lifespan. When missing teeth are left untreated, it can create a domino effect that negatively impacts your oral and overall health. Statistics show that individuals over the age of 65 who have 5 or more missing teeth are more likely to experience cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. By choosing to replace these teeth with dental implants, you can lower your risk for these common health conditions and also extend your life.
• No Oral Sores – When wearing a denture, it can become uncomfortable as your facial shape changes. This can cause oral sores to form inside your mouth and make it extremely difficult to wear your prosthetic. Fortunately, with dental implants, this is not an issue. Because of their placement, they will not rub against soft oral tissues.

Long-Term Benefits

As you contemplate your options for tooth replacement, it’s also important to remember the long-term benefits that can come with dental implants. While they are more costly upfront, you will achieve great rewards in the long run. Here’s how:

• High Success Rate of Placement – When initially placed by a qualified implant dentist in Lady Lake, your dental implants have a success rate of 98%. This rate only falls to 90-95% after 10 years, making it an optimal solution for long-term tooth replacement.
• You Save Money – Instead of spending your hard-earned money on frequent replacements and adjustments (every 5-7 years), dental adhesives, and special cleaning solutions, you can enjoy prosthetics that require little maintenance and offer greater longevity.
• Longevity – Unlike dentures and dental bridges that must be replaced every few years, your dental implants have the ability to last decades or even a lifetime!

Missing One Tooth

With a traditional dental bridge, the teeth near the missing one have to be filed down to make room for the prosthetic. Instead, with an implant, we can simply position the new root between healthy teeth and top it with a crown while fully preserving someone’s remaining dental structure.

Missing Multiple Teeth

Single implants can be placed throughout the mouth as needed, but for consecutive missing teeth, just two implants can provide support for a bridge. They will be located on either side of the gap and hold a row of dental crowns in place.

Missing All Teeth

It only takes four to six implants to attach a full denture and restore an entire row of teeth. Compared to removable dentures, implant dentures are not only much more stable, but smaller as well, which makes them more comfortable and allows for clearer speech.

Learn More About Implant Dentures

Learn More About All-On-4 Dental Implants

Preliminary Treatments & Dental Implant Surgery

Gum disease therapy, tooth extractions, and bone grafting are often used to prepare the mouth for implant surgery, but they’re not always required. As such, whether or not you’ll even need such preliminary treatments in the first place can affect the final cost of implants. These treatments are well worth the extra money, as they help ensure that your new smile will be successful.

When looking at the cost of implant surgery, remember that the cost can be impacted if you choose to have sedation administered. Fortunately, the entire procedure can be completed under our roof, so you won’t have to worry about receiving a bill from some other practice.

The Parts of Your Dental Implant

The different parts of the dental implant will affect the overall cost thanks to the following variables:

• The number of dental implants required to replace a specific number of teeth, be it a single implant for one gap, two implants for a row of teeth, or four or more for an entire arch
• The type of restoration (such as a crown, a bridge, or a denture) that will be required in order to fill in all the empty space in your mouth as much as possible
• The material used to make dental implants (usually titanium, but sometimes zirconia depending on your individual health needs)
• The manufacturer that provides us with the dental implants (feel free to ask for details)

How Dental Implants Can Save You Money

You might think that you’ll save money by choosing traditional dentures or bridges instead of dental implants. However, what you may not consider is that dental implants can last a lifetime, whereas with more traditional options you’ll have to pay for a replacement every 5 to 10 years. Furthermore, implants do not require special maintenance, meaning you won’t have to buy cleansing solutions and other products associated with denture care.

Does My Dental Insurance Cover Dental Implants?

Most of the time, your dental insurance will not pay for the implants themselves, but they might still cover part of the cost of a restoration or some of your preliminary treatments. Talk to our team about your benefits and what you can do to get the most out of them.

Making Dental Implants Affordable

Third-party financing can help make implants more affordable, and fortunately you can qualify for a plan even when it comes to treatments that wouldn’t be covered by insurance. Reach out to us to learn more about how we work with Wells Fargo Financing to help lower the cost of implant surgery for all kinds of patients.

