Dental Implant Years After Extraction
In the presence of fractured teeth, or fractured teeth with infection, sometimes, the only option available to us is extraction. While it may be scary to hear that you will be missing a tooth, rest assured that it is possible to extract any problematic teeth and replace them the same day with one or more implants. Besides the aesthetic inconvenience, it is not advisable to leave your tooth or teeth missing. For health reasons. It must be replaced.
A missing or very damaged tooth encourages chewing on the other side. This unbalances the jaw. More serious, it leaves a space that the other teeth tend to occupy. Result: the tooth that faces the missing tooth, on the opposite jaw, in the long run, comes loose. As for the others in the same row, they can also change places and become destabilized. It can also make them more vulnerable to cavities. Thus, we recommend that you replace a missing tooth after extraction or loss as soon as possible. The only current contraindication to this is if you have an infection and, in this case, only an extraction followed by curettage of the socket is necessary and a healing period of 6 weeks will be necessary before placing an implant. But what happens if it has been years since you lost a tooth, or it was extracted? Can you still have the tooth replaced with an implant? The short answer is yes, you can still have a tooth replaced with an implant, providing that your jawbone has enough volume in order to host the implant.
What is the ideal time between the time of implant placement and the date of extraction?
To be perfectly osseointegrated, or fixed to the bone, an implant must be able to rely on a sufficient bone volume in terms of quality and quantity. In patients with a large bone volume, it is not uncommon to be able to place implants several years after extractions, but for the majority of patients, extractions lead to irreversible bone loss which must be compensated if the implant option is chosen. This bone loss is fixed with a bone graft made of either complementary human bone (patient's bone) or animal (bovine bone). This additional bone supply may be considered several months before implant placement if the bone defect is significant or on the same day of placement in the event of moderate bone loss. Ideally, it is preferable to place the implant as soon as possible.
The advantages of placing the implant right away:
- It is time-saving
- It promotes the preservation of soft tissue (gum) and hard tissue (bone)
- It promotes the preservation of the gingival architecture (absence of the collapse of the pink gingival papillae around the future teeth)
- Placement right away prevents the melting of fine bone walls which they are absorbed and disappear very quickly if nothing is put in the bone after extraction.
- The absence of wearing a removable device which, if it is not well designed, can by compressing the gums weaken the underlying bone. In addition, this transient prosthesis is often very poorly accepted by our patients because it is often too bulky
Do not let the fact that it has been a while since you lost your tooth dissuade you from going to your dentist and talking about your options for implants or other tooth replacement options.