Bridges and dental implants in Melbourne

Having a set of bridges to close small or large gaps in your teeth can be a real help in providing you with comfort and functionality.  This will potentially help you feel not so self-conscious about a gap and help you to continue to eat whole and nutritious food thus helping keep your diet and therefore your body healthy. However, bridges and the crowns that hold them in place are not always as secure as many would like them to be and the crowns require that healthy teeth be shaved down in order to fit them, but with dental implants in Melbourne, we can secure a bridge in place so that you won’t have any concerns about it becoming loose at an inopportune moment. 

The benefits of implants

Not only will our dental implants in Melbourne secure your bridge in place allowing you the comfort of having a fixed set of teeth, but they provide much-needed support to the jaw bone which is missing when teeth are no longer in place; the purpose of the jaw is to provide an anchor for teeth, however, when teeth go missing the jaw no longer serves a function and the body begins to reabsorb it. This bone loss will make your cheeks look more drawn in and can cause you to look more aged than you should.

Thankfully there is a way to not only stop this bone loss but reverse it. Bone tissue can be encouraged to grow back if it has something to grow to, and this is sometimes done with bone grafts but more commonly with implants. Implants are made of titanium and human bone loves to fuse with it and is encouraged to regrow once titanium is introduced and when the jaw bone grows back to its former healthy state, the structure of your face will be sound once more leaving you to worry less about your appearance.

The procedure

Dental implants in Melbourne is a surgical procedure that can be done under sedation for particularly nervous or anxious patients. The standard for the procedure to secure a set of bridges may mean that we insert only 1 or 2 implants depending on the length of the bridge. It requires that after completely numbing the area, so that you will not feel anything, we cut open the gum to expose the bone which we then drill into to create a small opening for the implant. The titanium metal screw is then placed into the bone and your gum is neatly stitched up once more.

The procedure requires an extensive healing period of about 6 months so you will be sent on your way with a temporary bridge until your body has had a chance to heal. After the 6 months at a second appointment, we will do another small surgery to fit an abutment to the implant upon which the new more secure dental bridge is fitted.

Special care needs to be taken when you have bridges to ensure proper cleaning as food and debris can be stuck between or beneath them and cause bad breath or infection, but by securing them in with implants, you ensure the longevity of your bone tissue which may help you in the long run.

Disclaimer: All treatment carries risk. Individual consultation is required with one of our practitioners to ensure that the treatment is right for you.