Dental Implants – Lake Nona, FL

Firstly, you’ll come to our office to undergo an initial consultation with our team, which will involve us taking X-rays of your mouth to help us determine whether you’re a good candidate for the procedure. If you are, we’ll create a treatment plan and walk you through it so you know what to expect throughout the rest of the process, including a cost estimate for the procedure.

Patients sometimes may not currently be eligible for the treatment and might require preliminary services to prepare their mouths, such as bone grafting, gum disease treatment, or even tooth extractions. Once you’ve properly recovered from any initial procedures, we can move forward with mapping out the process for placing your new pearly whites.

Once you arrive for your appointment and are in the dentist's chair, our team will first completely numb your mouth with a local anesthetic so that you’re pain-free throughout your procedure. We’ll likely also provide you with sedation dentistry so that you can remain as relaxed as possible while undergoing your dental treatment.

After confirming that you’re comfortable, we’ll begin by making a tiny incision in your gums to get to your jawbone, where we’ll strategically place your dental implants at their preplanned locations and angles. Once this is finished, we’ll suture your gums closed around the posts and place protective caps over them so they can remain safe while you recover.

The next several months will be crucial for the success of your dental implant treatment. The metal posts will need to fuse with your jawbone through a process known as osseointegration, which will develop the stable foundation needed for your restorations to remain for decades to come. After you’ve recovered completely, you’ll receive your metal abutments, which are the small connector pieces that link your dental implants to your brand-new teeth.

Once your gums have healed from placing your abutments, you’ll return to our office to receive your final restoration. Our team will place your new crown, bridge, or denture and confirm that your bite is as it should be. We’ll also verify that the results are to your satisfaction before sending you on your way to enjoy your full smile again!

• Natural-Looking Results: Due to advanced dental technology and custom-designed porcelain restorations, dental implants can perfectly mimic natural teeth. Most people won’t even be able to tell the difference.
• Improved Bite: While dentures and dental bridges typically come with certain food restrictions, dental implants can allow you to eat almost all of your favorite meals without having to worry about your teeth shifting out of place.
• Simple Maintenance: Since dental implants serve as new tooth roots, you’ll simply need to brush, floss, and rinse your new pearly whites as you do with natural ones.

• Preserve Existing Teeth: Dental implants are embedded directly into the jawbone, meaning you won’t need to rely on other natural teeth for support. The metal posts also serve as placeholders and promote bone growth, meaning your other teeth won’t be at risk of moving out of place.
• Comprehensive Treatment: The metal posts will act as new tooth roots, stimulating the jawbone for healthy bone growth and structure. This can help maintain a sturdy foundation for your teeth as well as promote a more youthful facial appearance.
• Comfortable Restoration: While those with dentures or dental bridges can sometimes experience discomforts like gum sores or tooth sensitivity, patients who opt for dental implants often feel so comfortable with their restorations that it’s easy to forget they even have them in.

• Reliable Solution: Dental implants often come with a success rate of 95% or more. If placed by an experienced dentist, this treatment has been proven to have the same success even 10 years after having them placed.
• Long-Lasting Results: Dental bridges and dentures typically go for 10 years or more before needing to replace them. Dental implants, on the other hand, can easily last several decades to even the rest of your life with simple dental care. This also means you won’t need to replace your restorations as often, allowing you to save more money in the long run!

Recovering from dental implant surgery may sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be! The most important you must do is ensure the forming blood clot on your surgery site remains completely untouched so the gums can heal properly. That said, you should avoid:

• Spitting (use tissues or swallow your saliva)
• Drinking from straws
• Smoking
• Touching the surgical site with your fingers or tongue

If you’ve never had oral surgery, you may not know which symptoms are normal and which ones you should be concerned about. While you’re expected to feel some discomfort, it should gradually disappear over time. If that’s ever not the case, don’t hesitate to contact our office for help.

Here are some common side effects you can expect in the first few days following dental implant placement:

• Intermittent Bleeding – Although this can last multiple days, you can alleviate it with gauze and light pressure.
• Swelling – This may last over a week, but you can help it go down more quickly by applying a cold compress to your cheek or jaw for 10 minutes at a time.
• General Discomfort – You can ease your discomfort by taking prescribed or over-the-counter pain medication as needed.

For the first few days following dental implant surgery, it’s strongly recommended that you stick to a soft-food diet. Before your procedure, you should stock up on foods like:

• Mashed potatoes
• Yogurt
• Pudding
• Ice cream
• Scrambled eggs
• Pasta

You can return to your usual diet as soon as you feel up for it. Of course, we encourage you to avoid crunchy, tough, chewy foods and chewing directly on the implant site.

After dental implant surgery, you must keep your mouth as clean as possible. It’s essential to ensure your implants successfully integrate with your jawbone. While you can brush your teeth as you normally would the day after your procedure, you should be extremely careful near the surgical site. Make sure you rinse your mouth two to three times a day with salt water, ideally after meals. Use prescription mouthwash if you have it. Otherwise, avoid using any brands with high levels of alcohol like Scope or Listerine.

Once you’re all healed up, you’re ready for the final step of the dental implant process – the attachment of your new teeth! You may experience mild sensitivity after your crown, bridge, or denture is placed, but it should be easily manageable with pain medication. After your appointment, you’ll be ready to make the most out of your fully restored smile!

It’s true that your dental implants can’t get cavities, but that doesn’t mean you can slack off on your oral hygiene. Problems like gum disease can still lead to implant failure. That said, you must establish a solid at-home dental care routine to keep your smile in optimal condition. Brushing your teeth twice a day, flossing daily, and rinsing with an ADA-approved mouthwash are excellent ways to keep harmful bacteria from attacking your soft oral tissues and causing potential tooth and bone loss.

