If you have lost or are faced with losing teeth, then you will no doubt be wondering how to replace them. Chances are that you will have heard of dental implants. In Hampshire, they are available from us at Dental Implants Hampshire. Our implant dentist Dr James Kleiber has many years’ experience in dealing with both simple and complex dental implant cases, and has seen just how they can transform people’s lives. But what makes dental implants so worth investing in? Let’s take a look at their benefits.

Stable and secure

You can use this phrase in all honesty when you are talking about dental implants, which are artificial tooth roots fitted into the jawbone under local anaesthetic. Once there, the titanium, from which the implants are made, stimulates the jawbone tissue to grow all over it. In a matter of weeks, the two have meshed together and the implant is held in place as securely as a natural tooth. This means that you can rely on your new teeth to chew through all your favourite foods, including roast potatoes and steaks. It also means that your teeth won’t take to sliding around in your mouth just when you need your dignity the most. This is one area in which dental implants have the edge on dentures, which can only give about a quarter of the chewing power of natural teeth.

Jawbone health

Not many people realise that when their teeth have gone, their jawbone will start to deteriorate in the area where the teeth used to be. Jawbones need the stimulation of the constant tremors that come down through the tooth roots to trigger cell renewal. No tremors, no bone renewal. In fact, it’s worse than that. No tremors, active bone degeneration, and you can find yourself losing up to 25% of your bone material in just a year after losing a tooth. Dental implants enable those vital tremors to reach the jawbone, keeping it strong and dense and your face looking firm and youthful.

To find out more about these and other benefits from dental implants in Hampshire, why not come in for a consultation?

So, here you are. You have lost teeth. You are faced with having to replace them, and you have to make a choice between three options: dentures, bridges and dental implants.

Dental what? You’ve never heard of dental implants in Hampshire? In a way, we are not surprised. Although this miraculous way of replacing teeth was discovered back in the 1950s and has been available for around 40 years, it is only in the last decade or so that they have reached a critical mass of popularity. Now they are available from lots of places, but it can still be hard to find a good dentist with lots of experience in putting in dental implants. In Hampshire, here at Dental Implants Hampshire, our implant surgeon, Dr James Kleiber, has been working with dental implants for many years.

He can tell you all about how they work and their incredible benefits, but let’s just take a quick look at the basics here.

What is a dental implant?

A dental implant is tiny post or screw made of out titanium. It is about 1.3 centimetres long, and it acts as an artificial tooth root. Once fitted into the jaw, it can have as many as three crowns (the white bit of the teeth) fitted onto it. Used in clever combinations, dental implants in Hampshire can be used to replace one, some or even all of your teeth. There is even a way of using dental implants to stabilise your dentures so that you can avoid all that embarrassing sliding around that they tend to do after a while.

How are dental implants fitted?

The procedure takes place under local anaesthetic, with sedation if you are very anxious about it. Dr Kleiber will cut a flap in your gum and then drill an artificial socket into your jawbone. The implants are tapped or screwed into place, the gum sewn up and you go home for several weeks while the implant integrates with your jawbone to give that amazingly firm chewing base. When you come back, your custom-made crowns are fitted and you are good to go.

If you, or anybody you know has missing teeth, they do not have to just learn to live with the gaps in their smile. There is a tried, tested and reliable solution available called dental implants. This innovative solution gives patients replacement teeth that look, feel and behave just like natural, healthy teeth. You now can restore your smile to its former glory with dental implant treatment at Dental Implants Hampshire. Dental implants can be used to restore one, several, or even a whole mouthful of missing teeth.

Here are a few facts about dental implants in Hampshire.

They are super strong

The artificial root of a dental implant is made from titanium, which boasts strength and biocompatibility. The implant is carefully placed directly into your jawbone. New bone tissue grows and wraps itself around this artificial root, creating a solid foundation for the attachment of replacement teeth.

