Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Finding Dental Implants

By Dennis Durrel

A dental implant is a metal device, usually made out of titanium, which is surgically placed into the jawbone to replace damaged or missing teeth with artificial teeth that lookand function like the real thing. A dental implant acts asthe tooth rootand can anchor an artificial tooth or teeth.

The earliest known example of a dental implants dates back over 1,3500 years. While excavating a Mayan burial site, archaeologists found a mandiblefrom about 600 AD. It appeared to be that of a woman in her twenties and had three tooth-shaped pieces of shell placed into the sockets of three missing lower incisor teeth!

For years dentists have use fixed bridges or dentures for their patients with missing teeth but both of these options have drawbacks; fixed bridgework can damage healthy teeth, and dentures can slip. Dental implants avoid these problems.

Instead of resting on your gumline or relying on remaining teeth for support , as do dentures and bridges, dental implants are fasten to the underlying jawbone. Because the metal in the implants combined with your jawbone, the implants won't shake, create noise or create bone damage .

Although most dental implants are successful, sometimes the bone will fail to fuse sufficiently to the metal implant. If that occurs, the implant is removed, the bone is cleaned up, and the procedure can be attempted again in a month or two.Overall, the success rate for all implants runs from 90% to 95%.

Although most adults are canditates for the procedure, dental implant surgery is expensive and often not covered by insurance. - 14130

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