Once your dental implants are firmly in place, you’ll regain the ability to eat all your favorite foods once again! That means it’ll be easier than ever to follow a nutritious diet. However, overindulging in hard, sticky, sugar, starchy, and highly processed foods can be problematic for your implants. Make sure you eat lots of fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, dairy, and lean proteins! Foods that are rich in calcium and vitamin C, in particular, are crucial to keeping your jawbone strong and gum tissues healthy.

Smoking, biting your fingernails, using your teeth as tools, chewing on pens – are you guilty of any of these bad habits? Not only can they destroy your tooth enamel, but they can be detrimental to your implants as well. Do your smile a favor and kick these bad habits to the curb! It’s a good idea to keep some sugar-free gum in your pocket just in case you ever feel tempted to chew on your nails or a pencil. If you need help quitting smoking, our team will gladly provide you with resources, guidance, and support.

Dental implants are certainly strong, but they’re not indestructible. If you enjoy playing sports or mindlessly grind your teeth at night, you should ask about a custom-made mouthguard. It’ll protect your natural pearly whites and dental implants against any potential damage. Plus, you can avoid chronic jaw pain that can lead to temporomandibular joint disorder.

Aside from brushing and flossing, you must visit us every six months for a checkup and cleaning to ensure there are no problems with your smile. We’ll monitor your dental implants, conduct an oral examination, and check for any developing issues to catch them before they progress. By addressing problems early on, you can avoid needing more extensive and costly procedures down the line.

Depending on what treatments you may need beforehand, your costs could be higher or lower. For example, if you need preliminary treatments to resolve existing dental issues, such as gum disease or tooth decay, this will increase your costs. The same applies for bone grafting to expand available bone tissue. Because we perform all phases of care in-house, you can expect the fees for your surgery, anesthetic, implant, and restoration to be more compact and convenient. You won’t need to worry about separate fees from an offsite oral surgeon. We’ll make sure you’re aware of the total costs of your care upfront.

The more implants you need to restore your smile, the higher your costs will be. This is by far the most influential factor in determining your final price tag. Dental implants use medical-grade titanium to replace the roots of teeth, but they can still come from different manufacturers. If you have questions about the implants we use, feel free to let us know and we’ll be happy to go over it with you one-on-one.

More complex tooth replacement cases require more comprehensive restorations. On top of being made with lifelike materials, including dental ceramic, we design highly customized crowns, bridges, and dentures specifically to attach to dental implants. Larger restorations need more time, materials, and labor to fabricate, resulting in higher costs. A single crown won’t cost nearly as much as an implant denture designed to replace an entire arch of teeth.

In most cases, dental insurance won’t cover the cost of dental implant treatment. Depending on the coverage within your plan, you may be able to get your insurer to pay for at least a portion of your dental implant treatment, including preliminary services or the restoration that covers the implant. Our team will gladly review the details of your plan to ensure you’re maximizing benefits to the fullest.

There are other financial options available to you if you don’t have dental insurance or can’t afford to cover your costs out-of-pocket. Lake Nona Dental Group partners with several third-party financing solutions to make paying for dental services more manageable, including CareCredit, LendingClub, and Proceed Finance. These services let you pay for dental care in monthly installments over an extended period of time, typically with little to no interest attached. Alternatively, you can sign up for our patient membership plan to save on preventive treatments and receive discounts on services provided in-house.

It’s incredibly common for the jawbone to deteriorate after tooth loss, mainly because there are no roots to stimulate blood flow. As a result, the jawbone is weakened and unable to support dental implants. There must be a solid foundation before dental implants are placed to ensure the procedure is successful.

During your consultation, our team will examine your jawbone to determine whether or not it’s in good shape. If there isn’t enough bone to support implants, we’ll recommend bone grafting in Lake Nona. It’ll help strengthen the jaw enough for dental implant placement.

Essentially, the process requires taking bone minerals from another area in your body (or a donor) and placing them into the weakened area of your jawbone. While this process can take several months, it’s necessary for the long-term success of dental implants. Once you’re all healed from the procedure, you can discuss the next step of the process towards a newly rebuilt smile.

Is the problem that your jaw isn’t wide enough to support dental implants? Ridge expansion can help! It’s a common dental procedure that’s performed following a tooth extraction to help recreate the natural contour of the gums and jaw that may have been lost.

For this procedure, the ridge bone is divided, and the inner and outer segments of the bone are wedged apart. This creates a space between the divided sections that can be filled with a bone graft. Gum tissue is placed over the socket and secured with sutures to complete the process. Once you’ve healed, you’re ready to move forward with dental implant placement.  

A traditional digital X-ray captures useful images of the jawbone and teeth that can be used for many different things. However, they do not provide the level of detail needed to plan a successful dental implant procedure. That’s where a CT scan comes in to save the day! At Lake Nona Dental Group, we use a Sirona 3D imaging system to produce highly detailed, three-dimensional images of a patient’s bone, teeth, nerves, and connective tissues. It allows for extremely precise dental implant placement. Best of all, the scanning process is quick, non-invasive, and completely painless!

An Orthopantomograph® OP300 Maxio is an advanced panoramic, cephalometric, and 3D extraoral imaging system. Essentially, it’s a combination of advanced panoramic imaging and 3D cone beam technology. It offers precise and agile 3D imaging for highly accurate and convenient treatment planning. By using it, our team can place dental implants faster and more accurately than ever before. The machine is fast and doesn’t require uncomfortable positioning, ensuring patients get a comfortable and convenient experience.