They protect your jawbone

Gaps in your smile can cause health issues, such as the loss and deterioration of your jawbone. Without the roots of teeth in the jawbone, it gets the idea that it is no longer need and starts to break down. Dental implants in Hampshire behave like natural tooth roots, sending the necessary signals to the jawbone, telling it to stay strong and healthy. This ultimately ensures your facial structure remains intact and you don’t experience that sunken-cheeked look often seen in long-term denture users.

Free from cavities

Though you will need to take good care of your dental implants, they are not susceptible to cavities. However gum disease can still affect their stability, so good dental hygiene remains important.

Eat, drink and speak without worry

Dental implants in Hampshire can resolve issues with biting and chewing and can even improve your speech – all problems that you may be putting up with after tooth loss. So you will be able to eat all your favourite foods again and talk without worrying about your replacement teeth slipping about.

Built to last

Dental implant technology is robust and long-lasting. With good dental hygiene and regular dental check-ups, dental implants can last a lifetime.

Undergoing a dental implant procedure to replace missing teeth might seem a little daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here at Dental Implants Hampshire, we will thoroughly explain the step-by-step process of getting your dental implants in Hampshire.

Assessment

If you are considering dental implants in Hampshire and want to find out more, our dentists are here to help. At your initial assessment we will discuss any dental problems you may have and the treatment options available to you. You will also get an idea about costs, payment options and time frames for your treatment.

After this, our dentists will carry out a thorough examination of your mouth to assess your suitability for dental implants in Hampshire.

Placing of your dental implants

Dental implant placement is a surgical procedure and will be carried out under local anesthetic, keeping your discomfort to a minimum. However for particularly anxious patients, sedation is also available to help you relax. Your implants will be carefully inserted directly into your jawbone. The implants themselves are made from titanium which fuses seamlessly with your body’s bone and tissues, creating a stable and strong foundation.

Fitting the replacement teeth

Once the implant has fused with the jawbone, the implants will be uncovered and abutments (the posts on which the replacement teeth will rest) are fitted. An impression will then be taken of your gum and abutments. This is then sent to the dental lab for your replacement teeth to be created. These are then attached to the abutments, completing your treatment with dental implants in Hampshire.

After a week or two of healing, you will attend a review, just to check that everything is going well. Our dentists will look to see if there is any movement, ensure that you are not experiencing any pain and make sure you are comfortable with your new teeth.

Aftercare

Dental Implants behave much like natural teeth and require all the same cleaning processes. A bonus of dental implants is that they cannot get cavities. With regular check-ups and an effective oral hygiene routine, your dental implants will last for many years to come, potentially a lifetime.

When it comes to tooth replacement, the 21^st century is all about dental implants. In Hampshire, increasing numbers of people are opting for implants because they want more reliability of function, discretion and oral health, without the hassle of complex daily care.

These requirements can be even more important if you lost your teeth to an accident or injury. If you were very young when you had teeth knocked out, you may have been struggling with removable false teeth ever since.

In Hampshire, dental implants do away with that struggle, and you can once again live life as if all your teeth were your own. This can greatly enhance your quality of life if your false teeth have been obscuring your clarity of speech, preventing you from eating your favourite foods, or, limiting your chances in the dating world.

In Hampshire, dental implants can dramatically improve people’s lives because, unlike traditional false teeth, implants become a permanent part of your jawbone. At Dental Implants Hampshire, our implant surgeons insert them, during a minor surgical procedure, into special channels that they drill into your jaw. Over the next two to four months, the titanium implants stimulate the bone tissue to regrow and fuse with the rough surface of the implants, until they are held as securely in place as natural teeth. While this process, known as osseointegration, takes place you can continue to wear your own false teeth, although you will have to stick to a restricted diet.

Once osseointegration is well under way, you come in for your next session. During this appointment, we will add an internal screw, called an abutment, to the implant. It is to this that we attach your new artificial crowns. Your artificial teeth are specially made for you from hardwearing porcelain colour-matched to your own teeth, and sized and shaped so that these new teeth become indistinguishable from the ones Nature gave you.

If you take care of your new dental implants in Hampshire, they should last you a lifetime. Implants have a success rate of over 95%. All you have to do is clean and floss twice a day and resume enjoying life the way you did before you lost your teeth.

