Dental Implants Can Restore Your Smile to Its Natural Beauty

When you’re feeling good about life, a smile comes naturally – an outward expression of amusement, happiness, joy or contentment. Scientists say smiling helps you to feel better about yourself because it changes your brain chemistry. However, if you’ve suffered tooth loss you’re likely to be too embarrassed and self-conscious to show off your smile.

The best solution to this problem? Dental implants, which can restore your smile to its natural beauty and give you back your self-confidence. Before dental implants came along, people with missing teeth had to rely on dentures that could be prone to embarrassing mishaps or bridges that could be irritating.

The high level of functionality of implants coupled with their ability to restore your attractive smile has made them a popular, convenient and comfortable alternative to other systems of tooth replacement.

Implants not only restore your smile but give you back the whole life you enjoyed with natural teeth. Implants feel like natural teeth, so you can eat and speak as normal. They also look natural – indistinguishable from real teeth.

With implants, you don’t have to worry about unsightly staining spoiling your smile. As well as being stain resistant, implants are also impervious to decay. Your implants – and your smile – will stay bright and beautiful with normal at-home oral health care.

Problems Caused by Missing Teeth

Through issues such as decay, gum disease or injury, many people in the U.S. aged 45 to 65 have lost at least one tooth. One in four aged over 65 are missing all their teeth.

Just one lost tooth or a few missing teeth may not seem a big deal to some people, but even the loss of a single back tooth can ruin your smile by twisting your mouth out of shape and making you look older.

Each tooth plays a vital role in the structure of your mouth and leaving a gap can have significant consequences. One or more missing teeth can shift bite pressure onto remaining teeth, which can gradually move them into the site of a tooth that’s been lost.

Missing teeth also make it easier for plaque to accumulate in places that are tricky to keep clean, causing gum infections that can lead to the loss of more teeth.

A Beautiful Smile With a Healthy Mouth

Besides restoring your smile, implants have major health advantages over other tooth replacements.

As well as giving you the confidence to show off your smile again, implants also help to prevent deterioration of the facial structure by preserving the bone.

An implant is a small titanium post, inserted into the socket of a missing tooth. The jaw regrows around the implant, holding it firmly in the jaw. When the implant and bone have fused, an abutment is fitted to hold the new tooth firmly, and a crown is then attached to the abutment.

Removable dentures and bridges may need replacing over time but implants provide a permanent solution to tooth loss because they become part of your jaw and maintain its structural integrity.

Bone, like muscle, wastes away when not used. Dentures and bridges can’t address this issue but implants provide an effective solution as robust tooth root replacements – giving you another reason to smile!

A further benefit of implants is an improvement in the bite function. The biting power of conventional dentures is far less than that of your natural teeth and this can cause breakdown of bone. The bite force of implants is as strong as natural teeth. You can chew practically anything you want to, rather than having to cut more and more foods from your diet.

The Power of Your Smile

Studies have shown that an individual’s mood is affected by their facial expression, and a smile can improve positive emotions.

People who smile a lot experience a slowing in heart rate and faster recovery from stressful situations. Smiling retrains your brain to create a new pattern of neural messaging and positive thinking. As well as lifting your mood, smiling also makes us appear more attractive to those around us.

Like it or not, first impressions are important and affect the way people interact with us. Nearly half the population of the U.S. say a smile is the most memorable aspect when meeting someone for the first time.

Smiling makes other people feel comfortable around you and reduces hormones that can negatively impact your health by causing stress.

A survey by research consultancy Kelton Global for the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD) concluded that first positive impressions all come down to the power of an attractive smile.

Are Implants the Best Way to Restore My Smile?

The American Academy of Implant Dentistry (AAID) says implants are suitable for anyone in good general health whose jaw has fully developed. According to the WebMD health information resource, anyone healthy enough to have a routine tooth extraction is a potential candidate for an implant.

Dental implants can restore your smile to its natural beauty because they look and feel just like natural teeth and provide a far greater degree of comfort than ill-fitting dentures. Choosing dental implants to rectify the embarrassing problem of unsightly gaps in your mouth will give you the confidence to live a normal life – and carry on smiling!

From a functional point of view, implants will also avoid bite problems, bone deterioration, and additional wear and tear on adjacent teeth. Implants can rejuvenate your smile – and your life – in terms of both functionality and aesthetics. With proper care, implants can last a lifetime – and so will your smile!