Dental implants have been a part of dentistry for hundreds of years, but there have been some huge steps that have been taken starting in the early 80s and culminated in incredible evolution and an absolute game changer for patients today! While nothing in the body is 100%, there are a few things that are very important in creating the best success rate possible. At Aesthetic Dentistry of Georgetown, we want to make sure we take the time to stack the deck in your favor!
3D pre-planning for implant success
One of the most important aspects of successful implant care is excellent pre-planning. There is an old adage that you will always be best at doing something right after you have done it. With the addition of 3D ConeBeam CT machine in the planning process, it is possible to digitally place the implant with software and be 100% precise with how you plan out the implant placement. While this is a major advance, there’s more to the story!
Digital impressions before the surgery
Today we can scan the teeth with a camera and create a 100% accurate digital model of teeth and gums. This is a huge leap forward for the comfort of the impressions and has significant benefits in implant surgery. The other incredible feature is that it is a simple matter of some computer time and we can merge the two data files and create a model that we can design surgical guides from. This automates the implant surgery and allows for significantly more carefully planned and executed implant placement. The surgery also tends to go more quickly, and that also improves the outcomes and speeds up healing!
Surgical guides to promote healing
While not every single implant case requires surgical guides, for those cases that do, it is an incredible tool to make the case go smoothly start to finish! The downside is that this technology is foolishly expensive and most dental offices don’t have either one of the technologies and even fewer are using both. At Aesthetic Dentistry of Georgetown, we routinely combine the advantages of our in-office CT machine and our intraoral scanner to design and use surgical guides to streamline the surgery, minimize the steps, save our patients time and money, and improve the predictability of the outcome.
An Implant Consult is the first step
Much like laparoscopic surgery has improved precision, made healing faster and easier, and made the experience better, using CT and the digital mouth scans have made implant placement a smooth experience. Most patients find the easiest part of the whole process of replacing the teeth was the implant part! If you are considering using implants to enhance the health of your mouth, feel free to call us and set up a complimentary Implant Consultation appointment. We look forward to helping you get your smile back!