Dental Implant Aftercare – Virginia Beach, VA
Make Your New Teeth Last
Dental implants let you enjoy beautiful prosthetic teeth that let you eat virtually anything you want and allow you to continue speaking clearly. Once you’ve gotten used to them, you’ll never want to give them up – and you won’t have to, as long as you take good care of them! If you follow your Lakeshore Dental dentist’s instructions for cleaning and protecting your dental implants in Virginia Beach, you can look forward to enjoying your newly repaired grin for years to come.
Make Oral Hygiene a Priority
Of course, a false tooth can’t have a cavity, but the soft oral tissues that surround your dental implant can still get infected. Gum disease is a major cause of early and later dental implant failure, so it needs to be avoided at all costs.
To keep the area around your implants free of disease, be sure to always:
- Clean your teeth at least twice a day using a soft-bristle toothbrush. Make sure that you get the gumline as well as the area under and around the implant crown. Look for low-abrasive toothpaste that also has tartar control; avoid high-abrasive toothpastes that could scratch the crown.
- Floss daily (or alternatively, whenever you brush) with a piece of unwaxed tape or a brand designed to be used with implants. You can also clean hard-to-reach places in your mouth with an interdental brush or a water flosser.
- Use a dentist-recommended mouth rinse.
Protect Your Dental Implants
Physical damage is another major cause of dental implant loss, so you should be careful about protecting your mouth. Don’t bite down on hard objects; this can include hard foods like peppermints or ice, but it also extends to pen tips, packages, and fingernails. This can put undue strain on the dental implant posts.
You also need to be careful if you play sports of any kind, especially those that involve a lot of physical contact or carry a high risk of getting hit in the mouth. You should always wear a mouthguard for these types of activities.
Finally, if you grind or clench your teeth (which is very likely if you frequently feel stressed), you risk damaging your dental implant posts. Unfortunately, this often happens while you’re asleep and don’t have a lot of control over your actions. Fortunately, we can solve this problem with a customized nightguard.
Schedule Regular Recall Visits
If you want to keep your dental implants, you can’t forget about your regular checkups at Lakeshore Dental! These visits give us a chance to make sure your implants are still healthy and that there aren’t any oral health issues that need to be addressed. If we find signs of trouble, we can take care of them right away so that they don’t develop into larger issues. This is also a good time for us to give you additional tips for caring for dental implants, in case there are any improvements you could make to your routine at home.