Dental implants are titanium posts or frames that are surgically positioned into the jawbone beneath your gums. Once in place, they allow your dentist to mount replacement teeth onto them.
How do Dental Implants Work?
Implants fuse to your jawbone, so they provide stable support for artificial teeth. Dentures and bridges mounted to implants won’t slip or shift in your mouth which is important when eating and speaking. This secure fit helps the dentures and bridges — as well as individual crowns placed over implants — feel more natural than conventional bridges or dentures.
For some people, ordinary bridges and dentures are simply not comfortable or even possible, due to sore spots, poor ridges or gagging. In addition, ordinary bridges must be attached to teeth on either side of the space left by the missing tooth. An advantage of dental implants is that no adjacent teeth need to be prepared or ground down to hold your new replacement tooth in place.
Implants are usually more expensive than other methods of tooth replacement, and while it is not readily covered by most medical aids, there are a few that do cover it and we will check in to see if it is covered. However, Family Dental Care offers convenient payment plans for your treatment.
There are two types of implants that you can have done:
- Endosteal implants— these are surgically implanted directly into the jawbone. Once the surrounding gum tissue has healed, a second surgery is needed to connect a post to the original implant. Finally, an artificial tooth (or teeth) is attached to the post-individually, or grouped on a bridge or denture.
- Subperiosteal implants— these consist of a metal frame that is fitted onto the jawbone just below the gum tissue. As the gums heal, the frame becomes fixed to the jawbone. Posts, which are attached to the frame, protrude through the gums. As with endosteal implants, artificial teeth are then mounted to the posts.
What Are the Costs Involved in Getting Dental Implants?
There are a number of different factors that affect the cost of the dental implant procedure. This is dependent on whether other procedures are required in order to place the implant successfully. Typically, the costs of an implant from start to finish would be anything from R14 000 upwards depending on these factors.
Are you a candidate?
Contact us now for a free implant consultation at our Queensburgh, Linkhills and La Lucia branches and we will let you know whether dental implants is the procedure you will require.
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