Before and After Care of Dental Implants in Birmingham

Helping to ensure a successful outcome for your dental implant procedure.

Whether you are planning to have an individual dental implant or to have them placed as part of the all on 4 procedure, there are a number of things that the patient can do to help guarantee a successful outcome.

Of course, dental implants have an extremely high success rate anyway as can be attested by the number of patients at our Birmingham dental implant clinic who have had them placed successfully. This, however, does not mean that you should not implement guidance which will increase the chances of success even further.

Prior to the Procedure

Once you have had your consultation at Arthur House Dental Care in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham and it has been decided between our dentist and yourself that the best option for you is a dental implant, a number of factors come into play which will help to ensure that the implant is strong and healthy.

General Health – good health typically means that the healing of the site of the implant placement will be quicker and more effective. Because blood moves to an ‘injured’ area to heal, having good circulation will help. This does not mean that you have to run marathons but just general light exercise can help to keep you in good shape.

Smoking – ideally, you should not smoke at all and you will not need us to advise why for any number of reasons. From a dental perspective though, smoking restricts the narrow blood vessels which allow blood to flow to the area of the implant and also increases the chances of gum disease occurring. Because gum disease can threaten the dental implant and cause it to fail in some cases, we always insist that our patients stop smoking for, at the very least, a defined period of time either side of the implant procedure.

Alcohol – alcohol can adversely affect dental implants in a similar way to smoking. Heavy drinking especially can cause general poor health and the dry mouth that it invariably causes provides the right environment for the bacteria which cause gum disease. The occasional drink should not be a problem although we would suggest that you abstain anyway for a short period of time before and after the implant procedure.

After the Dental Implant Procedure

Assuming that your dental implant has been placed successfully, how can you ensure that it remains to be so? Firstly, the same advice as before applies to abstaining from smoking and heavy drinking, but you now also have the issue of cleaning your implant.

Immediate care – for the first few days after the implant has been placed you should naturally avoid hard foods but also very hot or cold drinks. You should also avoid ‘poking’ the implant with your fingers or tongue. If you have been given antibiotics, also please ensure that you finish the course.

Intermediate and long term care – after the initial period when the wound has healed a little, one of the main focuses should be on the cleaning of the implant. We will discuss the best method of doing this at our Birmingham dental practice once the procedure has been completed.  We strongly recommend that the advice is followed as gum disease is a continual challenge and, in some cases, can threaten the integrity of your dental implant.

For more information about implants, or any other aspect of treatment at our Birmingham dentists, please call us on 0121 323 4492.