Many of the benefits that come with replacing lost teeth with dental implants involve the long-term health and integrity of your smile. For instance, dental implants help restore stimulation that’s necessary to maintain the health and integrity of your dental ridges. However, many of the benefits are also more immediately noticeable, and can directly impact the quality of your restoration as well as its daily care and maintenance. Today, we look at a few important aspects of caring for your dental implants at home, and how their more lifelike construction helps make your daily hygiene routine a simpler and more effective one.
A look at daily dental hygiene
Your dental hygiene routine is the foundation of your oral health, for better or worse. When you have a restoration, the routine means more than just cleaning your teeth, but also successfully cleaning the restoration and around it. Because dental implants support replacement teeth with realistic, root-like posts, they don’t require the use of hidden clasps, or dental crowns attached to abutment teeth. Instead, they mimic the structures of your healthy, natural teeth, which makes cleaning them every day similar to brushing and flossing your teeth normally.
The biggest threats to your implants
When you have a dental implant-supported restoration to take care of, it’s also important to understand what the biggest threats to the restoration may be. For example, a porcelain dental restoration and the titanium implants that support it may not be directly vulnerable to oral bacteria, as your natural tooth structure and roots are. However, the periodontal tissues and bone structure of the dental ridge that supports them are, and conditions like gum disease can seriously compromise them. This means you should pay special attention to cleaning bacteria away from your gum line, where the tissues meet your teeth and restoration, to reduce your risks of developing gingivitis and gum disease.
Managing the pressure they endure
In addition to practicing good dental hygiene every day, preserving your implant restoration also means being careful with what you expose it to. Much like your healthy, natural teeth, an implant-supported dental restoration is strong enough to withstand the pressures of biting and chewing, but can be damaged if exposed to too much pressure. Things like grinding your teeth often, or chewing on hard foods like ice, can raise your risks of damaging your teeth or restoration, or wearing them down significantly.
Learn about caring for dental implants
In addition to restoring your smile in a more comprehensive manner, dental implants also provide the benefit of making it easier to care for your smile in the long-term. To learn more, or to schedule your consultation, call the Texas Institute of OFI Surgery in Midlothian, TX, today at 469-649-8259. We also serve patients who live in Dallas, Mansfield, Cedar Hill, Duncanville, Desoto, Red Oak, Waxahachie, Ft. Worth, and all surrounding communities.