Why Dental Implants Are the Gold Standard for Replacing Missing Teeth

Would it surprise you to learn that people in the United States are missing loads of teeth? By the numbers, around 178 million people are missing at least one tooth and 40 million Americans are missing all of their teeth.

While there are several ways to replace missing teeth, dental implants are fast becoming the preferred choice —nearly five million implants are placed each year in the US and this number is growing.

At our own practice — Silverlake Smiles — Dr. Juliet Ebrahimian and the team are certainly seeing this same trend, which is why we offer comprehensive dental implant services.

So, if you’re curious about whether a dental implant makes sense for restoring your missing tooth (or teeth), read on to learn more.

Maintaining bone health with dental implants

A top reason why we love dental implants is that this tooth replacement option tackles something others don’t — maintaining bone strength.

When you lose a tooth, your body stops rebuilding bone in that area of your jawbone since it’s dormant. And the loss happens quickly — within 12 months, you can lose up to 50% of the width of the ridge of bone (30% of this loss happens in the first 12 weeks).

This bone loss can threaten the stability of neighboring teeth, turning your one missing tooth into a larger problem.

A dental implant is the only tooth replacement option that can address and prevent this bone loss because we place a metal post in your jawbone. This post signals to your body that the area is still active, so your body continues to build bone, which fuses the post into place. 

And once we place the crown over the post, your body continues to register that the area is active because of the pressure from chewing, and you won’t lose any more jawbone.

Superior stability with dental implants

As we’ve just explored, dental implants are tooth replacement options that are firmly secured into your jawbone. Unlike dentures or bridges, these replacements become integrated into the bone, providing you with amazing stability.

With dental implants, you can chew and talk with ease knowing that your dental implant is firmly in position.

Dental implants are easy to care for

Since you don’t need to remove dental implants, cleaning is a snap. In fact, there’s nothing you really do differently — just brush, floss, and rinse as you normally do.

Dental implants are long-lasting

Once the metal abutment of your dental implant is fused into place by surrounding bone tissue, it’s there to stay. The crown that we place over the metal post may require replacement after a decade or two, but we typically don’t need to do anything with the implant. We simply pop a new crown right on top.

Given all the advantages of dental implants, it’s little wonder that they’ve become the gold standard for missing teeth.

If you’d like to explore whether you’re a good candidate for a dental implant, please contact our Los Angeles office to schedule an appointment. We serve the Silver Lake neighborhood and areas of Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Frogtown, and Echo Park.