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How we see oral implants at Navan Dental

At Navan Dental we fully embrace the many roles of our local dental surgery. The old mantra of prevention being better than cure is one we are always going to stick with. There is also a reason not to cry over lost teeth, if the damage is done and the underlying cause is treated and resolved it's time to assess the restoration options. This used to be either crowns or veneers, based on whatever remained of the tooth. Or, we would offer a partial denture, like a bridge, replacing missing teeth.

Implant technology allows us to replace lost teeth with no remaining root or even a socket. This is extremely powerful allowing us to replace any number of teeth that may have been lost many years ago. This, combined with high-quality prosthetic teeth, can make for an extremely convincing restoration.

How do dental implants Navan work?

The implant is a sort of titanium rod which is integrated into the jawbone. It has a prosthetic mounted on top which may just be a single tooth. As only the prosthetic can be seen, the complete unit has ended up being called an implant.

When the implant is inserted into the jawbone it is loose, until new bone growth fixes it in place and fuses the titanium to the bone. This process is called osseointegration and only after it is complete is the implant loaded with the prosthetic tooth and ready to deal with the everyday grind of being a tooth!

If you are considering implants as a treatment for yourself (either to replace a single tooth or to fix a set of dentures in place) it's important to understand the treatment time can be from four months to a year. This will depend on your general health and rate of new bone growth which naturally reduces as we age.

Some pre-existing conditions will make dental implants Navan inappropriate for you as will certain prescription medications, so you will have to disclose your full medical history to our dentist to see if you would benefit from implants.

Although you could use dental implants to completely alter someone's appearance, our focus at dental implants Navan is to return to patients what has been lost. This makes colour matching a critical part of the implantation process, as, for many people, the realistic appearance of the implant is the whole reason why they wanted implants! We record the shade and translucency of your remaining enamel and with this data, the dental laboratories we partner with can craft a porcelain resin composite tooth with all the characteristics of the lost tooth, allowing it to subtly take its place in your smile.

The hard-wearing prosthetics have a usual life span of 10 years. With normal care and use, like natural teeth, they can be chipped or broken by trauma. Thankfully the oral prosthetic can be removed from the implant and replaced, without having to extract the implant from the bone.

The daily care for implants is very much like the rest of your teeth with normal brushing and a check-up twice a year.