Dental Implants Falmouth

Day-to-Day Benefits

Replacing your lost teeth with dental implants can considerably improve your daily life in ways such as:

• Giving you the chewing power you need to enjoy any foods you could with natural teeth. This means you’ll be able to enjoy all sorts of tasty fare like juicy steaks, crunchy nuts and seeds, and snappy, raw fruits and veggies.
• Being easy to clean with conventional oral hygiene methods like brushing and flossing so you won’t need to worry about the elaborate and time-consuming cleaning and maintenance rituals required by conventional dental restorations.
• Completing your smile so you can grin with confidence at friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and strangers.
• Being anchored securely in place within the mouth, which can prevent embarrassing incidents such as slurred words or your appliance falling out of your mouth during speech or meals.

Health Benefits

Dental implants can also help you maintain good health in ways like:

• Providing superior chewing power so you can enjoy the diverse and nutritious diet your body needs to stay strong and healthy. Being able to chew thoroughly can also set you up for comfortable and consistent digestion.
• Bracing the surrounding teeth to prevent them from drifting out of alignment. This can prevent oral injuries and infections as well as further tooth loss.
• Providing the jawbone with the stimulation it needs to maintain its strength and shape. This can prevent issues caused by a receding jaw such as a sunken mouth, withered lips, and diminished confidence in your appearance.
• Preventing restorations from sliding about in the mouth, which can prevent soft tissue irritation and sores due to friction or enamel damage due to impacts.
• Being simple to clean makes it easier to prevent oral infections that can compromise dental implants such as gum disease.

Long-Term Benefits

You may notice that dental implants from our Falmouth office provide several long-term benefits such as:

• A 95% success rate even ten years after being placed, which makes them a smart and practical investment in your oral health.
• Lasting for decades or possibly a lifetime if they receive excellent care, which may save you thousands of dollars that would be spent on replacements for traditional bridges and dentures over the years.
• Giving you a stunning grin that helps you stand out from the competition when being considered for a new job or a promotion. In this way, dental implants can potentially pay for themselves.

Preliminary Treatments & Dental Implant Surgery

Sometimes, preliminary treatments like gum disease therapy, tooth extractions, or bone grafting are necessary before getting dental implants. While these procedures will all add to the cost of your care, they are vital for the success of your new smile. The good news is that many are at least partially covered by dental insurance.

Please note that dental implant surgery will incur its own cost and can vary depending on factors such as where your implants are being placed in the jaw and what kind of anesthesia you’ll need.

Because we conveniently provide your entire dental implant treatment right here under one roof, you won’t need to worry about working with an outside surgeon or paying multiple parties separately for your care.

The Parts of Your Dental Implant

The parts of your dental implant will each incur separate costs, and can include:

• Number of dental implants: One dental implant for a single missing tooth will cost less than four to six for an implant denture; however, an implant denture will be more cost-effective than replacing each tooth individually.

• Type of restoration: Crowns, dentures, and bridges each cost different amounts. The smaller the prosthetic, the less expensive.
• Size or material: Some dental implants are made longer or shorter, depending on their placement within the jawbone. Implants are also made of different materials, including titanium and zirconia, which can vary in price.
• Brand of dental implant: Much like cars or smartphones, different manufacturers make dental implants differently to cater to the unique needs of certain consumers.

How Dental Implants Can Save You Money

Often, patients are tempted to choose to replace missing teeth with dentures or dental bridges because of their lower initial price. Unfortunately, however, they may not realize that the one-time cost of dental implants could ultimately be the most cost-effective option overall. That’s because unlike with dentures and dental bridges, you won’t need to pay for replacements or adjustments every five to 10 years, nor will you need to constantly purchase special pastes, cleaning solutions, adhesives, or tools to take care of your dental implants.

Furthermore, since your dental implants won’t wear down your teeth or cause gum irritation and are much easier to clean, they’ll help lower your risk of gum disease, tooth decay, and jawbone deterioration and their associated treatment costs. Studies even show that excellent oral health can lower your risk of systemic illnesses and their associated costs, too!

Does My Dental Insurance Cover Dental Implants?

Although dental insurance doesn’t typically cover dental implants, there are sometimes exceptions. At Hill Dental Wellness, our team will carefully review the details of your policy to maximize your benefits. We have years of experience handling insurance claims, and portions of your treatment may be covered, such as a percentage of the final restoration or preliminary procedures.

