About Tooth Implants

Hello, everybody, I am Dr Priyanka Puri. I have been practising for the past 12 years. My specialization is aesthetic and cosmetic dentistry and I’m an implantologist also.

So today we are going to talk about implants which is a hot topic nowadays for patients and for practising doctors also. So when is that you can have an implant in your mouth. You can have an implant in your mouth when you have a missing tooth. Like you can see in a model here. There is one tooth that is missing. This is a lower molar. In actual the teeth are placed like this in your mouth. So there are the roots, there is the crown and where there is a missing tooth you can see the empty socket here. So when you have a missing tooth in your mouth there are ways to replace it and with the latest technology, we can have a fixed tooth in your mouth which has no relation to your adjacent teeth.

What is an implant?

Implant is nothing but titanium screw. As you can see in this model. The implant is a titanium screw which is made up of titanium and titanium has this unique property of binding with your Alveolar bone. This is how an implant is placed in your socket and this is how it will be inside your bone and as we are talking about the lower jaw we put this implant in your lower jaw bone. We leave it there for three months in case of lower bone and in case of upper bone for six months and this time period is very important for the implant to re-mineralise to reintegrate to become the part of your bone. This is the unique property of titanium and after that what we can do is we can give you a cap with which you can apply all the masticatory forces and you can eat with this tooth. As you can see in the model it is independent of your front and back tooth. It has no relation with your front and back tooth. It is totally independent. And you can see from inside also. This complete procedure takes about three months for the lower jaw and around six months for the upper jaw in case there are no bone deformities, there are no bony disturbances.

One of the important concerns or things which would like to confirm from the patients is the sugar levels, and his or her habits. Because of sugar if it is not at the level if it is fluctuating sugar levels. Then implants success rate will go down and in case you are a heavy smoker then also implants success rates will also go down. But otherwise, implants have a success rate of 90 to 95% all over the world. So it’s great of restoring your missing tooth.

In case you have any doubts you can consult me in my clinic at smile experts or you can connect to me on lybrate.