Dental Implants – Tulsa, OK
A Comprehensive Method for Rebuilding Smiles
If you’re struggling with tooth loss, you might be wondering if there’s a way to completely rebuild your missing teeth . While traditional prosthetics like dental bridges and dentures offer reliable replacements, dental implants can restore an entire tooth from the roots up. At My Dentist Midtown, we can help you regain your full smile with these lifelike and incredibly stable tooth replacements that will look and work exactly like your natural teeth. Keep reading to learn more about dental implants or call us to schedule your initial consultation so we can get started on rebuilding your missing pearly whites!
Why Choose My Dentist Midtown for Dental Implants?
- Fully Customized Treatment Plans
- Partnered with Local Dental Implant Specialists
- Dental Insurance & Flexible Financing Welcome
What Are Dental Implants?
A dental implant consists of a dental crown connected typically to a titanium post via an abutment that is strategically placed within the jawbone to serve as a new tooth. Not only does the porcelain material mimic your natural tooth enamel, but the post itself is also biocompatible and can easily bond with the bone tissue, meaning that your results should be incredibly strong and stable. You shouldn’t have to worry about your new teeth moving out of place when eating or speaking, and your results can generally last several decades with proper maintenance.
The 4-Step Dental Implant Process
Due to their complexity, dental implants have a longer treatment process than dentures or dental bridges; getting them takes several months. The good news is that the posts are worth this time and effort! By partnering with local implant specialists, My Dentist Midtown ensures you have the best treatment results and supervision. Trained professionals oversee all steps of the implant process, including consultation, implant surgery, osseointegration, and delivery of the final restoration.
Initial Dental Implant Consultation
For the initial consultation, you’ll simply have a brief chat with our dentists. This talk lets us learn about your treatment goals, oral health background, and other key details. We’ll use such feedback to confirm whether dental implants suit you and tailor your final care.
Please don’t worry if we decide you don’t qualify for dental implants. With preliminary dental work like gum disease therapy or tooth extractions, you can become a good treatment candidate later. These procedures would strengthen your mouth to handle and withstand implant posts.
Dental Implant Surgery
If your consultation goes well, you’ll later undergo the next treatment phase: dental implant surgery. This procedure is done by local implant specialists we trust, so rest assured; your new teeth will be placed safely and effectively!
Expect your dental implant surgery to involve:
- Anesthesia – Before surgery starts, an oral surgeon will numb your treatment site with anesthesia. This step ensures your placement is painless; it won’t cause any aches or pains.
- A Minor Incision – Specialists will make an incision in your gums after the anesthesia “kicks in.” By doing so, they’ll make room for your final implant post.
- Implant Placement – The specialists will use advanced tools and methods to precisely place your implant post.
- Gum Closure – Once the placement is done, an oral surgeon will close your gum incision. They’ll then set a cap over your new implant.
Dental Implant Osseointegration & Abutment
The dental implant slowly fuses with bone tissue after the placement surgery. Through that 4–6-month process (i.e., osseointegration), your post will take root in your jawbone. It’ll then become a permanent prosthetic tooth in your smile.
Following the fusion, you’ll have to attend another surgery. This “extra” treatment places an abutment – a metal connector – on your implant post. While you recover from that, a dental lab will craft your final restoration over several weeks.
Delivery of Dental Implant Restoration(s)
To wrap up your treatment, we’ll deliver your implant’s final restoration. What kind of prosthetic you get will depend on how many teeth you’ve lost. Based on the final tally, your final device could be a single dental crown, a dental bridge, or an entire implant denture.
It ultimately won’t take long to fit your final restoration. To do so, we’ll just apply dental cement to your abutment, set the device, and make some last-minute changes. We’ll then send you off when it’s clear your post fits well, letting you enjoy your restored smile!
Benefits of Dental Implants
Since more than half a million dental implants are placed annually, they are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to restore lost teeth. Because of the unique way in which they are surgically placed in the jawbone, these devices can deliver a wide range of important benefits that traditional restorations like dentures and dental bridges cannot match. Here’s a brief overview of how Drs. Stephanie Flinchum and Areon Smith can dramatically enhance your health, self-image, and quality of life.
Day-to-Day Benefits
Dental implants offer several benefits that you can notice in your day-to-day life such as:
- Restoring almost all your chewing ability so you can enjoy many tasty foods that are difficult to eat with dentures such as juicy steaks, raw fruits and veggies, and crunchy nuts and seeds.
- Requiring only the same oral hygiene routine as real teeth, which means that patients can forego the elaborate and time-consuming cleaning rituals required by traditional dentures.
- Providing your restoration with a stable foundation that eliminates the risk of it sliding about on the gums, which can lead to slurred words and chewing difficulties.
- Giving you a smile that you’ll be proud to show off, which can make socializing and making positive impressions at work much easier.
Health Benefits
Dental implants can also impart a few incredible benefits for the patient’s oral and overall health such as:
- Being easy to clean, which can help the patient avoid oral infections like gum disease, tooth decay, and abscesses.
- Protecting the gums from injury.
- Providing the jawbone with the exercise it needs to stay healthy, strong, and shapely.
- Enabling the patient to eat a wide variety of nutritious foods, which can help them maintain a healthier diet.
- Preventing indigestion by allowing the patient to chew thoroughly.
Long-Term Benefits
Dental implants can be a sound long-term investment that delivers impressive benefits like:
- A 95% success rate even ten years after being placed.
- Lasting for a lifetime if they receive excellent care.
- Not needing expensive replacement appliances, which would be required by traditional dentures and dental bridges. This can save a patient vast sums of money over the decades.
- Giving the patient the confidence they need to smile proudly at work and at social events, which can lead to new friendships, make it easier to close sales, or make it easier to stand out from the competition when being considering for a new job or a juicy promotion.
Who Dental Implants Can Help
Anyone who is missing teeth can benefit from dental implant treatment. Of course, we’ll need to ensure that you have good oral and overall health before moving forward so that we can avoid complications and/or failure. Once we’re able to revert or fix any underlying issues with your oral health, we can move on to replacing any number of pearly whites.
Missing One Tooth
Instead of using a dental bridge to close a gap and altering nearby teeth to support it, you can receive a dental implant and connect a crown to it to replace your missing tooth.
Missing Multiple Teeth
While you might consider traditional a dental bridge or partial denture to replace several teeth, you might be able to have a couple of implants placed to support your prosthetics instead. This can offer much more stability and reliability for everyday oral tasks, like chewing and talking.
Missing All Teeth
If you’ve lost all of your teeth, you can get four to six dental implants embedded into your jawbone to support a full denture. Not only will you be able to enjoy a stronger bite, but you’ll also avoid issues like gum irritation or soreness that’s common with traditional restorations.
Understanding the Cost of Dental Implants
Since every dental implant treatment is customized for each patient, we won’t be able to provide you with an exact cost estimate until we’ve seen you for a consultation. Still, some factors can influence how much you’ll end up spending to rebuild your smile, and our team will be happy to walk you through the details. This method may come at a higher upfront cost, but the results are typically effective and long-lasting, which can help you save more in the long run.