Enjoy permanent teeth replacement with implants at Beverly Hills, CA area dental practice

Dental implants are titanium roots that are replaced within the jaw bones to resemble a tooth or a group of teeth. A screw is inserted into the gums and into the jaw bone. A porcelain crown is then attached to the screw to become the new tooth or teeth. They can be used to support dental prestices including crowns dentures and bridges. Today’s treatments are so natural looking no one will know you had surgery. There is approximately a 95 percent success rate for all implants with modern advancements in dentistry some implants can be restored immediately with life like all porcelain crowns. For more details ask your dentist.

My dear friends today the topic is what are the implants how are they used today and how are we going to place them in different areas what do we need to know what are the different types what are the options and what are the important tips that we need to know how to take care after an implant and a crown is in place is this our only option well now we have invited Dr. Vidjak who was a former director of the program of USC we worked together at the office and he’s going to tell you all his experience which is of 30 years in Implant Dentistry and the reconstructions. With you here I leave Dr. Frank Vidjak. Thank you.

Well it’s a real pleasure to be with you today. I’m looking forward to just giving you a little bit of insight into what’s been as of late a popular treatment option in dentistry and that’s dental implants. There’s always a lot of question as to what are they and to to go back in a relatively short period of history if I were to mention to somebody oh you know I’m missing one tooth what can I do about it. Well the common option at that point was to put a bridge if we talk about bridges. A bridge has been done for thousands of years if we look back in history there have been all kinds of attempts at replacing teeth with different mechanisms gold wires and historically it’s fascinating. So we’re well aware about what Bridges do but if you looked at a bridge carefully. It connects teeth there’s often times you need to create a crown you need to create space for a crown that maybe the tooth didn’t need it but what were the options at that time really it was either leave the space have a removable tooth or you place a bridge. So as I mentioned this is not a New Concept what became a New Concept and it became an option for treatment not that long ago was to be able to place a prosthetic tooth an artificial tooth meaning an artificial root. So we’re not dealing with a tooth an implant is not a tooth that’s something you need to be made very clear because even though at the end of the process it may look like a tooth the root now is this it’s some sort of metallic structure typically titanium they there are some newer ones made from zirconia but they all look pretty much the same. They have some form of a screw there’s a thread and it is eventually placed into the bone the big difference between an implant and a tooth we have a root and that root is held into place by fibers we call it the periodontal ligament that gives the ability for the tooth to make movements that means like a shock absorber. It’s a reparative structure so if there is minor damages down around the root it can heal itself it gives you the ability to feel so when you feel pressure. That’s coming from the ligament an implant won’t give you that the implant connects directly to the bone. However, what’s the big advantage the big advantage is instead of having a bridge that connects teeth you’re able to have through components that is the beauty of an implant you have the ability to screw in components of different configurations and now all of a sudden you have what used to be three teeth basically connected all of a sudden now you have the ability to have them separate. Where’s the advantage of that well if these teeth never needed crowns you leave them alone. If they needed crowns well why not put a bridge well we do know what the average lifespan. Statistically, the average lifespan for a bridge is about 10 years years what’s the average lifespan of a crown about 15. What’s the average lifespan of an implant and this is critical to understand the differences there’s the component where the bone comes in contact with the implant there’s also then the component where the crown for that implant comes in contact you’re talking about two different things. There’s the LIF of the portion that’s within the bone and quite frankly we don’t know what that lifespan is right now. It could be for decades potentially. What’s the lifespan of the crown and the component that holds the crown onto that implant. Well we’re walking into an area now that we can potentially believe that it’s the the lifespan of the materials that we’re using. Potentially the mechanism by which the components are connected to the implant itself that means the interface how stable is it over time because now you have to understand this tooth is a mechanical replacement it’s not a tooth even though it can end up looking like a tooth often times it can be IND discernible from a tooth it looks just the same but understand that Nature’s Best implant is the tooth. This being said if all things were equal by today’s standards you should if you are missing a tooth you should be hearing as part of a treatment option something involving a dental implant. If you do not hear that I would ask the question well what about that option. There’s many times factors that can make a dental implant option difficult of course when you’re talking about an implant you need bone so it depends how long you’re missing the tooth it depends on how did you lose the tooth many times people wait too long and they end up having periodontal disease that causes a lot of bone loss that can cause problems with your own bone being deficient could be cracks in the root you lost a lot of bone because the crack ended up causing a large infection so you had a lot of bone loss. The good news today is you have different ways of recreating bone you can do bone grafting. So in the end there are few contraindications not everybody’s going to be a candidate there’s anatomical issues that I mentioned about the bone but there’s also anatomical issues depending whether it’s upper or lower Arch because in the upper arch around the molers you have a sinus on each side which we’re all aware of when you catch a cold you feel congested that sinus has an impact on how much bone is in the area on the lower arch you have additional issues and those are nerves so you don’t ever want to have an implant go into a nerve because then that’s going to cause potentially disrupted feedback from your nerve so you can get tingling uh you can get a burning feeling or you can have total numbness so when you’re being treated first of all diagnosed and a treatment plan developed it needs to be a thorough one as simplistic as it looks and what you may hear about that you place you make a hole in the bone you put a screw and that’s all you need to do only thing I can tell you is planning is everything you need to have someone that has experience to be able to properly plan it so no other complications are developed remember you want to have the outcome in mind and you develop the plan going backwards planning again is everything here’s an example of a patient where we could have placed a bridge here but to keep teeth separate an implant was placed here a moler in the very back there is no option for an implant if I mean for a bridge If This Were a normal circumstance before the 1980s in this country we would not have been able to put a tooth back here for this patient but now we can and then at the end it would be very difficult to say which one’s the implant and which one’s the tooth so you create a method of hygiene bridges are difficult to maintain why because they connect teeth and like I said we’re very familiar dentist and patients are very familiar with cemented Bridges but when you have a bridge now you have to go in between and clean them and if this is in the very back and if you’re not really committed to keeping this clean they tend to fail they’ll fail from perodontal problems you have to floss under that bridge a part of the bridge can come loose one of the teeth that help hold the bridge can come loose well that’s a complication that’s failure of the restoration who wouldn’t want to have the ability to freely floss in between their teeth it just makes life simpler with an implant though as I mentioned before it’s not a tooth the mechanism of how it stays in your mouth is different than a natural tooth the same bacteria that can cause problems with your natural teeth can cause the problems around an implant the only problem is the way you start having infection around the implant itself is a very different process because the bone is connected directly to the implant so the to be aware of that and people not to go back for regular recalls I don’t quite understand that for all the time effort and money that was invested into this tooth why would you not want to maintain it it’s a very simple process you can brush it you can floss it but there are things that can happen around an implant that you won’t feel like teeth but different so that requires a recall schedule don’t miss it go back get your teeth checked get the implant checked just a normal simple process if a person were to do that your quality of life is enhanced if anything has happened in dentistry in recent times I can’t stress how dental implants have changed the lives of people especially the people that have been missing all their teeth because now you can go from dentures that would never fit they caused a lot of pain but with the proper planning and placement now all of a sudden you have a bridge that’s supported by these implants and you really feel like you’re born again you can eat you can chew there’s no movement you look great it’s been it’s been a tremendous tremendous addition to what we in dentistry can provide our patients but like anything it all takes proper planning and ultimately the proper execution of that treatment. So I enjoyed this time with you and hopefully, we’ll get some good feedback back any questions that you may have please submit them and we’ll try to get to them as soon as we can thanks a lot.