Many patients of Murcia capital and other parts of the world are increasingly undergoing treatment to restore their missing teeth through long-term dental prostheses, overcoming the fear of surgery to implant medical titanium screws into the bone of their maxilla or mandible.
Fear of the unknown is one of the biggest factors of rejection when it comes to making a decision. In this post we are going to briefly describe what this type of treatment consists of in order to bring it closer to those people who are thinking of replacing some of their teeth using this technique.
It is a procedure performed under local anaesthesia, so that there is no pain during the intervention, nor during the postoperative period, as a controlled excision is performed, so that with adequate pharmacological treatment, discomfort is minimal when the procedure is over.
The steps to place a dental implant are as follows:
1- Diagnosis, study and planning, which usually requires radiological tests in three dimensions (iCAT type).
2- Preparation of a sterile field, important to ensure that the working area is free of contamination.
3- Relaxation of the patient, using sedation with drugs or nitrous oxide when necessary, in those cases in which the patient is not sedated. clinics that have light sedation technologies available
4- Anaesthesia of the area to be treated, by means of a small puncture that can be concealed by applying a cold spray or an anaesthetic gel beforehand.
5- Preparation of the recipient site:
- Minimally invasive incision, so that in many cases there is no need for stitches after the procedure is completed.
- Preparation of the implant bed (a small hole in the bone under the gum), following a standardised drilling protocol at low revolutions, depending on the type of implant and its dimensions, minimising bone trauma.
- Radiological monitoring during and after implant placement
- Placement of a temporary prosthesis or a temporary healing abutment to create a gum 'chimney' through which the future prosthesis will exit, whenever possible, eliminating a second operation.
- Stitches, where necessary
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Once the implant has been placed, it must heal. The process will last 3 months in the mandible and 4 months in the maxilla, this being the ideal system to improve the success rate of the osseointegration of the implant, although the prosthesis can also be placed on the implant immediately.
In this regard, it should be noted that dental implants are attached to the bone through a physiological process called osseointegration. Osseointegration was discovered by Dr. Brânemark and consists of "a process in which a rigid fixation of alloplastic material, clinically asymptomatic, is achieved and maintained in bone during functional loading"(Zarb GA, Albrektsson T. Osseointegration: a requiem for the periodontal ligament? Int J Periodont Rest Dent.1991;11:88-91), and a similar phenomenon is often found in cases of titanium prostheses implanted in other parts of the body, such as the knee or hip.
The planning of the process depends on several factors, such as:
1.- Quantity and quality of bone
2.- Amount of masticatory gingivae
3.- Number of implants
4.- Location
5.- Aesthetic importance
6.- Linked to the patient: openness, illnesses, habits...
So, in such a situation, the important thing to do is to turn to experienced professionals in implantology and prosthetic rehabilitation who know how to plan a case properly in order to achieve the best results, without the patient having to feel any discomfort during the whole process of enjoying their teeth again so that they can chew as they did years ago and smile at every moment of their lives.