Remember when you used to have all your own teeth? Your smile would have been one of the first things that people noticed about you. And they would have continued to notice it as they talked to you. We are hardwired to do so. But, if you have lost one or more teeth and have had them replaced with a bridge or dentures, you may be finding that other people can spot that some of your teeth are artificial. If so, maybe it’s time to find out more about dental implants in Hampshire.

At Dental Implants Hampshire, we can offer you two clinics at which you can have implant surgery. You can come to our clinic on Palmerston Street in Romsey or you can visit us at our clinic in Chequers Road in Basingstoke for dental implants in Hampshire. Whichever clinic is more convenient for you, you will find yourself in the same warm, relaxed and friendly environment, receiving high quality care using modern dental equipment and techniques.

You may need only one tooth replacing. Or it could be a few, or even all of your teeth. We can help you replace any number of missing teeth, using our experience, knowledge and skills to give you back your beautiful smile.

Superior stability with dental implants

As dental implants are fitted into the jawbone, they are a long-lasting and remarkably stable solution for replacing missing teeth. Dental implants replace the missing root as well as the crown of the tooth. Having replacement tooth roots gives stability to your remaining teeth and also keeps your jawbone strong and healthy. If you don’t replace missing tooth roots, the teeth surrounding the gap left by the missing root can tip into it. Also, and very importantly, the jawbone itself can start to lose density. Jawbone shrinkage is what creates the sunken look associated with age, but which is actually the product of a reduced jawbone and missing teeth. The more teeth you have lost the more pronounced this can become.

In Hampshire, dental implants solve this problem and also create a stable base onto which custom-made artificial teeth can be fitted.

If you have ever had something go wrong with your body to the extent that you needed to get a bit of it corrected it, you will know how hard it is to mimic Nature so well that you can just forget about what went wrong and carry on with life. Extra bits to correct your not so great natural assets can be a hassle. They get lost, they get broken. Ask anyone who has had glasses or contact lenses and then got their eyes lasered. It’s the same with teeth, ask anyone who has made the move from a bridge or denture to dental implants in Hampshire, and you are unlikely to find a bad review.

Biomimicry

Having extra bits in your mouth that can get food stuck in them, have to be taken out to be cleaned, or that start to slide around after a few months is no fun, and about as far away from what Nature intended as you can get.

That’s why in Hampshire, dental implants are so popular. They are the closest thing to natural teeth available. Instead of relying on receding gums or adjacent teeth to provide a stable chewing base, they use the jawbone, just like natural teeth do. The implants are set into the jaw and they stay there, often for decades, providing the means to bite into crunchy foods and to chew tough foods, both of which are often the nutrient dense foods we need to be well-nourished.

The process

Dental implants are small titanium posts which we at Dental Implants Hampshire insert into the jawbone under local anaesthetic. The procedure requires a fair amount of drilling and as the idea of this can make people anxious, we are very happy to provide sedation for the procedure.

Once the implant is in place, it takes a few weeks to integrate with the jawbone. New bone tissue grows all over the surface of the implant, and this is what later holds it in place.

Implant care

Dental implants in Hampshire simply require regular brushing and flossing and hygienist visits to remove plaque. Dental implants can’t decay, but they can fall victim to gum disease.

When you start having to think about getting your teeth replaced, you have to think about what you want from your restorations. Teeth play an important part in eating, but they are also vital for the formation of certain sounds when we talk. Our teeth are in constant use, and take a lot of strain, sometimes even when we sleep, so it’s important that any replacements can do an effective job and can last a long time.

At Dental Implants Hampshire, we concentrate on giving people the highest quality dental implants in Hampshire because we know how vital teeth are.

We have seen what happens when replacement teeth don’t quite do their job well enough for long enough, and so it is no surprise to us that in Hampshire dental implants have become many people’s first choice for new teeth.

