If you are missing one or more teeth, nothing can restore your smile as beautifully or as permanently as dental implants. This type of dental restoration provides numerous benefits over other options:
- Superior quality in terms of look, form and function
- They are a long-lasting restoration
- They can be used to restore a single tooth, or multiple teeth
What is a Dental Implant?
An implant is composed of three parts. The implant body itself is a screw that acts as a tooth root and is placed into healthy jawbone where a tooth is missing. An abutment attaches a crown to the implant. The crown is your replacement tooth.
What kind of implants do you use?
Not all dental implants are of the same quality. We use top-of-the-line Biohorizons implants as our restoration of choice. This titanium implant offers strength and biocompatibility. It is lightweight and promotes a highly aesthetic restoration, which enables us to give you a result that looks like your natural teeth. Additionally, Biohorizons implants carry a lifetime warranty.
Click here if you would like to learn more about Biohorizons
The Process
Dr. Gary Cheloha places dental implants in our office, which means you don’t have to be referred outside our practice to an oral surgeon with whom you have no established relationship. Additionally, performing this procedure in-house gives Dr. Cheloha complete control over the entire process. He is able to place the implant into your jaw in the precise location that will make placement of the crown ideal.
We offer same-day extractions and implant placement if necessary, or we can place an implant in an area where your tooth has been missing for some time.
Once the implant is placed, it must have time to heal and integrate itself into your jawbone through a process known as osseointegration. This generally takes four to six months. Then we can add the abutment, take an impression, and have a crown fabricated that will match the appearance of your neighboring teeth.
The final result is a restoration that blends in so perfectly, no one will know you ever had a missing tooth.
Single tooth replacement
One dental implant can replace a single missing tooth anywhere in your mouth. Once it is restored, you can eat all the foods you like, and you can brush and floss as you normally would.
Multi-tooth replacement
We can place several implants to replace several missing teeth individually.
Another option if you are missing several teeth in a row is to give you an implant-supported bridge. Instead of using healthy teeth on either side of the missing teeth to support the bridge, we place two dental implants to act as the anchors.
We will take impressions of your mouth after the implants have integrated into the bone and we add the abutments. We will have your bridge fabricated, and then we will permanently secure the bridge to the abutments. The final result is a beautifully restored smile.
Implant-supported dentures
Implants also are a good option if you happen to be missing all of your teeth in your upper or lower arch. We can place a series of implants to act as anchors to support a full or partial denture.
If you’re self-conscious about your smile because you are missing teeth due to trauma, disease or decay, we invite you to call our office to schedule a consultation. Dr. Gary Cheloha is a Scottsbluff dental implant provider who can provide this treatment to restore your smile to its former glory.