If you have had a tons of trouble with some of your teeth, then you may have to have them pulled, which will leave you with at least a few missing teeth. While missing teeth may not seem like a big deal at first, if you don't replace those missing teeth, you might experience issues with chewing, bone loss, and teeth shifting. One suggestion that your dentist may have to help restore your smile is dental implants.
To ensure that your dental implants take and that you don't get any sort of infection in the process, there are a few things that you can do to fully prepare.
Step 1: Fast Before
If your dentist is going to be using general anesthesia for your dental implant procedure, then you will have to fast for about 12 hours beforehand. Anesthesia can upset the stomach, and the last thing that a dentist wants is for you to get sick while under anesthesia because you could choke on your vomit in the process.
Step 2: Get a Comprehensive Dental Exam
While your dentist should do a comprehensive dental exam to initially determine your eligibility for dental implants, they should do a follow-up exam right before your implant surgery just to make sure that your mouth, your jawbone, and the rest of your teeth are ready for surgery. If your dentist suspects that you have a lot of bone loss in your mouth, then your dental implants may not stick, which means that you may not be a good candidate for them at all.
Step 3: Arrange Care for Afterwards
If you are the parent of young children or if your children require you to shuffle them around from activity to activity, then you will definitely want to plan accordingly for the day of your procedure to have someone take care of them for you. While you will be able to do things like feed yourself and walk around, you should try to take the day off and spend it in bed so that your mouth can fully heal.
Another thing you will want to do is eat foods that are easy to chew so that you don't cause any damage to the implant site. Also, try to refrain from any sort of exercise for the first few days after surgery because it could cause extreme bleeding or lead to an infection.
To learn more about dental implants, reach out to a dentist in your area today.
