How to Prevent Dental Implant Failure

If you want to replace one or more missing teeth, you can find comprehensive dental restoration with implants. These tools use surgically placed anchors that support prosthetic teeth, restoring the structure, function, and appearance of your smile. They can give you oral health benefits that last a lifetime.

A dentist will evaluate your oral health thoroughly to ensure you can support these fixtures in your mouth successfully. But sometimes, without proper care, a dental implant might fail.

This is considered a dental emergency requiring urgent removal from the mouth by your dentist. To avoid this scenario, you should take care of your smile as well as your implants. Read on to find guidelines from your dentist that will help you protect your new dental implants and prevent them from failing.

aftercare for dental implants

Tips to Avoid Failing Dental Implants

Follow Aftercare Advice from Your Dentist

Implant dentistry involves a multi-step process to replace missing teeth. And you should take proper care of your smile after each procedure to get the most out of your dental implants.

At your initial consult, the dentist evaluates the health of your jawbone to ensure it can sustain the fusion of the anchors with the bone which will ultimately support the prosthetic teeth. If not, they may suggest a bone graft procedure to add the necessary structure to the jaw for this treatment.

The next step is oral surgery to place the anchors in the jaw. You will need three months or more of recovery time after this procedure for effective fusion and healing. Make sure you follow your dentist’s aftercare instructions to allow you to heal faster and better.

Though you should be gentle with your surgical sites, you should still keep them clean with proper oral hygiene. Your dentist will give you advice about how to do this during your recovery.

Then when you return to your dentist to receive your custom dental prosthetics attached to the anchors, you should pay attention to the way they feel in your mouth. The dentist will give you pain management tips during each step, but extreme pain is abnormal.

If you feel this or notice excessive bleeding or swelling, do not wait to contact your dentist. These symptoms could mean the implant is failing and will need urgent treatment from your dentist to amend.

Continue Healthy Oral Habits

As mentioned, you will need to take good care of your smile and new dental implants directly after your anchor placement. But you will need to keep up this proper at-home care once you complete your implant dentistry treatment too.

This will mean practicing good oral hygiene for your implants as well as the rest of your smile. Fortunately, your implants will not require extra maintenance from the rest of your mouth. Dentists might suggest using special brushes or flossers to better clean around the dental fixtures though.

Otherwise, lingering residues could lead to oral health problems that may impact the fit of your dental implants. For effective preventative dental care, visit your dentist on a regular basis.