TOOTH REPLACEMENT
Dental Implants
Dental Implants replace missing teeth with incredible success. Implants are strong, durable and natural in appearance. They are never hot or cold sensitive, never decay and have powerful chewing strength. Dental implants can replace one tooth or an entire arch of teeth, if the patient has enough jawbone. They also maintain and preserve the level of jawbone and can provide a lifetime of function. Although dental implants are a very successful dental procedure, they do occasionally fail. Dental implants cannot stand up to lateral chewing forces therefore the bite needs to be designed to protect the dental implant. The most important factors for success are the dentist’s experience, hand skills, diagnostic skills, and bite reconstruction skills.
Extracted Teeth can be replaced immediately with dental implants, but the success rate often decreases in these cases. One of the biggest dental implant manufacturers quit advertising "implants in an hour" because of the failure rates. When it comes to dental implants, it’s best not to take chances with a "quick fix" that can turn out to be an expensive and health compromising procedure. When the teeth are extracted due to a large infection associated with the extraction, dental implants placement should be delayed until the infection is fully healed.
Dentures
Dentures are an effective method of replacing missing teeth, but the biggest problem is with holding them in place. Dentures only provide 20% of the chewing power of natural teeth. There are a large number of denture adhesives available to help hold the dentures in place, but even these do not offer outstanding hold. When denture wearers bite on one side, the other side lifts up; if they laugh, the dentures can come loose. Introducing dental implants changes everything for denture wearers. Dental implants give the denture a solid attachment for a secure fit.
With the implants, the dentures are far more stable, and the patient can chew many times better. Dentures eventually require adjustments and realignment because they wear down the jawbone after years and years of use. The jawbone gets smaller and the denture gets very loose. Dental implants hold the jawbone up, which is very important with many years of wearing dentures. Patients chew better, preserve their jawbone, digest their food better, speak more clearly and are healthier when dental implants stabilize their denture.
Implants in the jaw with balls that insert in the denture for retention.
Snaps in the lower denture that "snap" onto the balls on the implants.
Combining Dental Implants and Face Lift Dentistry ®
The ultimate in dental health care does much more than improve your appearance: it changes quality of life. This patient’s overall health immediately improved after removing bad teeth and utilizing dental implants to replace them. Dr. Muslin combined the best that high-tech dentistry can offer and a bite reconstruction technique to improve her profile by naturally repositioning her jaw. She did not require any facial surgery or down time from work; only her teeth were treated to create this improvement in her facial profile. This allowed her jaw to assume a much more comfortable and natural position.
Sam Muslin, D.D.S., M.A.G.D., has been treating patients for the last 30 years and sincerely thanks all of these patients for allowing him to show the results of his work.