Some people manage to lose just one tooth. Others never had that one tooth descend because its' root was missing from birth. Whatever bizarre circumstance brought you to a gap between teeth can be corrected with a dental implant. A single dental implant is more affordable than you think because you are only replacing a single tooth, and not several at once. Here is how your dentist will create your single dental implant.

First up, the Impression

If you were getting several implants, the dentist would take an entire mold of the upper or lower set of teeth. However, because you are just getting the one tooth, your dentist only needs to take an impression of that space and the two teeth on either side. Instead of using a tray mold, the dentist uses a special dental epoxy that is shaped to fit the space and still provide enough room on both sides for dental floss to sneak by. This impression if the space and the proximity of teeth framing the space is what the dentist will use to create the fake tooth.

Then the Lab Work

If the dentist does his or her own lab work (e.g., he/she has a lab where he/she creates dentures and other fake teeth), then the dentist will take the impression into the lab to first create a hollow fake tooth. Then the epoxy of the impression is removed, and the dentist fills the fake hollow tooth with either a tough plastic or porcelain, depending on what you requested. Before the plastic or porcelain are hardened, the dentist will drill a small hole in the center of the material and insert an implant screw. When the porcelain or plastic tooth has been hardened and/or baked to the perfect hardness, the dentist breaks the fake tooth shell off of the new fake tooth. It is shaped for smoothness, and then polished to resemble a real tooth.

Then the Surgery to Install Your Implant

Once the implant is ready, your dentist will schedule your implant surgery. This is rarely an in-office visit because of the need to keep things sterile. You will have to go to an inpatient surgery unit at a hospital, or to a surgery room in a maxillofacial surgeon's office. You will be sedated, given the fact that your gum has to be cut open to install the abutment in the bone before the implant can be screwed in. Finally, the implant is shaped a little more and you are ready to wake up and go home.

Contact a clinic, like Oral Surgery Associates Inc, for more help.