In an ideal world, teeth do their job, helping people to chew their food, speak clearly and look beautiful, and don’t cause any trouble. The perfect workers. But, in reality, they need a lot of taking care of, and if they fail, getting good replacement, hassle-free workers can be impossible. Well, not anymore, replacement teeth now come free of discomfort and embarrassment, courtesy of dental implants in Northern Ireland.
Although they have been around for 40 years or more, in Northern Ireland, dental implants continue to be subject to much research, development and innovation. They are available from various dentists, including Blue Sky Dentistry.
The advantages of dental implants
The thing that makes all the difference with dental implants, as opposed to fixed bridges or dentures, is that they are fitted directly into the jawbone. This is how teeth are meant to be secured, and mimicking nature is always a good thing.
Doing so wasn’t possible until, in the 1950s, a Swedish scientist discovered that titanium is the perfect implant material. Usually, the body responds to foreign objects by mobilising the immune system to reject them, but, for some reason, it welcomes titanium with open arms, so to speak.
Instead of sending out the white blood cell troops to kill the invader, the body grows new bone and blood tissues all over the surface of the implant. Dental implants in Northern Ireland are often screw-shaped to create more surface area for the bone to integrate with, creating an even more secure hold. This process is called osseointegration and takes about two months to complete.
Dental implants can have all sorts of attachments. At their simplest, one post can be fitted with a single crown. Next up is three crowns to a post. But by cleverly combining implants in various sizes and placed at different angles, dental surgeons can also use just a few of them to hold a whole arch of teeth, or even to stabilise dentures.
The research and innovation goes on, resulting in less and less need to replace teeth with dentures, which wobble over time, and fixed bridges, which have to destroy healthy teeth to create a secure fixing.
