Dental Implants and Their Affect on Jawbone Health

Dental Implants create an artificial dental root structure that can have a dramatic affect of the health of your jawbone and your facial appearance.

Dr.Singh:

When a tooth is extracted, there is a tendency for the surrounding bone to resorb or recede away. We believe that this is the body’s natural response to “not” having something to support. Resorbing is a biological process which essential means, “dissolving away”. When this happens, you can actually see the bone receding away. This means that there is less bone available for the placement of an implant. In other words, “use it or lose it”. 

One for the things that we like to do, assuming there are no inflections or other complications, is that when a tooth is extracted, we place an implant in the space of the extracted tooth and root. This is an immediate implant. The good thing about this type of placement is that you are able to maintain the majority of existing bone surrounding the tooth. The body never resorbs it away. That’s because the bone has force acting on it through the dental implant… just as it would when the original tooth was there. The bone would not know the difference and thus would be maintained.

Overall, with the combination of the architecture, the gum tissue, and the bone being maintained, we get the most natural result possible… so, not only does the tooth look nice, but also the gum tissue, and the bone surrounding it. All three look completely natural.

If the tooth is extracted and the bone is left to heal on its own, say, for 6 months, without an implant and crown (tooth) in place, then it will have shrunk both in height, and thickness. Even though it’s possible to place and implant at that stage, what we find is that if you look at it carefully, it doesn’t look quite natural. And there is not necessarily anything wrong with the shape of the tooth, but the gum surrounding it looks a little bit concave or flat, because of the bone loss. It just doesn’t look as good as it could. And that’s why we like to keep the original tooth architecture, and bone structure, in order to achieve the most natural tooth possible.