How Dental Implants Work

Ever wondered how these metal restorations can replace your missing teeth?

You want to treat your tooth loss but you want a restoration that will actually last a long time. While you may have heard about dental dental implantsimplants and know that they are popular, you may not know much about them or how they can easily replace missing teeth. From the office of our Tampa, FL periodontists, Dr. Maria Torres and Dr. Alberto Ruiz, find out what makes a dental implant function like a real tooth.

Once you get a dental implant in Tampa, you’ll finally understand what all the hype is about. After all, there is no other restoration that is designed to look, feel and even work just like real teeth. You even brush and floss your implant like you would the rest of your natural smile.

Once we conduct a thorough evaluation, in which we examine your smile and determine if you are a good candidate for implants, we will start to create your treatment plan. This treatment plan will involve how many implants we need to place, where we need to place them and what kind of dental restoration the implants are going to support.

The next step is to perform surgery to place the dental implant into the jawbone. It’s important to know that dental implants act just like tooth roots and are designed to support a dental crown or other tooth replacement (e.g. dentures). An implant is a small metal post that is usually made from titanium because this metal is biocompatible (meaning that the body is less likely to reject it).

Once the implant is placed into the jawbone it is given a couple months to heal. During this healing period the bone and tissue will start to regrow. As they regrow they will grow around and fuse together with the implant to become one. This has now created a long-lasting foundation from which to hold a dental crown.

Once the implant and jawbone are bonded a small attachment called an abutment is placed on top of the implant. The abutment’s sole purpose is to connect the implant, which is under the gums and not visible, with the dental crown or other restoration. Since this will require us to open up the gums to place the abutment we will need to wait a couple more weeks to let your gums heal before we cement a dental crown in place.

Don’t dental implants sound like a wonderful solution for your tooth loss? If so, then it’s time to find out if you’re a good candidate for this tooth replacement. Call Endodontics & Periodontics Associates of Tampa Bay today to schedule your consultation with our Tampa, FL dental implant experts.


This website includes materials that are protected by copyright, or other proprietary rights. Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use, as defined in the copyright laws, requires the written permission of the copyright owners.