Home Evaluation for Dental Implants

December 16, 2011

Are you missing one or more teeth other than your wisdom teeth?
If not, evaluation complete.
If so, were the teeth removed for orthodontic reasons (braces)? In that case, are the spaces fully closed, or do you have gaps? If no gaps or spaces, evaluation complete.
If you are missing teeth, for orthodontic reasons or not, and this has caused spaces to be present between teeth, are your teeth shifting toward those spaces? Has the alignment of your teeth changed over the last several years?
If so, a dental evaluation is indicated. Perhaps, with appliance therapy, the teeth can be realigned and an implant or two can be placed and restored.
It may be that the shifting does not need to be corrected, and implant placement and restoration can proceed straight away.
Do you have a fixed or removable bridge to replace one or more missing teeth? If it is fixed (cemented over some of the teeth), at some point it will fail and need to be replaced. At that point, have an implant or two placed and restored and new crowns can be placed over the adjacent teeth. If the bridge is removable, wouldn’t it be nice to replace it with implant supported teeth?
Consider the miracle of Implant Dentistry!