Dental Implants
Dental implants are a great solution to the problem of missing teeth. Dental implants are a way of avoiding the following problems that losing teeth can cause:
- teeth moving/drifting resulting in a change in your bite
- gums receding especially on the adjacent teeth
- overloading adjacent teeth resulting in cracking and fracture
Dental implants are the closest thing we have to a natural tooth. They are a great alternative to bulky removable dentures and can look, feel and function like your natural tooth did.
Components
There are three parts to a dental implant.
Firstly the fixture which is made of a medical grade titanium that acts as the root for your new tooth.
The crown is the part you can see in the mouth. It is usually made out of dental ceramic and is built to replicate the correct size shape and look of your tooth. It is strong enough that you can comfortably bite into foods like steak and crunchy apples.
The final component is hidden. The abutment is the connector that screws into the implant fixture at one end and connects to the crown at the other end.