Making Dental Implants Affordable

At Hill Dental Wellness, we’ll do our best to help make your dental implant treatment more affordable. To that end, we are pleased to offer the following options:

• CareCredit financing can help break up the cost of your dental implant treatment into multiple, low-to-no-interest monthly payments that may be better suited to your budget.
• Our In-Office Membership Plan through DenVantage provides valuable discounts on a variety of oral health treatments and procedures.

What to Do Directly After Dental Implant Surgery

During the initial stage of your recovery, blood clots should start to form at your surgical sites. Since they are a key part of your body’s healing process, they need to be protected! To that end, you should:

• Try to avoid touching your surgical sites with your tongue or fingers.
• Do not smoke or drink through a straw. The suction created by this actions could dislodge your blood clots.
• Do not spit. Instead, swallow extra saliva or use tissues to absorb it.

Common Side Effects When Recovering from Dental Implant Placement

Some of the most common side effects after dental implant placement surgery include:

• Intermittent bleeding. This may go on for multiple days. Use gauze and light pressure to control it.
• This may continue over the first 72 hours and last for a week or longer. Use cold compresses to manage it.
• General discomfort. You should be sure to get plenty of rest and take pain medication in appropriate doses.

If you experience any severe or prolonged side effects, reach out to our team right away.

Your Diet After Dental Implant Surgery

At first, you should stick to a no-chew diet. This can include things like yogurt, mashed potatoes, pudding, and even ice cream. Then, you can graduate to fork-tender foods, like meatloaf, scrambled eggs, and pasta. Gradually, as you feel up to it, you can work your way back toward a normal diet. However, you should continue to be cautious around your healing implant sites.

Post-Op Health & Oral Hygiene

You can resume brushing your teeth the day after your surgery, but exercise great care around your surgical sites so you do not disturb them. If you choose to use a mouthwash, do not use any that have a high alcohol content (any prescription mouthwashes should be used as directed). You can also periodically rinse your mouth with warm salt water, which can help to ease inflammation and protect against bacteria.

What to Do After Your New Teeth Are Attached

After your new teeth are attached to your dental implants, you can celebrate the conclusion of your main implant treatment! There is no extensive downtime, and although your gums might be a bit tender, you can start to use your restored teeth right away. Our team will coach you on how to care for them so they remain healthy, strong, and beautiful for the long haul.

Computer-Guided Dental Implant Surgery

Dental implant posts can’t be placed just anywhere in the mouth; each one needs to be inserted into exactly the right spot in the jaw. To make this easier, our practice utilizes computer-guided dental implant surgery. Simply put, we can create a three-dimensional model of your mouth that can help us determine the ideal location of your implant posts. Then we can create a surgical guide that provides a clear visual of where the posts need to go.

Computer-guided dental implant surgery is generally much more precise than traditional dental implant placement, and it can help reduce the risk of unnecessary damage to the tissues and nerves inside your mouth. Furthermore, this type of implant surgery tends to be less invasive, which can make the treatment more comfortable and potentially reduce the amount of time required for recovery afterward. 

3D Cone Beam Imaging/3D CT Scanning

When planning your dental implant surgery, we need to gather as much information about your mouth as possible, such as the locations of blood vessels and nerve endings. However, a regular dental X-ray won’t capture all of these important details. That is why, when planning the dental implant process, we use a cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scanner.

Thanks to our CBCT scanner, we can create a comprehensive three-dimensional model of your mouth that shows us all of the important oral structures that need to be taken into account during dental implant surgery. On top of that, we can also see how thick your jawbone is, which is essential for determining your candidacy for dental implants as well as whether preliminary treatments such as bone grafting will be necessary.

Our CBCT scanner also has uses for ensuring the success of your dental implants after they have been placed. For example, we may use it to make sure osseointegration is going as planned. Additionally, if your dental implants ever fail, our CBCT scanner can potentially help us diagnose the problem.

Digital Impression System

The crown, bridge, or denture that your dental implants support will need to be personalized for your unique mouth. Instead of making you bite down on messy dental putty to take a physical impression, we can instead scan your mouth, capturing hundreds of images of your teeth in the process. These images are then assembled into a digital model of your mouth that can aid us in designing your new prosthesis.

Compared to traditional dental impressions, digital impressions are more accurate, improving the chances that the final prosthesis will fit correctly the first time. On top of that, the lack of unpleasant-tasting putty makes digital impressions the more comfortable option for many patients.