Bone Grafting

The entire dental implant process relies on osseointegration, which is a name for the phenomenon where an implant post fuses with the bone and surrounding tissue to become part of their mouth. For osseointegration to work, there needs to be a certain amount of bone in the jaw; however, since the jaw tends to deteriorate after tooth loss, oftentimes patients don’t initially have enough bone to have implant surgery done right away. Bone grafting can be used to correct this problem by taking bone tissue from another part of your body and placing it in the jaw. After several months, the new tissue will be fully integrated into the jaw, and you’ll be ready to move forward with the process.

Sinus Lift

The upper back jaw can often present obstacles to implant placement since it’s so close to the sinuses and generally has lower bone density. As such, a sinus lift may be required when placing implants in this area. Like bone grafting, it involves placing new material to help build up the jawbone so that the implant post has plenty of support. This also has the benefit of moving the sinus cavity up and away from the implant site so that it isn’t damaged during the surgery.

PRP/PRF Treatment

A successful dental implant treatment depends on your body’s natural healing abilities. We can give you a little extra help by applying PRP (platelet rich plasma) to the area. Platelets contain growth factors that can significantly quicken the healing process, thus decreasing the amount of time you’ll need to wait for your new teeth. PRF (platelet-rich fibrin) works in a similar manner, but it also helps support your immune system, reducing the risk of infection before your mouth is done healing.

Ridge Expansion

Sometimes the shape of the jaw can lead to complications in the dental implant process. We can’t place dental implant posts if the jaw is too thin to accommodate for them. With ridge expansion, we can expand the jawbone so that there’s plenty of room to place the implant post. This may need to be done alongside a bone graft procedure if the jawbone has shrunk in width and height. For this procedure, a thin line is cut along the length and width of the jawbone so that new tissue can be added in the appropriate areas.

What to Do Directly After Dental Implant Surgery

It’s completely normal to feel somewhat groggy and tired after your dental implant surgery. Directly afterwards, you should plan to go home and rest. In many cases, we’ll recommend that you take a prescribed or over-the-counter pain medication before the anesthesia from the procedure completely wears off. You should stick to a liquid diet for the next 12 to 24 hours before adding in soft foods. You can ice the outside of your face for 10-minute intervals if needed, and you should gently rinse out your mouth at least once that evening.

Common Side-Effects When Recovering from Dental Implant Placement

Slight intermittent bleeding, swelling, and discomfort are all normal side effects of oral surgery. Slight bleeding can be managed by avoiding touching the area and applying pressure if needed. If the bleeding suddenly becomes more notable, the blood clot may have become dislodged. Please call us right away.

Swelling and discomfort will linger for several days, but should be easy to manage with over-the-counter pain medication and ice packs. Should you notice that any of these symptoms seem to be getting worse instead of better, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Your Diet After Dental Implant Surgery

You should keep to a diet of soft, nutritious foods after your dental implant surgery. This could include items like:

• Applesauce
• Mashed potatoes
• Pasta
• Scrambled eggs
• Blended soups
• Cottage cheese
• Pudding
• Ice cream and frozen yogurt

Post-Op Health & Oral Hygiene

To keep infection and dental implant failure at bay, it’s essential that you practice great oral hygiene after your dental implant has been placed. You can begin to gently brush around the surgical site while brushing the rest of your teeth for two minutes twice a day the day after your dental implant surgery. You should also rinse regularly with water or mouthwash, but make sure to choose a non-alcoholic mouthwash to prevent dry mouth.

What to Do After Your New Teeth Are Attached

You should be feeling back to your normal self a week or so after your dental implant surgery. However, your jawbone will continue to heal for the coming three to six months. After this healing process, you’ll return to our office to have your brand-new teeth attached. Once your custom crown, bridge, or denture is in place, we’ll check to make sure your bite is comfortable and that you’re pleased with the results. You may experience some slight gum sensitivity for a few days as your mouth adjusts to your new teeth, but your dental implants should feel just like natural in no time!

