How to Keep Your Dental Implants in Good Condition
Once your dental implants are in place, it’s important to care for them, and your dentist will tell you how best to do this. The most important thing is to keep them very clean, as implants are more susceptible to gum disease than natural teeth. For this reason, you’ll need to brush your teeth twice a day, and also clean around your teeth with floss or an interdental brush.
We know that smoking has a significant impact on gum disease in patients, and smoking is even more harmful around implants. Some dentists won’t even place dental implants if you smoke! If you smoke, you can make your dental implants last as long as possible by cutting back, switching to e-cigarettes, or, better yet, quitting altogether.
As with most things in life, it’s often easier to fix a problem early than to ignore it for too long. This is another reason to have your implants checked regularly by your dentist. They’ll carefully examine the implant, gently feel around the gums, and take small X-rays of the implant. All of this information will allow your dentist to identify any problems with the implant while it’s still small and easy to fix – so don’t put off dental visits!
The mouth is very sensitive, and sometimes problems can be caught before they even occur. So if you think you have a problem with your implant, don’t hesitate to hope it will get better on its own – have your dentist check it out as soon as possible.
5 Questions to Ask Your Implantologist
What training or qualifications do you have for dental implants?
How long have you had implants?
How many implants have you had? How do you know?
What will you do to ensure my implant treatment is successful?
What will you do if my implant treatment is not successful?
5 Tips Before and After Dental Implants
Quit Smoking
Keep your mouth clean and healthy before having an implant inserted
Understand the qualifications of the dentist who will be doing your implant treatment
Keep your implant spotless after treatment
Have your dentist check your implants regularly
Writer: Bill Shaffer
Implant Surgeon, Co-founder of The Implant Centre
Bill is well suited to be one of the Implant Surgeons at The Implant Centre. Bill trained in the UK as both a dentist and a doctor. He is also a trained surgeon and a registered specialist in oral surgery. As if that wasn’t enough, he also holds a Fellowship and Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Bill Shaffer’s certifications:
BDS MBBS FDS
RCS (English) MRCS (English)
