Are you sure you can’t have dental implants?

The world of dental implant research and development is fast moving and it can take a while for the latest knowledge to trickle down to dentists who do not offer dental implants themselves.

Maybe your dentist has taken one look at your jawbone and told you can’t have dental implants in Ealing because you don’t have enough bone left to support them. Have you been for a second opinion? It is all too easy to just accept what your general dentist says and find yourself caught in a life of soft food and wobbly dentures as a result.

What causes bone loss?

The jawbone needs to know it is in use in order to renew itself. It knows this from the vibrations that come down through the tooth roots each time the teeth meet together in biting, chewing, talking, laughing and all those unconscious impacts that go on all day, every day. The tremors signal to the bone cells to renew themselves. When those tremors cease, as they do when lost teeth are replaced with either dentures or fixed bridges, the bone in the area around the lost root actually starts to dissolve itself, losing up to 25% of its size and density in the first year after tooth loss. In the upper jaw, this can also mean that the sinus cavities get much larger, making it even harder to find enough dense bone to anchor the implants into.

Zygomatic implants

And yet there is a good chance that you can have dental implants in Ealing even with a jawbone that is less than perfect. Here at Ikon Dental Suite, our implant dentist, Richard Brookshaw, is one of only a handful of dentists who has the skills and experience necessary for replacing lost teeth with extra-long zygomatic dental implants in Ealing. These are used in cases of extreme bone loss. They go through the upper jawbone and anchor into the dense cheekbone above.

Richard Brookshaw has placed more than 5,000 dental implants since he completed training in dental implant placement back in 2001. He also works as an international lecturer in dental implant surgery and as a mentor for new implant surgeons.

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