Single Dental Implants - St. Louis, MO
Single Tooth Implants
and Implant Bridges
One Missing Tooth Can Affect the Health
of Your Entire Smile
A single missing tooth can have significant impacts on your confidence, appearance, and the health of your other teeth. Missing one tooth in your smile zone can leave you wanting to hide your teeth and avoiding smiling in photos. Left without replacement, a missing tooth allows the neighboring and opposing teeth to shift, creating a cascade of problems and putting excess pressure on the remaining teeth, leading to further breakage, wear, and discomfort. Shifting teeth also compromise the health of your bite, putting strain on the jaw joint and leading to problems such as arthritis, muscle strain, and headaches.
Fortunately, a single dental implant can replace individual teeth with a strong prosthetic that looks, feels, and function just like a healthy natural tooth. Single-tooth implants are the gold standard for tooth replacement. Dr. James Fetsch and our expert team at New You Smile place an average of 1,000 dental implants in St. Louis, MO each year, giving us unparalleled experience and predictably successful outcomes. With good home care and regular maintenance visits, your single dental implant can last a lifetime!
A Versatile Solution
for Missing Teeth
Whether you’re missing a single tooth or several teeth in the same area, dental implants offer a lasting solution that will rebuild the total health of your smile. Single dental implants replace an individual tooth by mimicking the structure of natural teeth, with a surgically placed implant post-secured in the jawbone like the root of a regular tooth, a strong, natural-looking crown to replace the visible chewing portion of the tooth, and an abutment to connect the two parts.
Even if you’re missing several teeth in one area, an implant-supported bridge can give you the same strength, stability, function, and natural-looking esthetics with as few as two dental implant posts. Unlike traditional dental bridges, dental implants don’t require putting crowns on healthy neighboring teeth. This helps to protect the health and stability of your remaining teeth while restoring full function and beauty to your smile.
Top 5 Mistakes People
Make With Dental Implants
Do you have all the information you need to make the right decisions about dental implants? Don’t make any of these five common mistakes. Our exclusive checklist will steer you in the right direction.
Dental Implants Before & After
Rebuild Your Full Smile
for Better Lifelong Dental Health
Your path to restoring full stability, function, and beauty to your smile starts with a consultation with our implant dentist, Dr. Fetsch in St. Louis, MO. We’ll build a detailed digital replica of your full dental anatomy and evaluate the bone volume available for your implant post. Based on these scans, we’ll determine the ideal approach to replacing your missing teeth and thoroughly discuss all your potential treatment options.
Once you’re ready for surgery, you’ll rest comfortably with the sedation option that’s right for you. Following your painless, stress-free surgery, most patients experience minimal discomfort while their implant posts heal, blending into the jawbone in a process called osseointegration. Because dental implants transfer chewing forces to the bone of your jaw similarly to natural teeth, they stimulate the bone tissue and prevent bone loss over time. For this reason, even a single dental implant helps protect the long-term health of your bone tissue and jaw joint, as well as helps to prevent bone loss and recession from the surrounding teeth.
This healing process, which takes a few months, is what gives dental implants their strength and longevity as a solution for tooth loss. Once your single dental implant or implant-supported bridge has healed completely, you’ll return to our office to have your final restoration placed. Your implant crown will be crafted from the highest quality materials for a natural look that will blend seamlessly with the rest of your smile. Because dental implants function with the strength of healthy natural teeth, you’ll be able to enjoy all your favorite foods without limitations. Most of the time, your implant will work so well that you’ll forget you even have a dental implant!