Dental Implants
Do you put your hand in front of your mouth to hide your teeth when speaking or smiling? Do you avoid showing your teeth when you smile for a photo? If so, it’s time to consider tooth replacement options.
Dental implants are an ideal tooth replacement for most people, and they’re the next best thing to natural teeth. Anderson dentist Dr. Brent Copeland routinely restores implants with beautiful, natural-looking crowns. Together, implants and crowns work, look and feel just like your natural teeth.
Replacement of one or more missing teeth is about more than cosmetics. Missing teeth can make eating nutritious foods such as apples, celery and other crunchy fruits and vegetables more difficult to bite and chew. This can result in compromised nutrition. Tooth loss also leads to bone loss. The longer your teeth are missing, the greater the bone loss. Over time, your whole face tends to take on a collapsed, aged look because of the loss in supporting bone structure.
Implants can address missing teeth, whether you have just one, several or you’re missing all of your natural teeth. Implants are the only method of tooth replacement that can halt bone loss.
What is a dental impant?
A dental implant acts as an artificial tooth root that is surgically placed into your jaw to hold a replacement tooth or bridge. Once the implant has time to heal and it becomes integrated into the bone, Dr. Copeland can attach an appliance called an abutment, which is designed to hold a crown, or to act as a snap to lock a denture in place.
We will take a mold of your teeth and fabricate a crown that will closely match the color of your natural teeth. Once we bond the crown in place, you are left with a restoration that looks and feels like a natural tooth.
Implant-supported Dentures and Partial-Dentures
Patients who are missing most or all of their natural teeth often opt for implant-supported dentures because of the increased stability they provide. The dentures typically are held in place by four or more dental implants. The dentures snap onto the implants.
