Does Periodontal Disease Prevent You from Getting Dental Implants?
Premature tooth loss is not an oral problem in Pediatric Dentistry only. Unfortunately, many adults lose their natural teeth early in their life. Fortunately, with dental implants, there is no reason why you cannot feel confident in your smile again.
How Periodontal Disease Impacts Dental Implant Treatments
Dental implants are small metal posts made of titanium to replace lost teeth. The metal posts serve as a replacement for the roots of your teeth. It means that a dentist in Rancho Cucamonga would have to find a different dental appliance to crown the replacement tooth.
Tooth implants are not similar to other tooth replacement appliances like dentures and dental bridges. The procedure for getting dental implants near you involves surgery to position the metal post properly in your mouth.
Why Does a Dental Implant Require Healthy Bone and Gum Mass?
The procedure for getting dental implants specifically targets the jawbone of the mouth. A dentist would require to cut open the gum tissue and drill the jawbone to place a tooth implant. The nature of the procedure makes it necessary that your jawbone and gums are healthy before your treatment begins.
Your gum mass and jawbone matter during a dental implant procedure for support. Both the gums and the jawbone are the support system for the titanium metal post. Their health also impacts the success of your surgery and determines how quickly you can heal afterward.
What Causes Periodontal Diseases?
Periodontal disease is an infection of the periodontium. Many people acknowledge the disease as gum disease, given is the most common form of oral infection. However, periodontal diseases can affect the jawbone. The initial stage of periodontal infection, called gingivitis, only affects the gums. However, the advanced stage, periodontitis, affects the jawbone also.
The particular cause of the periodontal disease is yet to be established by dental experts. However, at the Center for Oral Health, we have come to identify that what causes periodontal disease is linked to various factors that increase your risk of infection, including the following:
- Prolonged poor oral hygiene – gradually allows an overgrowth of harmful bacteria in your mouth through plaque and tartar buildup.
- Tobacco usage – smokers, sniffers, and chewers of tobacco are at a high risk of getting an infection in their gums.
- Health conditions – some health problems like diabetes increase your risk of periodontal disease.
How to Treat Periodontal Disease
Before you can even think of the treatment alternatives for periodontal disease, understand that seeking medical attention early into the infection is the best strategy. If you can get to your dentist in the early stages of gum disease, you will not have suffered significant damage due to bacterial infection. The treatment alternatives for periodontal diseases are:
- Antibiotics – are most effective for gingivitis.
- Deep cleaning – involves root planing and scaling, done in a dental clinic by a dentist or dental hygienist. Deep cleaning is the best solution for patients with plaque and tartar buildup in their mouths.
- Lifestyle changes – your dentist will recommend quitting alcohol and smoking.
- Gum grafting surgery – is a procedure for restoring receded gums. The dentist will extract healthy tissues from a different location in your mouth or a donor source and use it to restore the damaged tissue.
- Bone grafting surgery – is a procedure for restoring the health of your jawbone. Bone grafts help you repair the damaged bone tissue, promoting the natural regeneration of bone tissues.
Can Gum Disease Prevent You from Getting Dental Implants?
Without treating periodontal disease, you may not get dental implants. The reason is that the infection causes gum recession and bone tissue degeneration, affecting the base for dental implants.
However, gum disease should not be why you do not get dental implants. You can still get them, but the process would take a lot longer than is typical for other patients. The initial step would be to treat your infection and restore your gum and bone tissues.
Afterward, your dentist will check to ensure that you have healed properly before getting dental implants. Besides, dental implants are among the approaches that dentists use to treat patients with severe periodontitis that have lost their natural teeth to the infection.