Many people who’ve experienced tooth loss rely on a custom designed dental bridge or denture to maintain their healthy smiles and bite function. This is important for many different reasons, including the positive impact it has on helping them regain their confidence in their smiles’ appearance. However, even highly lifelike conventional bridges and dentures have room for improvement. Most importantly, they can often use the help of one or more dental implant posts to provide the same level of support as healthy, natural teeth roots.
What dental implant posts give your restoration
The realism that makes modern dental bridges and dentures beneficial for restoring smiles is mostly limited to their size, shape, and appearance. Many of them are designed using advanced digital technology for highly precise results, and lifelike materials like dental porcelain to closely mimic healthy tooth structure. However, beyond their appearance, traditional bridges and dentures are unable to mimic the specific ways in which healthy teeth function. This mainly includes the way in which your natural teeth are supported. The point of dental implants is to give your dental bridge or denture a way to replicate the supportive roots that your healthy teeth rely on, which enables your restoration to more closely mimic them.
The difference it makes to your dental bridge
There are many implications to having the ability to replace your lost teeth roots, and the difference it makes for a conventional dental bridge are among the most significant. A dental bridge is designed to replace a single lost tooth with a highly lifelike pontic, or replacement tooth. The pontic fits into the space in your smile by mimicking your lost tooth’s healthy size, shape, contour, and appearance, and it’s supported by one or a pair of crowns that are bonded to the healthy teeth closest to it. By contrast, replacing a lost tooth with a dental implant involves supporting the replacement tooth’s lifelike crown with a more biocompatible and root-like implant post.
The importance of supporting your denture
Dental implants make tooth replacement more lifelike by giving your restoration one or more root-like posts to support it. In addition to making single tooth replacement more conservative, this also means that rebuilding a smile with a denture can be more effective with a series of dental implant posts. If you’ve lost most or all of the healthy teeth on your dental ridge, then the impacts of so many missing teeth roots can be much more profound. This makes the benefits of dental implant posts even more significant, and for the sake of your denture, it can also significantly improve its overall comfort and function.
Learn about dental implants, bridges, and dentures
With the support of dental implant posts, your dental bridge or denture can function more like your healthy, natural teeth, as well as mimic their appearance. To learn more, schedule a consultation by calling Santa Rosa Oral Surgery in Santa Rosa, CA, today at 707-545-4625.