Dental Implants: Stains, Whitenings and Other Considerations
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Dental Implants: Stains, Whitenings and Other Considerations

Dental implants can make a smile look fabulous – I know I have them. However, if you are just thinking about getting them, you may have a lot of questions. You may be wondering how smoking affects implants, whether or not wine will stain them, if they can be whitened or other concerns. I also know from experience that it can be intimidating to ask some of these questions to your dentist. In my dental implant blog, I am going to answer the questions that can be hard to ask. I hope you find the info you need in this blog and that it guides you to the right decision about dental implants. Thanks for reading!

Dental Implants: Stains, Whitenings and Other Considerations

Replacing Multiple Teeth With Implants: How Many Posts Do You Need?

Isobel Berry

During the implant process, your dentist places a strong metal post in your jawbone that then supports a false tooth, making it look about as close to a fixed, natural tooth as you can get. While you may assume that implants work on a one post per tooth basis, your dentist may also talk to you about using implants to create a kind of fixed denture if you need to have multiple teeth replaced.

Great as this sounds as a solution, you may be a little worried about how many posts you'll have to have put in to get the fixed false teeth you want. How many posts do you need to support multiple implant teeth?

Replacing Two or Three Teeth

The route to replacing multiple teeth with implants tends to be based on whether the teeth are next to each other or not. For example, if you have two or three teeth that need replacing that are dotted around in different areas of your mouth, then you're likely to need a post for each tooth.

In some cases, adjacent teeth can be supported by fewer posts than you might expect. For example, you may be able to use one implant post to support two teeth that are next to each other. Here, the post supports one tooth as normal but also acts as a connecting bridge for the next tooth, which is often attached to the first one. An adjacent set of three teeth may also suit a bridging implant — here you'd have two posts inserted (one at each end) with the middle tooth bridged between them without a post of its own.

Replacing a Whole Arch

While the traditional way to replace a whole arch (the top or bottom set of teeth) used to be to have all your teeth taken out and replaced with dentures, it's now possible to use implants instead. This doesn't mean that you need to have a load of implant posts inserted to cover each individual tooth you'll have removed, however. Stronger implant metals and new implant techniques, like the All-on-4 treatment, enable dentists to use just four implant posts to support false teeth that cover the whole arch.

If you are considering replacing multiple teeth with implants, then talk to your dentist about how many implant posts you'll need and where they'll ideally be located. This will, of course, depend on how many teeth you want removed and where they are located in your mouth; however, you may be able to sort out multiple gaps with just a few implants. For more information, contact local professionals like those found at Emergency Denture Repairs.


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