Dental Implants — St. Augustine, FL

Initial Dental Implant Consultation

At the beginning of the process, you will undergo an initial consultation with our team. This appointment will involve a thorough examination of your mouth and oral health to determine if dental implants would be a viable solution for rebuilding your missing teeth. In some instances, patients may need preliminary treatments to prepare their mouths for the procedure, such as gum disease treatment, bone grafting, or even tooth extraction if necessary. Once we’ve ensured that your jawbone density is sufficient and your gums are healthy, we can move forward with the surgical portion of the process.

Dental Implant Surgery

As mentioned before, you won’t have to visit a separate location to undergo your treatment; our team can perform the entire procedure in the office from start to finish. This means you can receive care from a dentist and team you already know and trust, and you won’t have to worry about traveling across town either.

At the start of your appointment, we’ll numb your mouth with a local anesthetic so that you don’t experience any pain or discomfort during your procedure. Your dentist will then make small incisions in your gum line where they’ll embed the implants in the jawbone. We’ll suture the gums closed around them and place protective caps to keep them safe while you heal.

Dental Implant Osseointegration & Abutment

Your recovery period will be necessary for your dental implants to undergo osseointegration—a process where the metal posts fuse with the jawbone tissue and become part of your facial structure. This will create a natural-feeling foundation that will make your restorations feel and function like normal pearly whites. This process should take around three to six months depending on your oral health and how well you take care of the surgical site(s). Once you’ve healed, you’ll return to our office to receive your abutments and we’ll take impressions of your smile to fabricate your final restorations/prosthetics.

Delivery of Dental Implant Restoration(s)

After your gums have healed from receiving your abutments, you’ll come back to us so that we can place your new dental crown, bridge, or denture. Our team will verify that your new teeth fit perfectly and that your bite is correct, and we’ll make any minor adjustments if necessary. If you’re satisfied with your results, you’ll be free to enjoy your brand-new smile for all the world to see!

Day-to-Day Benefits

Dental implants feel and look just like natural teeth, so you shouldn’t even notice them in your everyday life. Here are some of the benefits that you can experience daily:

• Bite Force: Thanks to the added stability of implants, you can eat whatever you want, including tougher foods.
• Easy Maintenance: Caring for dental implants is just like caring for your natural teeth. Brush twice, floss, and rinse with mouthwash every day.
• Increased Confidence: The prosthetics attached to your implant will be designed to blend in with the rest of your mouth.

Health Benefits

In addition to daily benefits, your health will be positively affected by your dental implants. Here are some health benefits you can look forward to:

• Improved Oral Health: Attaching a bridge to implants instead of natural teeth will let you preserve more of your enamel. Dental implants also help to prevent additional oral health issues from arising, like gum disease and further tooth loss.
• Improved General Health: Having excellent oral health will have a positive influence on your overall health. It even lowers your risk of serious medical issues, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
• Prevents Bone Loss: The stimulation of implants will prevent bone loss, which will help keep your remaining teeth firmly in place.

Long-Term Benefits

When you choose dental implants, you are making an investment in the future of your smile. Here are some benefits you can enjoy for many years to come:

• Long-Lasting: The implant posts can last for decades at a time, and many patients end up keeping them for the rest of their lives.
• Successful: Dental implants have an astonishing success rate of over 95%. Dental implant failure is highly unlikely when the implants are cared for properly.
• Save Money: You don’t need to worry about buying adhesives or soaking solutions for dental implants. You also don’t need to pay for frequent repairs or replacements. Dental implants also reduce your risk of many oral health issues, saving you time, discomfort, and money.

Who Is a Good Candidate for Dental Implants?

Many patients who have lost permanent teeth qualify for this treatment. The basic requirements are that you have a healthy (i.e., infection-free) mouth and enough supportive bone tissue in your jaw. It’s also important that you don’t have any overall health issues that could lead to complications during or after oral surgery, such as unmanaged cardiovascular disease or diabetes. We will recommend that tobacco users start to cut down as well, as smoking or chewing drastically increases the chance of implant failure. During your consultation, we’ll evaluate you to determine whether implants are a good fit. Fortunately, even if you don’t initially qualify for this treatment, you can undergo procedures, like a bone graft or gum disease therapy, which can enable you to get implants later on.

Missing 1 Tooth

Just a single lost tooth can throw off the balance of your bite and lead to further oral health problems. We can fill in a gap with an implant that has a dental crown attached. It will take a few months for the implant to fuse with the jaw; the crown is placed after healing is complete. It will be specially shaped and shaded so that it blends in seamlessly with the rest of the teeth.

Missing Multiple Teeth

Instead of individual implants for every tooth that you’ve lost, a row of three or more teeth can be replaced by a dental bridge that rests on two implants. Unlike traditional bridges, this process won’t require any permanent changes to the healthy teeth that remain in your mouth. Plus, the bridge can be fixed, meaning you won’t have to take it out to clean.

