We’ve said before that dental implants are the best way to replace one or more missing teeth. They can help you enjoy a higher quality of life than either not replacing your natural teeth or replacing them with removable dentures.
Here are just some of the ways that dental implants can improve your quality of life.
Eat All Your Favorite Foods
Dental implants can help you improve your quality of life by letting you eat all the foods you enjoy. If you currently have missing teeth or several unhealthy teeth, you’ve probably found that it’s hard for you to eat certain foods. Many people give up foods entirely because the pain or hassle is just not worth it.
Dental implants let you eat all the foods you can eat with healthy natural teeth. There are essentially no diet restrictions for people with dental implants.
Enjoy Better Health
Many people cut healthy foods from their diet because of unhealthy teeth or removable dentures. This includes raw fruits and vegetables as well as unprocessed meats. Instead, people start adding more processed foods, often eating more treats and snacks. This can lead to weight gain, general poor health, and malnutrition.
With dental implants, you can eat the foods that help you stay healthy and feeling good. You’ll get the nutrients your body needs to be healthy and active at any age.
In addition, dental implants can help reduce the bacterial load on your immune system. Missing and unhealthy teeth can encourage the growth of bacteria in the mouth. Removable dentures can also accumulate bacteria and need regular, thorough cleaning to help you reduce the effects of oral bacteria on your health.
Speak More Clearly
Your teeth play an essential role in speaking. If you have missing teeth, it’s probably hard or impossible to make certain sounds clearly. Sometimes removable dentures don’t help much. Either they don’t fit right, keeping you from making the sounds, or they’re loose. This can lead to other sounds like whistling or clicking when you speak.
Dental implants, on the other hand, work just like natural teeth. They let you clearly form all the necessary speech sounds to be easily understood.
Enjoy Easier Care
As we noted above, dentures require frequent, thorough cleaning to reduce bacterial accumulation on them. In addition to typical brushing, dentures need to be rinsed after every meal and should be taken out to soak at night.
Dental implants should be cleaned just like natural teeth. Brush, floss, and make regular dental checkups to keep them healthy.
Look and Feel Younger
Having missing teeth immediately makes you look older. Traditional dentures don’t do much better. (Though FOY® Dentures are.)
Traditional dentures are often set back in your mouth, leading to sunken lips and cheeks. They might not provide the proper height to your mouth, especially since your body is constantly removing bone from your jaws once your teeth. Dentures don’t stimulate the production of bone in this area. This leads to a collapsing jaw. A collapsing jaw shrinks the support for the lower third of your face. This leads to facial folds, wrinkles, turkey neck, and more.
Dental implants can help you look younger. They replace the full height of your teeth, helping you to avoid the effects of tooth loss, including a collapsing jaw. You can look younger and feel younger, too, with more energy and vigor related to your healthier diet.
Less Discomfort
Denture pain is very common. That’s because it’s hard to fit dentures properly, so they slide around in the mouth, rise and fall, and shift, leading to pinch points and uneven pressure. With dentures, your gums are being asked to do something they’re not well-suited for: supporting the force of biting and chewing. This can lead to considerable discomfort.
Dental implants, though, put bite force where it belongs. Like natural teeth, they direct the force of biting and chewing into the bones of your jaws. That eliminates discomfort from dentures pressing on your gums.
Implant Costs Are a Bargain
Some people cite cost as a reason why they don’t get dental implants. However, dental implants are a great bargain when it comes to replacing lost teeth. In part that’s because dental implants last so much longer than traditional dentures.
Traditional full dentures last about 5-10 years.
Dental implants likely last at least 30 years, but the truth is we don’t know how long they last. One recent study showed 100% of implants still in place 30 years after placement, and we have individual cases of implants lasting more than 50 years!
Even with the longevity of implants and restorations, implant dentures may cost $10,000 more than traditional dentures. This might seem like a lot, but over 30 years, it’s less than a dollar a day. That seems like a great bargain for all the benefits above.
Are You Looking for Implants in Rochester, MI?
This study shows that there are true, tangible quality of life benefits for dental implants. Despite the cost difference between dentures and dental implants, implants are a great bargain. They’re so good, they’re even worth a second try.
To learn more about the benefits of dental implants in Rochester, MI, please call (248) 656-2020 today for an appointment with an implant dentist at Doolin Haddad Advanced Dentistry.
