Never give up
If you have been told that you cannot have dental implants in Richmond because of the state of your jawbone, then it might be a good idea to come to us at Sheen Dental Implants for a second opinion.
Perhaps it has been some years since you were turned down for dental implants in Richmond. Things have moved on a lot in recent times and now we have several techniques for improving your jawbone before implant surgery.
The importance of a healthy jaw
Dental implants need to be inserted into a good, strong jawbone because they will need to sustain powerful forces when you get back to eating your favourite foods. The average man can exert forces of about 200lbs or 97kg when he chews. If the jawbone has shrunk or lost density, which is what happens when our teeth fall out, then it’s not going to be able to hold the implants in place.
The jawbone shrinks when the teeth are no longer there to tell it that it is still in use. It needs the vibrations in tooth roots to stimulate cell renewal around the root, and when the root is no longer there, the bone actually dissolves itself, to send the calcium to wherever the body needs it. This happens even if you have replaced your teeth with dentures or a bridge.
Getting back to good health
We have ways of getting your jawbone back to its former self. One way is bone grafting, where we take bone from somewhere else in your body, or use artificial bone, and insert it into your jaw, bulking up your bone material. This can be done either before your implant procedure, or as part of it. Sometimes we use the sinus as a site for this extra bone to go, and this is known as a sinus lift.
If you are having implants in your upper jaw, another way round the bone issue is to have extra-long implants that go through your upper jaw and into the dense cheekbone above. These are called zygomatic implants.
The techniques for dental implants in Richmond could make all the difference. Why not give us a call to see if we can help you?