Missing All Teeth

Traditional dentures rest on the gums; because of this, they can start to slip or become ill-fitting once the jaw changes shape. This occurs naturally following tooth loss. Fortunately, dental implants can address both problems at once. It normally takes about four to six implant posts to support a full set of dentures in the upper or lower jaw. Implant dentures are not only smaller but more stable than regular ones, and they also maintain their day-one fit for longer thanks to the bone support provided by the posts. While traditional dentures restore about 20% of a person’s biting force, implant dentures have been shown to bring back about 70%. This makes it easier to chew a wider variety of foods as well as sustain a more nutritious diet.

Preliminary Treatments & Dental Implant Surgery

Obviously, the surgery to place implants in your mouth will have its own cost. (We complete the surgery in-house, so you don’t have to worry about another practice billing you.).

Before the implants can be placed, though, some patients might need gum disease therapy, bone grafts, or some other kind of preliminary treatment meant to help create an environment where dental implants can thrive. Such treatments will have separate costs of their own, but they’ll be well worth it to be able to enjoy your dental implants for decades.

The Parts of Your Dental Implant

Each component that makes up your dental implants will incur its own cost. When making an estimate, we’ll look at:

• The number of implants you need to replace all of your teeth (normally one for a single tooth, two for multiple teeth in a row, and four or more for an entire arch)
• The type of restoration that will be placed on your implant(s) (with small restorations such as crowns carrying a lower cost than larger restorations like dentures)
• The material used to make the implant posts (which is usually titanium)
• The brand of implant used (different manufacturers make implants to accommodate for different patients’ needs, and that ends up influencing the cost)

How Dental Implants Can Pay for Themselves

Dental implants cost more initially than traditional tooth replacements, but if you take good care of them, they’ll end up paying for themselves. They don’t have to be replaced as often as dentures and bridges; in fact, some patients never need to replace them at all. That means spending less money on new teeth and additional appointments over the years. Also, there’s no need to buy any special solutions for implant maintenance, as you can just brush and floss like you’ve always have. In fact, taking care of implants is so simple, they can actually lower your risk for gum disease and other oral health issues that you might have to pay to treat.

Does My Dental Insurance Cover Dental Implants?

This is a question that can only be answered by reviewing your insurance policy. Usually, you’ll find that your plan won’t help pay for the implants themselves, but they may still partially cover the restoration or some of the preliminary treatments. Our team will work with you to find ways to get the absolute most out of your policy.

Making Dental Implants Affordable

Our office is in-network with Humana, and we can take other plans as well. Patients who don’t have insurance can apply for a CareCredit financing plan to break up the cost of dental implants; there’s little to no interest to worry about, and the plan can be used to help pay for treatments that aren’t covered by insurance.

Make Oral Hygiene a Priority

Although your dental implants may not decay or develop an infection, your gums and any remaining teeth you have still can! That’s why it’s so important to commit to good oral hygiene habits at home, starting with brushing your teeth for two full minutes. Since brushing alone only cleans about 60% of the surface of your teeth, make sure that you floss and rinse with mouthwash consistently too.

Eat a Healthy Diet

Eating foods that contain essential vitamins, minerals, and nutrients is important because they ensure your body has everything it needs to keep your bones strong, your enamel healthy, and your gums infection-free. So, make sure that your diet is filled with seasonal fruits, lean proteins, and fresh vegetables. Also, avoid extremely crunchy foods, like hard pretzels and peanut brittle.

Break Bad Habits

Did you know that smoking increases your risk of dental implant failure significantly? That’s why we recommend avoiding all tobacco products; it will increase your odds of having long-lasting implants. Outside of that, don’t bite your nails, chew on ice cubes, use your teeth as tools to open things, or do anything else that has the potential to compromise your dental implants.

Protect Your Dental Implants

If you frequently wake up with a sore jaw and throbbing headache, then you may have Bruxism. Nighttime grinding and clenching may not seem like much of an issue, but the significant pressure that’s placed on your teeth and dental implants can lead to several problems, including noticeable chips and considerable cracks. So, talk to us about having a custom nightguard made!

Schedule Regular Dental Checkups

With routine checkups and cleanings, we can screen for oral cancer, catch (and treat) oral health problems in the early stages, and remove plaque before it accumulates and leads to gum disease. Plus, these visits give us a chance to periodically check the condition of your dental implant and, if we see anything wrong, pinpoint the root of the problem and the best way to address it.

If you have any questions for our St. Augustine dental team about maintaining and caring for your dental implants – whether it’s regarding the products you should be using or technique – don’t hesitate to give us a call so we can provide you with an answer!

What Is the Success Rate of Dental Implants?

Overall, dental implants are very successful. In fact, about 95 percent of dental implants are still successful even 20 years after they were placed. In the cases where the implants failed, it’s usually because the patients didn’t properly maintain the implants, or there was an unknown pre-existing condition that interfered with success. That’s why we take the time beforehand to make sure this treatment is right for you. We also stress the importance of taking care of your dental implants so that they can last for many, many years.

Does Dental Insurance Cover Dental Implants?

It depends. Insurance plans can vary in their specific benefits, but in general most of the cost of dental implants is not covered by insurance. However, the restoration that attaches to the implants may be partially covered, and if you require preliminary procedures, such as gum disease therapy, this work may fall under your plan’s benefits. Our team can double check your insurance and try to find ways of lowering your out-of-pocket costs as much as possible.