Dental implants have a high success rate – as high as 98%, in fact! That’s just one of the many reasons dentists prefer using them as a solution to tooth loss. Unfortunately, no treatment is perfect; if the area around the implant becomes infected, there’s a good chance that it will fail. To prevent this from happening, follow these 4 tips for taking care of your dental implants in Canton.

1. Practice Good Oral Hygiene

No matter how many teeth you’ve replaced, oral hygiene remains extremely important. You need to clean every surface in your mouth; otherwise there’s a greater risk that bacteria could gather on your gums and cause an infection.

Brush at least twice a day with a soft-bristled toothbrush. Don’t forget to be gentle, especially immediately after the surgery; you don’t want to aggravate the wound or damage the restoration. You’ll also need to floss to clean the spaces between the teeth. If you can’t use traditional string floss, try a water flosser; this tool uses water pressure to clear away harmful plaque and food debris and is proven to help promote healthy gums.

2. Rinse Your Mouth

Cleaning your teeth and gums only accounts for a small amount of the surfaces in your mouth. To get rid of as much bacteria as possible, it’s important to make rinsing part of your oral hygiene routine. Salt water is very useful for this purpose, as the salt raises the pH levels in your mouth and make it less inhabitable for bacteria. Of course, you could also use an antimicrobial mouthwash; just be sure to get one that doesn’t contain any alcohol.

3. Don’t Smoke

You probably don’t need to be told how harmful smoking is for your health, but you need to avoid the habit altogether if you want to keep your dental implants. Tobacco introduces a lot of new bacteria into your oral cavity. Worse yet, it’ll stop any wounds or sores in your mouth from healing properly, increasing the risk of an infection. Smokers can often get implants if they stop using cigarettes immediately before and after the surgery, but it should go without saying that you’ll have a better chance of avoiding implant failure if you continue to avoid them!

4. Be Gentle with Your Implants at First

There’s an especially high risk of implants becoming infected after surgery since the mouth still needs to heal. Certain foods can reopen a surgical wound, so you’ll need to stick with a diet of liquid and soft foods for a while.

A dental implant is a long-term investment in a great smile, so you’ll want to protect it at all costs. Ask your dentist in Canton for more tips on stopping implant infections before they even have a chance to start!

About the Practice

At Legacy Dental Group, we remain dedicated to the core values of honesty, respect and excellent treatment that we’ve followed since the founding of our practice in 1965. If you need to get dental implants to fill a gap in your smile, we’ll be with you every step of the way to make sure your new teeth are successful. To schedule an appointment, visit our website or call us at (903) 567-4881.