Effective

As dental implants in Hampshire are anchored into the jawbone, they provide a solid, stable anchor for the crowns, which means that you can continue to eat whatever you want without having to worry that your new teeth will not be able to stand the strain of chewing on a good steak, or biting into a crunchy apple. Your diet can be as wide and varied as you like, including raw and chewy foods that often contain the most nutrients. Also, you can talk and laugh with complete freedom. Your teeth will stay still, and you will not have to worry about any wobbling that might make you look odd.

Long-lasting

The way that dental implants work is by becoming fully integrated with the jawbone. The implants are made of titanium, a highly biocompatible metal that encourages the bone to produce new tissue. This grows all over the surface of the implant, holding it in place just like a natural tooth. This process takes a few weeks to complete, but afterwards, as long as you take care of your implants, you can expect them to last for decades. They cannot decay, but they can fall victim to gum disease, so you must clean and floss your implants thoroughly every day.

There’s no doubt that in Hampshire, dental implants can transform lives, especially if people have been struggling with their missing teeth or dentures for a long time. Being able to once again eat what they like, speak clearly and smile and laugh without embarrassment can feel like a miracle.

But, what if you have been to see someone about having dental implants and been told that you can’t have them? Is that the end of the road? Well, maybe not. It’s well worth getting a second opinion and at Dental Implants Hampshire, we are very happy to provide one.

It’s all about your jawbone

The success of dental implants depends on how well they integrate with the jawbone to provide a strong and stable chewing base.

You need to have a strong jawbone that will heal well around the titanium implants once they have been inserted. Ideally, new bone cells and blood vessels will grow all over the surface of the implant and these will hold the implant in place.

However this may not happen if:

• You have been without teeth for some time and the bone cells have dissolved so much of the jawbone that it has shrunk and become spongey;
• You suffer from uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, which can hinder the healing process;
• You have advanced gum disease that is attacking the bone around the implant site;
• You are a smoker, which can hinder blood flow to the site and slow down or prevent healing.

Giving up smoking and controlling type 2 diabetes can greatly increase your chances of being able to have dental implants in Hampshire. We can probably help you with gum disease and we have a couple of ways of dealing with jawbones that have started to resorb.

You could have bone graft material inserted into the site. This requires opening up the bone and packing either your own or synthetic bone material into the jawbone and then allowing it some time to integrate with the bone already there. Or, if your problem is with your upper jaw, you can have extra-long implants anchored into your cheekbones.

If you’ve never heard of dental implants before, and you’ve just lost or are losing teeth, then you are in for a pleasant surprise when you come to us at Dental Implants Hampshire for a consultation about ways to replace them.

In Hampshire, dental implants are the most effective way to replace lost teeth. They offer full functionality, that is they work as well as your natural teeth, without compromising other teeth around them. Plus, if you look after them well, which is pretty simple to do, they can last for the rest of your life. Let’s take a look at what dental implants are.

Replacing the whole of the tooth

Dental implants in Hampshire are titanium posts, generally about 1.3 centimetres long. They are either a post or screw-shaped. Inside, each has an internal screw as well. The dental implants are inserted into your jawbone and replace the root of your tooth. This gives the crowns incredible stability, and means that you can carry on eating a wide and varied diet containing any crunchy, sticky, chewy foods you want, including important raw vegetables and fruit.

Each implant can carry up to three crowns and whatever you need is fixed onto the implant with a component called abutment that is screwed into the implant’s internal screw.

The implant process

In Hampshire, dental implants are inserted under local anaesthetic, and if you are a nervous patient, you can also opt for sedation.

The dentist cuts through the gum and drills into a carefully chosen site to create an artificial socket. The implant is either tapped or screwed into place, and the gum sewn back. Over the next few weeks, the implant integrates with the jawbone in a process called osseointegration. Once the two have meshed together, your custom-made crowns can be added.

Care

Implants cannot decay, but they can become loose if they are affected by advanced gum disease. Your job is to clean them thoroughly twice a day, with careful brushing, flossing, interdental brushes and mouthwash to make sure that plaque does not build up. Supplement your routine with bi-annual hygienist visits and your implants should last a lifetime.