Since dental implants in Cameron Park are an investment in your smile, you’ll want to get the most out of them. With proper care and maintenance, your brand-new smile can last a lifetime. For this reason, it’s best to learn about the bad habits that can cause damage to your artificial teeth.
The Worst Things You Can Do to Your Dental Implants
Smoking
While smoking tobacco is bad for your teeth, it’s even worse for your dental implants. Besides increasing your risk of gum disease, smoking can also inhibit bone growth and binding with the implants. Unless a smoker decides to quit smoking, they’re twice more likely to experience implant failure.
Using Your Teeth as Tools
Although your teeth are excellent for tearing and grinding food into swallowable bits, you shouldn’t use them for other purposes. When you use them to tear into a bag of chips, open bottles, and crack open nuts, you subject them to abuse that weakens your dental implants.
If you don’t change your ways, these pulling and twisting forces will eventually cause damage to your crowns, loosen your implants, and increase your risk of infection.
Biting on Non-Foods
Do you have a habit of biting your fingernails and chewing on pencils, toothpicks, and straws? Besides causing damage to the bones around the dental implants, chewing on these items will also loosen your new teeth and even lead to implant failure over time. While your dental implants are made of durable materials, they’re not designed for chewing metal, plastic, and hard tissues such as fingernails.
Forgetting to Brush and Floss
Although dental implants don’t get cavities, this doesn’t mean that you should stop brushing and flossing them. Unless you’re on top of your oral hygiene, you won’t get rid of the sticky film of bacteria called plaque that builds up on your teeth. While brushing removes plaque from the front and back surfaces of your teeth, flossing allows you to eliminate plaque that’s caught between them and around your gum line.
Without regular brushing and flossing, plaque buildup can lead to gum disease. Since gum disease is one of the leading causes of dental implant failure, be sure to keep your mouth clean.
Skipping Your Dental Appointments
If you think that regular brushing and flossing is enough to keep your oral health in tiptop shape, think again. Tartar can still develop on the teeth of the most diligent brushers and flossers. When the tartar accumulates for long periods, these hard deposits will shelter oral bacteria that cause tooth decay and gum disease.
Since gum disease weakens the gum and bone tissues that support your implants, the condition increases your risk of dental implant failure. The good news is that with regular professional dental cleanings, your dentist can help you get rid of these deposits so you can keep the gums around your implants healthy.
If you want to make your brand-new smile last for many years to come, be sure to get your teeth professionally cleaned every six months.
Are You Considering Dental Implants in Cameron Park?
The dedicated team of dental experts at Forest Ridge Dental Group is here to offer you and your family the highest level of care and a great experience at the dentist. Your comfort and satisfaction are our priorities. Contact our office today to make an appointment.
