Dental implants can make you smile better

It’s not easy to carry a confident smile with no teeth. If dentures and bridges give you embarrassing moments when they slip out of place. Maxillofacial surgeon Dr Ashok Kumar. BDS,MDS says there is hope in dental implants.

DENTAL IMPLANTS

What is a dental implant?
It is an artificial tooth root replacement where natural tooth that are either decayed or withered are replaced. There are several types of dental implants and they are tailor made to suit every individual. The latest implant is called the Zygome implant. In this procedure, even those dismissed for other implants due to lack of a bone in the upper jaw can be taken up. It provides an excellent alternative to bone grafting procedures. For the patient this would mean minimum trauma and maximum oral function.

Are these implants safe?
Today, dental implants are in the cuttingedge of dentistry. They have replaced dentures and bridges. These are tiny screws made of titanium, which are fixed to the jaws, under a small surgical procedure usually carried out under local anaesthesia. Unlike dentures, they are permanent. There have been very minimal complaints for dental implants.

How does Zygome procedure not need bone?
To place the implants, there should be sufficient amount of bone on the jaw otherwise implants cannot be fixed. Sometimes bone grafts are placed to increase the height of the jaw or sinus lift procedure is carried out to increase the amount of bone available in the jaw. These bone graft procedures are unpredictable and involve taking bone from the hips or ribs. But this is now conventional. Recently, in the US and France, very long implants were fixed to the cheek bone called Zygome Bone. These Zygome implants are fixed from the jaw to the cheek bone, to which teeth are directly fixed. This allows patients to eat comfortably, speak and laugh without the fear of dentures becoming loose.

So would this procedure totally avoid bone grafting?
The Zygoma fixture is a new and predictable source of implant anchorage for the posterior upper jaw, which often minimises or eliminates the need for bone grafting and shortens treatment time.