Dental Implants in Stone Mountain, GA

Teenagers are generally not a good fit for dental implants because their jawbones are not often fully formed yet. Implants rely on having sufficient jawbone mass for installation. As an adult, if you have an inadequate jawbone, you can have a bone-grafting procedure done, and this will provide additional jawbone mass that will make implants viable. You should also be free of any medical condition that would make implant surgery dangerous. It's best if you do not have any infections in your mouth because an existing infection would have a chance to spread to the implant site and form another condition. Besides these primary considerations, almost everyone in reasonably good health would be considered a good candidate for dental implants.

There are several good reasons to have dental implants placed in your mouth, and collectively they make implants the best possible option for a missing tooth. For instance, placing a dental implant will be a good option if you want to restore your former smile. The crowns set on top of an implant resemble your original teeth, and they perform just as well as those originals. From aesthetics, you really can't do any better than having dental implants placed.

Another benefit of implants is that they serve to maintain good bone health, which is critical to your overall oral health and general health. Anytime you have dental implants placed, they replace the roots of your tooth, and it's those roots that anchor a tooth firmly in place and prevent it from moving around inside your mouth. When tooth roots are gone, there is a natural tendency for bone health to deteriorate and bone mass to subside.

This condition is less likely to occur when you have implants placed, and your bone mass and bone health will be preserved. In terms of durability, you can't beat dental implants. There is no more permanent solution available in dentistry that is more reliable and effective than having implants placed. The implants get fused to the jawbone and become part of it. That makes them highly stable, and as long as you take routine care of them with your dental hygiene, you can expect them to last your entire lifetime.

Other dental solutions, such as dentures, last between 5 to 10 years. Therefore, consider dental implants as the far superior, long-lasting quality solution. In addition to these benefits, you can expect that you'll be able to eat normally and usually speak with no transition period whatsoever when you have dental implants placed. That means you won't have to get used to them or practice using your new teeth to speak clearly or chew and bite food properly. With your new teeth from dental implants, they should be fully functional. Acting and feeling like real teeth!

While it might seem like dental implants are perfect, with no drawbacks to them, that's not entirely true. First of all, you can count on the process of implants taking a reasonably long time from start to finish. Once implants are surgically placed, you may have to wait as long as 6 months for those implants to become part of your jaw bone so that the next step may proceed. This may not suit you if you're looking for a quick turnaround for your tooth loss situation.
However, there's no way of shortening the time necessary for the implants to fuse with the jawbone. Anytime you conduct some surgery, the surgery site may somehow become infected. Although this is quite rare in implant surgery, it's still possible for your gums to become infected after placing implants. If an infection were to occur, you could develop periodontitis, eventually leading to bone loss.

Another possible drawback to dental implants is that it may be necessary to perform some pre-procedure to make implant surgery viable. Implants cannot be placed in a jawbone with insufficient mass to support them, so it may be necessary to treat a patient for bone grafting, to build up jawbone mass for implants. A sinus lift is performed if your sinuses are situated close to the jawbone. Gum augmentation is another process that may have to be carried out to have adequate and healthy gum tissue before implant surgery.

At Smoke Rise Dental, we make sure all patients are fully aware of needed treatment prior to beginning the implant process. In the case of needing other prior surgeries, it can increase the cost of the entire process, and it will undoubtedly increase the time needed from start to finish. Speaking of costs, that may be another potential drawback to having dental implant surgery. Even though implants placed are probably the best possible solution for a missing tooth, it's perhaps the most expensive. That's why it will be necessary for you to check with your insurance company to see if your insurance will cover any part of the procedure. Even if the cost is not covered by insurance, we offer financing options that can make it possible to have dental implants placed.

The cost of dental implants will always depend on how many implants you have placed and whether or not any pre-procedures are necessary before implant surgery. If you need to have a sinus lift, gum augmentation, or bone grafting performed, any of these procedures will increase the total cost of having your implants done. It is generally best practice to place one dental implant for each missing tooth, so if you have three missing teeth in your mouth, it will be necessary to get three implants.

Contrarily, if you need to replace an entire upper or lower teeth arch, it's possible to have all-on-four dental implants placed. Instead of requiring 15 dental implants, you only need to install four of them for the entire arch of upper or lower teeth. Semi-arch or full arch implants will still be reasonably expensive, but they will be much cheaper than if you had to install an implant for each missing tooth.

Another factor influencing how much dental implants cost will be who's doing the surgery and where in the country you are. If you have a highly qualified dental practitioner doing the implant surgery instead of a relative novice, it will always cost you more. Then too, there are places where geography becomes an issue because the demand for implants may be much higher than in other geographic sectors of the country.

All this being said, the cost of a single dental implant will generally range anywhere from $2,500 to $4,000. However, as can be seen from the above, quite a few factors can drive that cost up and give it a considerably higher price tag.

If you live anywhere in the region around Stone Mountain, Georgia, and consider dental implants, our dental office is the one you should contact. Call us to arrange for an initial consultation. We'll be able to tell whether or not you're a good candidate for dental implants and whether or not you might need some preparatory imaging or procedures that will improve your viability as a candidate. We'll be happy to answer any questions you might have, so you can know what to expect at every stage of the process.