Tooth loss has a serious impact on your whole life. Along with affecting your abilities to eat and speak, it can also cause significant aesthetic issues. Missing teeth impact the quality of your smile, as well as your confidence. Additionally, when you are missing teeth, your face loses support, leading to sagging skin, sunken facial features, and wrinkles. These issues can age you several years in a very short period. For hundreds of years, the treatment for missing teeth was dentures. Dental implants have become a popular treatment for replacing missing teeth, but they require sufficient bone mass for support. This used to mean that you were stuck with dentures. Today, Southern Arizona Periodontics can provide an alternative with All-on-4 Dental Implants treatment.
What are Dentures?
Dentures are the traditional solution for replacing missing teeth. They have been around for a few hundred years. Over the years, many improvements have been made on these restorations, helping to make them look much more like real teeth. They also feel much less bulky. These improvements have helped them to appear much more natural. Modern dentures consist of acrylic resin teeth and an acrylic base. The teeth can be designed to look exactly like real teeth while the base can be colored to match your natural gum tissue. Dentures are made to rest directly on your gums, relying on the tissue for support.
The Downsides to Dentures
While dentures have undergone many improvements, they still have several disadvantages.
- Dentures can be uncomfortable. They rest directly on your gums, tissue that was never made to support the pressures applied by teeth.
- They can rub your gums, causing sores.
- It takes time to get used to eating certain foods again with dentures.
- They can fall out of place, causing embarrassment.
- They require special nightly care.
- They cannot stop bone loss in your jaw. This means that the bone continues to change shape. Dentures need to be replaced every few years to accommodate your changing jaw.
What is All-on-4 Dental Implants?
Dental implants have been developed as an alternative to traditional tooth replacement options, including dentures. This treatment uses titanium posts that are surgically implanted into your jawbone to support ceramic crowns. As you heal from this surgery, your bone fuses to the posts, stabilizing them within your jaw.
Typically, replacing an entire arch of missing teeth involves the use of 6 to 8 implant posts. However, implants rely on your jawbone for success. Without enough bone mass in your jaw, the implants may not properly integrate. This used to mean that you either had to go with dentures or undergo a bone grafting surgery before implant placement. Today, however, we can provide you with dental implants, rather than dentures, without the need for a bone graft.
The All-on-4 treatment concept uses only four implant posts, instead of the typical six to eight. The success of this treatment lies in the placement of these posts. Two posts are inserted vertically at the front of the jaw. The other two are placed in the back of the jaw, inserted at a 45-degree angle. The placement of these implants helps to maximize contact with your existing bone, increasing the chances of success.
Benefits of All-on-4 Dental Implants
All-on-4 offers numerous benefits. Most of these benefits are similar to regular dental implants. They look and feel much more natural. They function exactly like your natural teeth. Your teeth, which are supported by the posts instead of your gums, are much more comfortable. They can be brushed and flossed just like real teeth. The posts also function just like the roots of your natural teeth. They stimulate the bone, helping to stop, and prevent, bone loss in the jaw. Other benefits of All-on-4 include
- A shorter surgery.
- Less recovery time is needed.
- You do not need to undergo a bone graft first.
If you are interested in learning more about All-on-4, and finding out if this unique treatment is right for you, call Southern Arizona Periodontics at (520) 322-9300 to schedule your consultation today.
