In today's modern dentistry, dental implants are the most established popular and effective method for replacing missing teeth. With more then 96 percent success rates and very high patient satisfaction, its demand are getting higher than ever before.
What is a dental implant?
Dental implants are small titanium or titanium alloy screws that are used to replace the missing teeth. Titanium is the only metal that our body accepts without any complication and allows the bone to form and grow in and around it. Titanium is used for lots of other purposes in our body like repairing any bone fracture with plates and screws, making artificial joints for our body and so on.
How does it work?
Our tooth has two parts -- one is its crown and another part is the root. The root anchors the tooth with the bone and provides the stability, strength and support. The crown is the visible part of the tooth that we can see in the mouth.
Like our tooth, dental implants also have two parts -- one is the screw which goes inside the bone like a root of the tooth and another part is the crown.
When we put the dental implant into the jaw bone, it gets attached with the bone which we call osseointegration. This osseointegrated implant acts as a firm root on top of which we make the artificial crown.
This way it resembles every way a normal natural tooth and it also works like a normal tooth. That is why now it is said that dental implants are the closest thing to our natural tooth.
Who need dental implants?
Any body who has missing tooth can have dental implants. Although there are lots of options to replace missing teeth like bridge, denture etc, but now dental implants are considered as the best possible option for replacing any missing teeth, because it is almost like getting your natural tooth back.
What about those who have no teeth at all?
People who have no teeth use big bulky complete dentures, and more often keeping these dentures in mouth is more difficult.
Dental implants are like blessings for these patients. They are more stable and much smaller in size which gives much more comfortable feeling. The patients who previously could eat only a softer kind of diet with those bulky dentures can happily go back to their normal regular diet with an implant retained complete denture.
Is it costly?
Yes, it is costly because titanium is very precious metal and titanium implant itself is very expensive but still it is affordable. After all, you must think, what can be more precious than your nice beautiful smile and a healthy life.
Where can you find this treatment?
Among the nearby countries, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong can provide very good quality dental implant treatment. Using the Singapore's technical assistance and lab support, recently Apollo Hospital, Dhaka also has started dental implant treatment.
The writer works at National University Hospital, Singapore. E-mail: [email protected]. Website http://idcbangladesh.googlepages.com