Replace Missing Teeth, Restore Your Smile
Decayed or missing teeth need never again spoil your smile, interfere with important activities, or sap your confidence. Dental implants are a permanent, natural-looking tooth replacement option that can give you back the quality of life you once enjoyed or introduce you to a new level of fulfillment. Dental implants consist of three primary components: a screw-like titanium post that’s fixed in your jaw in place of your natural tooth root; a strong, realistic-looking crown that replaces the above-gum portion of your tooth, filling unsightly gaps in your smile and allowing you to eat and speak comfortably; and an abutment, which connects the crown and post.
As a general dentist, Dr. Jason White has broad experience in dental implant placement and related procedures, and performs them all right here in our Franklin, TN office. Dr. White inserts the implant posts into your jawbone in the gaps left by your missing teeth. These eventually become a permanent part of your body, before being topped by a beautiful crown! Read on to learn about Dr. White’s exclusive placement process.
Three Dimensions of Dental Implant Success
Dr. White follows a unique process to ensure your dental implants are placed precisely and comfortably for long-lasting performance. It takes extensive pre-planning, but the impressive results speak for themselves. You’ll start with a consultation, where Dr. White listens to your questions and gives you the answers you need. Before he does any procedures, he uses his in-house 3D printer to make a digital model that will be the basis of your restoration. He also uses a cone beam CT scanner—lower radiation exposure than similar x-ray equipment—to locate your vital structures and assess your bone volume. The information from these two tools is then merged to create a fuller picture. That data is fed into the 3D printer, which creates a customized surgical guide—literally a template that Dr. White places in your mouth during surgery to guide his hand in the most accurate depth, angle and position to place your implants. The surgical procedure itself is much faster because 95 percent of the work has been done beforehand! You can leave the office with temporary crowns the same day.
Dental Implant-Associated Procedures
Play Video
Dental implants sometimes require additional procedures to be completed first. We perform each of these here in our Franklin, TN office.
Those decayed teeth need to go in order to make room for your dental implants. We generally perform tooth extractions during the same visit as your dental implant placement.
If we find severe bone loss in your jaw, your jawbone will need to be rebuilt before it can support dental implants. With bone grafting we take a tiny portion of bone from your body or from a donor source, convert it to a graft material, and place that material in the area of jawbone loss. The graft will eventually integrate with your jaw, restoring the bone mass.
Life After Dental Implant Placement
With dental implants, you can once again enjoy many of the activities that you once took for granted. Smile without shame. Chew food without pain or difficulty. Speak with your natural, clear voice. Your appearance can also change dramatically for the better, as your facial aesthetics are restored and improved. You’ll also make the teeth around your dental implants stronger, as the decay that caused you to have missing teeth in the first place will be gone. Perhaps best of all, dental implants will give your self-esteem a tremendous boost. What more reason do you need to request a consultation?
