In this day and age when you experience a missing or broken tooth you have a wide variety of options open to you. One of the most modern and indeed most technologically advanced forms of teeth replacement are dental Implants. In Richmond here at Sheen Dental we’ve been placing implants for many years and as a result understand the real benefits that they can bring to patients. However it’s fair to say that prior to undergoing the process they were understandably a little apprehensive and one of the questions that kept cropping up was “how safe are dental implants” and also “how long will they last”. Let’s have a look at both these questions in further detail.
Firstly…are implants safe?
Although dental implants are considered a fairly modern form of dental technology they have in fact been around for over 50 years. The first dental implants were placed into a Swedish man by an orthopaedic surgeon named Per Ingvar Branemark and that was in 1965. In fact these first implants were still going strong until the patient’s death some 41 years later. Over the years there’s been much research and development to get them to a stage where they’re now considered well-established, tried and tested, and above all safe. That said, placing a dental implant in Richmond or anywhere else in the country requires a surgical procedure, and like all surgical procedures it can never be 100% guaranteed. The first six months are the most crucial for an implant and problems such as infection or a failure to integrate with the existing bone can lead to implant failure. However it’s fair to say that these occurrences are relatively rare and 90% to 95% of dental implant patients will experience no problems at all.
So how long do they last?
Well…this is a difficult question to translate into cold, hard figures. The reason for this is that dental implants aren’t a ‘fit and forget’ form of tooth replacement. Instead they do require some TLC in the form of regular brushing and flossing, just like your normal teeth. So even if implants were placed by the most experienced surgeon in the world, if the patient didn’t take good care of them, then their longevity is going to be greatly reduced. Whereas we already know for a fact (given Branemark’s very first patient) that they have the ability to last 40 years or more and indeed many do. Therefore the answer to the question is that provided someone lives a reasonably healthy lifestyle (i.e. doesn’t smoke) and takes good care of their teeth and implants, then 40+ years is the figure you should be looking at. When you compare this to dentures which have a shelf life of somewhere between 7-15 years, it’s easy to see why dental implants are so appealing.
If you want to know more about how dental implants in Richmond can change your life for the better then contact Dr Harmit Kalsi and his team who can give you all the information you need to make an informed decision. In addition you can also visit our website at www.sheendental.co.uk where you can find a wealth of information on the subject.