If you are a smoker and are considering dental implants for replacing missing teeth, you should consider how smoking will impact your recovery. Smoking has long been known to interfere with oral wound healing, especially when it comes to bone healing and osseointegration. Osseointegration is vital for dental implants to remain in the jawbone, providing the stability necessary for your implants to act in the same way as natural teeth. Learn more about smoking can cause you to have trouble with your implants after they have been put in.

What Is Osseointegration And How Does Smoking Affect It?

Osseintegration is the growth of bone tissue to a foreign material, titanium in the case of dental implants. While titanium has been found to be the best choice for implants and successful osseointegration, it can be impacted by external factors such as smoking. In order for osseointegration to be successful for dental implants, the bone-matrix genes must be able to perform in a healthy manner. Nicotine in cigarette smoke has been found to interfere with bone-matrix genes during the process of osseointegration, thus causing poor healing and dental implant failure in smokers.

Smoking Increases Your Risk Of Dental Implant Failure

When you visit your dentist to learn whether or not you are a good candidate for implants, one of the qualifying factors he or she will determine is your bone health. In order for you to get implants, your jawbone will need to be strong and free of issues like low density. Smokers have been known to have notoriously poor bone health, causing your candidacy for implants to be lower than that of someone that does not smoke. One reasons smokers have poorer bone health is due to how smoking inhibits the bone tissue's ability to absorb calcium. If your jawbones are not dense and strong, the implants will not have a good place for osseointegration to occur.

Quitting Smoking Is Good For Bone Health

Before you visit your dentist about getting implants, quitting smoking is a good idea. Your body begins to heal after the effects of smoking are gone, in some areas as fast as twelve hours. Discussing with your dentist about how long you should wait after stopping smoking to have a dental implant procedure is best. Your chances of experiencing greater results with dental implants after you quit smoking are better and you can look forward to overall total health benefits as well.

Stopping smoking is challenging. Your dentist can help you with resources about how to stop smoking for good.

Visit a site like www.hcdentistry.com/ for more information.