When you’ve experienced tooth loss, rebuilding your smile and restoring your bite function can mean several different things. Most important is the replacement of your lost tooth or teeth. Without them, your bite can’t function properly, as the teeth that remain won’t be able to effectively absorb and distribute your bite’s pressure. However, rebuilding your smile and oral health might also require additional measures, such as replacing the roots of your lost teeth and/or strengthening the foundation of your dental ridge with jawbone grafting. (more…)
Things That Might Impact Your Ability to Get Dental Implants
Tooth loss can be a threat to your smile in more ways than you might realize at first. For example, losing teeth roots can have a diminishing effect on several different oral structures, including your dental ridge. Because of these effects, dental implants (which replace your lost teeth roots) are often the best solution for replacing teeth and recovering from tooth loss. The good news is that many patients can qualify for dental implants fairly easily. However, there are some conditions that might affect the ability to receive dental implant posts right away, and these conditions may have to be resolved before you can qualify for dental implant placement. (more…)
How Extracting Wisdom Teeth Helps
When many people first develop their wisdom teeth (also known as third molars), they may not experience any problems. However, over time, many people can start to develop discomfort in the area around their wisdom teeth, or may notice changes in the integrity and position of their other teeth. For some people, wisdom teeth can become impacted before they become visible, and they may not realize they have wisdom teeth until the symptoms of their impaction become noticeable. Today, we examine how wisdom tooth extraction can help you avoid these problems, or resolve them as soon as possible if they develop. (more…)
A Brief Look at Tooth Loss and Oral Health
Tooth loss isn’t an obscure oral health concern. Most people are aware that it’s a concern, and for the most part, understand what it could mean for their smiles if it occurs. However, there are plenty of things about tooth loss that people don’t fully understand, or are mistaken about, including how it occurs, how it can be prevented, and how it can be successfully addressed with a lifelike dental implant restoration. (more…)
3 Things that Could Compromise Your Dental Implants
One of the best things about dental implants is their amazing success rate. Since they’ve been a regular part of restorative dentistry, they’ve enjoyed an over 90% success rate in restoring and preserving people’s smiles following tooth loss. While much of that success is a direct result of their unique nature (dental implants are the only solution for replacing lost teeth roots), it also requires consistent care on the part of those who receive dental implants. That includes avoiding ways in which you might compromise your dental implants and/or restoration. (more…)
Why Extracting Some Teeth Requires Surgery
There aren’t many cases in which extracting a tooth is the best option for your smile. Typically, preserving your healthy, natural teeth is preferable, and the option of extracting one is only reserved for extreme situations when it’s absolutely necessary. While the process of extracting a tooth may sometimes be a simple one, many of these situations may place the tooth in a position where extracting it can only be accomplished through oral surgery. Today, we examine a few conditions that may call for surgical tooth extraction, and how removing the tooth can benefit your long-term oral health. (more…)
When Oral Surgery May Be the Solution
Though not everyone will need oral surgery in their lives, there are several different reasons why you might. For some people, a chronic oral health condition can progress so severely that general dental care can no longer address it. For others, a congenital or other nonpreventable condition may be significantly impacting their oral health, and is severe enough to require surgical intervention. Today, we examine a few of the more common conditions in which oral surgery may be your best solution, and why. (more…)
The Ways Dental Implants Address Your Tooth Loss
Tooth loss doesn’t have to be devastating to your smile and oral health, especially if you deal with it as soon as possible. By replacing your lost tooth or teeth, you can restore much of your bite’s function, rebuild your smile’s appearance, and much more. However, some options for rebuilding your smile are better than others in terms of how much they can restore. For many people, the most effective way to deal with tooth loss and its many potential consequences is to replace them with a custom-designed, dental implant-supported restoration. (more…)
A Few Proven Ways of Preserving Your Smile
The concept of preserving your smile and oral health can seem simple on the surface, but what’s needed to accomplish it depends on several unique factors. For example, if you haven’t experienced any oral health concerns yet, then preserving your smile likely means avoiding any in the future. If you do have an existing concern, such as tooth loss, or a chronic oral health condition that consistently threatens your smile, then preserving it could mean more than just routine preventive efforts. (more…)
Are You Taking Good Care of Your Dental Implants?
If you’ve experienced tooth loss because of a chronic oral health concern, like gum disease, then you may remember the importance of caring for your smile long after you’ve had your lost tooth replaced. For many people, bouncing back from that loss meant receiving one or more dental implants and an appropriate restoration (such as a dental crown or bridge) for them to support. The many advantages that come with replacing lost teeth with dental implants stem from the fact that they so closely mimic the natural structures of your teeth. That’s also true of the effort it takes to properly care for your implants and restoration, which is often the same as it takes to consistently care for your healthy, natural teeth. (more…)
Dr. Rogers was published in CDA’s November Issue. Click above to see his article (pg.601).