Healing And Recovery From A Dental Implant Procedure
How to care for your newly placed dental implants.
Placing a dental implant is a complex procedure and one that requires additional years of training by a dentist to carry out. A well-placed implant from an experienced practitioner should provide you with a strong artificial tooth that can last for twenty years or more, with good care. This is one of the main reasons why we encourage you to use our Epsom dental implant team and not take the risk of cheaper (and perhaps less well regulated) treatments abroad.
While the skills provided by the dentist are essential to have a healthy implant, much of the responsibility for the aftercare rests with the patient. Even a well placed implant can fail if you neglect to look after it correctly. Today’s blog provides patients of the Clocktower Dental, Implant & Facial Centre with some key advice. You should also remember to follow any specific advice that the dentist gives you.
Initial implant aftercare
There will naturally be some soreness after the implant placement and it is wise to plan for this. Any discomfort should be manageable with your usual pain killing medication so make sure to have some of those in. You should also plan to rest for at least 24 hours following the procedure and longer if possible. During this time you should rest as much as you can and avoid doing anything strenuous. This is a good way of getting the healing process off to a solid start.
Food
What you eat following the treatment is key to the health and stability of your newly placed dental implant. As it takes time for the implant to fuse with the bone that it is placed into, patients need to be careful to do nothing to put pressure on the implant. The first dietary step then is to initially consume liquid foods alone. Thin soups etc are suitable for this and it may be wise to either buy a supply in or have the ingredients and a liquidiser at the ready. This period is relatively short but essential. After a while, your dentist will advise you when you are ready to move on to softer foods. These can include mashed potatoes, soft pasta etc. As the implant starts to become bonded with the tooth, you will gradually be able to eat a slightly harder food diet until, after approximately three months or so, you can return to your normal diet when advised by the dentist.
Smoking
This is a definite ‘no go’ area when you have had an implant placed. Smoking greatly increases the risk of gum diseases and infections that could cause the implant to fail. Similarly, heavy alcohol consumption can also have this effect and both of these should be avoided at all costs.
Exercise
While exercise is good for the body and can help the blood to pump around all parts of the body, including around the implant and helping the healing process, you should be careful if you do any exercise. Any exercise that involves jolts to the body, such as running, should be avoided for a while. No exercise at all beyond a gentle walk should be taken for a few days but afterwards, walking on level ground and, gentle swimming is ideal. All contact sports should be avoided such as football, rugby etc.
Cleaning
Care should be taken when cleaning your teeth in the initial stages of your new implant. You will be given detailed advice of how to do this by your dentist and you should follow those instructions to the letter. You won’t be able to use a toothbrush initially and initial cleaning is likely to entail tipping tepid salt water (saline) over the area to help keep it clean. Gradually you will be able to start using a soft toothbrush before returning to normal. It should go without saying too, that you should not ‘poke’ at your new implant (however tempting it might be) with your fingers or even your tongue.
PRGF Endoret – Speeding up recovery times
The above advice is essential to keep your new implant strong and healthy, but we thought this would also be an opportune time to offer some additional professional help. Your local Epsom dentists are able to offer an additional treatment that can help to speed up the healing time following your dental implant procedure. This treatment is called PRGF – Endoret and involves isolating healing proteins which we are able to take from a blood sample from the patient. This is then applied to the wound area and should help to speed up the recovery time. We are happy to discuss the benefits of this additional treatment with you during your consultation process.
The tooth implant procedure may be complex and does require a little patience for a short while afterwards, but once fully bonded with the bone, you will have a strong and stable tooth replacement that will give you many years of life and enable you to eat whatever you want without worrying if your new tooth will withstand it.
For more information about dental implants or PRGF Endoret, why not contact us today? You can call the Clocktower Dental, Implant & Facial Centre on 01372 720136 and we will be able to help you and also book you in for an initial consultation. We look forward to seeing you and helping you begin your new implant journey.