Single Tooth Implant

Missing one or two teeth? You’re not alone! 

Loosing or damaging your teeth can be a frightening experience. In modern society, an attractive, natural looking smile is seen as a symbol of beauty and health. Half of the world’s population is missing one or more teeth. There are many different reasons for this such as an accident, illness or insufficient care.

Does one missing tooth matter? 

Absolutely does. There’s a misconception that loosing a tooth at the back is OK as there are still many other teeth you can can use to chew and no one can see it. However, if you loose a tooth in the back of your mouth, this has an effect on surrounding teeth.

Through the lack of stability, neighbouring teeth are left without support and they start drifting and can even collapse. Teeth in the opposing jaw can grow into the gap as well and you start experiencing tooth sensitivity on the overgrown tooth.

Single Tooth Implants can help

A single tooth implant is the most common case of tooth replacement. Often done in as little as two appointments, the procedure is fairly straight forward and comfortable. These are the various reasons to get a single tooth implant:

Broken Teeth

The most typical situation for a single tooth implant is when you break your tooth. In these situations it’s preferable to extract the tooth and place the implant into the socket at the same time. This will allow for a quicker treatment as we won’t need to wait for healing of your bone prior to placement. Also, we avoid doing two surgical interventions which saves time and post operative recovery.

After placing an implant there’s usually a healing period of 3 to 6 months before we place a crown, particularly with single teeth implant cases as we can’t put load on it or we could risk a failure of the implant. If you break your front teeth we can always help with a bonded bridge or removable plate to give you a tooth while we’re waiting for the implant integration to the bone.

Loose Teeth

The main cause for loose teeth is Gum Disease which is when bacteria destroys the supporting bone around the teeth thus leading to reduce stability. Although we can use dental implants to replace these teeth care needs to be taken as gum disease can also attack implants so it’s important that we address the gum problem first and then discuss replacement options.

Congenitally Missing Teeth

Some people are born without adult teeth and it can sometimes happen right at the front. In these cases implants can be a great way to replace these teeth and give you your smile back. It’s important to note that implants cannot be used for children under the age of 18 because there’s not enough bone and gums maturity and teeth could still be moving a bit. Since implants are completely fused to the bone it wouldn’t allow for the natural movement of the natural dentition. But there are ways we can replace the teeth temporarily while we wait for an older age.

Screw Retained Crowns

This term refers to the ceramic crowns that are placed after the titanium implant is healed. At Proud Smile we’ll always favour crowns that we can actually screw onto the implant for various reasons:

• Ease of fabrication and insertion
• No excess cement which could cause gum irritation
• Full retrievability in case any repairs on the crown need to be carried out 
• Easy maintenance as tooth can be removed and placed back at any time