Making Oral Hygiene a Priority

As long as you remain committed to taking care of your teeth and gums, you should not expect to develop issues with your dental implants in Lady Lake. Because your prosthetics look and act just like regular teeth, you should remember to brush them twice a day for two minutes, floss between your teeth at least once a day, and rinse with an ADA-approved mouthwash. In doing so, you will lower your risk for tooth decay, which can negatively impact your regular teeth, as well as gum disease, which can pose a significant threat to your implants if left untreated.

Eating a Healthy Diet

Swapping out sugary and starchy foods for healthier alternatives will not only prove beneficial to your waistline but also your smile. A healthy smile can do wonders for the rest of your body, so instead of reaching for cookies, chips, pie, or bread, try incorporating leafy greens, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and lean proteins into your diet. Tooth loss can often make it difficult to consume the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy. With dental implants, you can eat with greater ease, especially if you’re choosing the right foods.

Breaking Bad Habits

Nail-biting, chewing on pens and pencils, eating ice, smoking, and even teeth grinding are all bad habits that should be stopped before you ever receive your dental implants. While some can easily damage your restoration and dental implants, others can keep your implants from properly fusing with your bone and surrounding tissues (smoking). Breaking these bad habits will allow you to feel confident in the investment you’re making and ultimately, have you reaping the positive benefits that only dental implants can provide.

Protecting our Dental Implants

No one wants to see their worthwhile investment suddenly go down the drain, which is exactly what can happen if you do not take the proper steps to safeguard your smile. Whether you play sports or suffer from intense stress that causes bruxism (teeth grinding/clenching), it’s best to have a customized mouthguard created to protect your teeth and gums from injury. No matter how many implants you have, they are strong but not indestructible. A hard-hitting tackle or volleyball to the face could easily damage your smile and result in an emergency visit that requires more time and money to fix.

Scheduling Regular Dental Checkups

One of the most important steps you’ll need to take while wearing dental implants is to continue seeing your implant dentist in Lady Lake for regular checkups and cleanings. Even if all your teeth have been replaced by these permanent prosthetics, our team will want to examine your soft oral tissues as well as your dental implants to ensure everything looks healthy and in optimal condition. It is during these visits that we can recommend different techniques to clean your teeth as well as provide helpful tips should you have questions about your dental implants.

How Can Dental Implants Fail?

Dental implant failure is uncommon, but when it does occur, it can typically be linked back to either peri-implantitis or failed osseointegration. Peri-implantitis is actually a specific type of gum disease that can form around dental implant posts and slowly destroy the tissues holding the implant in place; it’s usually a consequence of poor oral hygiene or the use of tobacco. Failed osseointegration means that the implant has not fused with the jawbone like it’s supposed to, which could be the result of a certain health condition or an injury. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to keep the risk of implant failure to a minimum; we can give you some guidelines to follow for ensuring the success of your new teeth.

Will It Hurt to Get Dental Implants?

While you may experience soreness for a few days after getting implants (which you can control using pain medication and cold compresses), dental implant surgery does not hurt. The jawbone does not contain many nerve endings to begin with, and your mouth will be numbed before beginning the procedure. If you have dental anxieties, sedation can be used, and that will further lower your body’s ability to register pain.

Will People Be Able to Tell I Have Dental Implants?

Very few people are able to tell the difference between a dental implant and a real tooth just by looking. Your final restoration will be expertly designed to match the shape, size, and color of your natural teeth, making it look like it was always part of your smile. The average observer won’t even know you have dental implants unless you tell them; the implant posts will be completely hidden underneath your gums.

How Long Will I Have to Wait to Get Dental Implants After Tooth Extraction?

It depends on how healthy your jawbone is. Sometimes the dental implant can be placed immediately after a tooth is removed. However, in some cases we may recommend waiting about three to six months for the mouth to heal. You shouldn’t put implant placement off for too long, though; after a while the jawbone will start to shrink because it’s not receiving the stimulation that the natural tooth provided. We can give you a more precise estimate of how long you might have to wait for implant surgery after we evaluate your mouth and consider the various specifics of your case, such as any underlying health issues.