Top 5 Habits You Need To Break To Increase The Success Of Your Dental Implants
Posted on: 6 January 2015
Dental implants are a great choice for people with missing teeth. Implants offer advantages over dentures. But dental implants can be expensive, and there are factors that affect their success. To save yourself money and pain later, there are several habits you need to stop if you're getting dental implants. Here are the top five habits you need to break:
1. Smoking
Smoking directly affects the health of your teeth and gums. Smoking increases the incidence of periodontal disease, which leads to the loss of teeth. This same disease can also lead to dental implant failure. After five years, smokers had twice the dental implant failure rate of nonsmokers.
2. Not Flossing
Periodontal disease is caused by plaque buildup and gingivitis. One of the best treatments for plaque and gingivitis is flossing your teeth. Before getting dental implants you need to get in the habit of flossing every single day. If you don't, you are more likely to develop a peri-implant disease, which is periodontal disease that occurs with implants. This disease can make your dental implants fall out.
3. Teeth Grinding
Grinding your teeth puts immense stress and pressure on your jaw and teeth. You can feel the effects in the morning. Your jaw hurts, and you have a headache. Over time this grinding cracks and wears down your teeth, leading you to need dental implants. Grinding can also affect the long term success of dental implants. Dental implants are similar to real teeth, and can also crack and wear down. Be sure and wear a mouth guard and practice relaxation techniques to help teeth grinding.
4. Munching on ice cubes and popcorn kernels
When you get dental implants, you especially will be tempted to crunch ice cubes and popcorn kernels. After all, implants aren't real teeth, so what does it hurt? Dental implants are made out of material that is similar to that in real teeth. Munching ice cubes can cause real teeth to fracture. And if it can do that to real teeth, it can do that to dental implants. Always make sure to treat your implants like real teeth.
5. Biting your nails
Biting your nails can wear away tooth enamel, and even knock your teeth out of alignment. This habit can also affect the success of dental work, including dental implants. Nail biting can weaken the structure and support of dental implants. If biting your nails is a habit, keep your nails trimmed to avoid the temptation.
The success of your dental implants depends on you. If you have any of these habits, you need to break them for the sake of your dental work as well as your natural teeth. Talk to your dentist, such as Anaheim Dentist, for more information.
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