After your implant placement surgery, you should pay close attention to your
new teeth and how they feel. If you suddenly notice constant pain or another
worrisome symptom,
call
Park City Dentistry immediately for treatment.
Dr. Calderwood
is a Fellow of ICOI (International Congress of Oral Implantologists) and has
years of training and experience working with implants; he can quickly get
to the bottom of your implant-related pain and find a solution that will
ultimately leave you grinning again.
Why Choose Park City Dentistry for Dental Implant Salvage?
- ICOI Fellow with Extensive Experience
- Efficient Care with State-of-the-Art Technology
- Sedation Available for Any Procedure
Why Do Dental Implants Fail?
Dental implant problems are quite rare, but sometimes they can come loose,
crack, or even fall off altogether. These issues may mean that
osseointegration – the natural process of the jawbone joining with the
titanium posts – either wasn’t properly completed or
didn’t occur at all. In other cases, gum disease or another infection
could have caused the bone to deteriorate, causing the implant to become
unstable. And of course, there’s always the chance that implants will
break if you suddenly get hit in the mouth.
The above complications could arise shortly after you receive your implants.
However, sometimes a problem won’t occur until years after the initial
surgery. Either way, you’ll need to act quickly if you notice anything
wrong with your implants.
What are the Symptoms of Failed Dental Implants?
-
Movement of the Implant Posts: Because of the way
implants join with the jawbone, they should not feel loose or move at all.
If they wiggle or shift even slightly when you touch them, it likely means
that osseointegration has failed and bone loss has occurred.
-
Difficulty Chewing: Once your mouth has fully healed,
implants allow you to eat all kinds of foods. However, a failed implant
will generally make it harder to chew, and you might struggle with meals
that didn’t present any kind of problems in the past.
-
Inflamed, Swollen, or Bleeding Gums: Peri-implantitis is
a specific form of gum disease that is responsible for many different
implant complications. Gum tissue that looks redder or more swollen than
usual could be infected. They might also bleed more easily whenever you
brush or floss.
-
Severe Pain or Discomfort: Pain that goes beyond the
normal levels of discomfort that you’d normally expect during
recover should be taken as a sign that something is wrong. This is
especially true if it occurs long after your mouth should have healed.
How Does Dental Implant Salvage Work?
The salvage process depends on what part of the implant needs to be
repaired. If only the restoration (the artificial tooth) was broken, it can
simply be repaired or replaced. This type of complication is the easiest to
deal with since it doesn’t involve any sort of invasive treatment.
However, if the implant post itself was damaged or has failed to join with
the jaw, a more in-depth treatment is needed. After we examine your mouth
and diagnose the problem, Dr. Calderwood will carefully remove the implant
post from your mouth. At that point, you might receive a bone graft to add
density to the jaw and prevent further bone loss. Gum disease therapy might
also be required if peri-implantitis did occur. These treatments typically
take time to complete, but once your mouth has fully healed, we can restart
the process with new implants.