How Dental Implants Can Affect Your Facial Structure
Dental implants are incredibly common. This is because they are used whenever a person loses any of their teeth. Now, it’s easy to assume that implants only have aesthetic benefits but this just isn’t the case. Many of you may not know this but implants can actually affect your facial structure.
With that being said, we can’t really blame you if you didn’t know about this as it isn’t really common knowledge. This is why we thought it would be useful to put together an article talking about the effects that implants can have. If this is something that you’re interested in knowing more about, read on to learn more about how dental implants can affect your facial structure.
What is Resorption?
To understand how implants can help, we first have to talk about resorption. You’re all probably aware that your bones need calcium, as calcium is what makes bones strong. However, what you may not know is that there are instances wherein your body will cease to send enough calcium to your jaw. This occurs when you lose a tooth, as your body begins to leach calcium from your jaw and reallocates it to another part of your body. This is because your body believes that your jaw bone is no longer functioning properly, as it loses the constant stimulation that it once got from the lost tooth.
How Does Resorption Affect Your Facial Structure?
While you may not be too worried about it, resorption can have pretty serious effects. As your jaw bone loses calcium it will begin to deteriorate. Once this happens, it can start to shrink and completely transform your facial structure. This is why older people seem to have smaller jaws, as their jaw naturally loses calcium as they get older. If you don’t want your face to change, it would be best to do all you can to protect the integrity of your jawbone and ensure that it has sufficient levels of calcium to keep it from deteriorating. Luckily, this isn’t really hard to do even when you lose a tooth as dental implants can prevent resorption from happening.
How Dental Implants Can Help?
While implants are mostly seen as a cosmetic fix for a lost tooth, they actually do more than that. When an implant is placed, it is secured to the jawbone. The titanium post of the implant will naturally fuse and deposit bone around the post. This is called osseointegration and is what gives the implant the same stability as a natural tooth. The implant provides the same level of stimulation as a natural tooth, which means your body won’t start leaching calcium from your jawbone. This will effectively prevent resorption and will stop your jawbone from deteriorating even if you’ve lost a tooth.
Conclusion
We hope this article has shed some light on dental implants and what they can do for you. As you can see, implants are more than just teeth replacements. Indeed, implants preserve the integrity of your jaw bone and will help when it comes to preserving your facial structure. If you have any more questions about implants, it would be best to speak with a dental professional.
If you’re looking for the best dental implants near you, then you’ve come to the right place. We here at G-Dental32 are dedicated to providing safe and high-quality ongoing dental care in our community.