If you have a friend or family member who is missing a tooth, you may have heard about dental implants. At Wisconsin Smiles in West Allis, we love dental implants! We regularly use dental implants to help patients who need both cosmetic and restorative dental work done.
Dental implants are an excellent solution for replacing missing teeth. Dental implants can offer comfort and stability to a jaw, and the artificial replacement tooth looks beautiful and functions naturally. Best of all, dental implants curb bone loss and can last a lifetime. At our West Allis dental office, Dr. Monteagudo recommends dental implants to replace missing teeth and protect your oral health for the long-term.
We have prepared this informational web page to help you learn more general information about our dental implants in West Allis. We understand that you may have additional questions after reading through this information, and we encourage you to contact our dental team with these questions! Please call us at Wisconsin Smiles during our regular business hours by dialing (414) 383-5833.
The Problem with Missing TeethYou may not think that a single missing tooth is a huge problem when compared to your entire mouth, but even one missing tooth can dramatically impact your overall oral health.
Just one space left by a missing tooth allows other teeth to shift, which creates problems with your dental bite. Additionally, when you do not replace a lost tooth, the jaw that once supported the tooth lacks a purpose and begins to atrophy. This process affects the teeth adjacent to the lost tooth. The bone tissue resorbs, creates a weakened jaw, and limits options for tooth replacement in the future.
The problem with missing teeth is that tooth loss starts a chain reaction that eventually affects your whole smile. Surrounding teeth can begin to move into the space left by the missing tooth, which will ultimately lead to crowding and misalignment. In turn, this movement may make proper oral hygiene difficult, possibly resulting in decay and gum disease. Worst of all, you can lose up to 20 percent of adjacent teeth in the next 4–8 years.
Unfortunately, a missing tooth doesn’t just impact neighboring teeth. All your teeth are designed to do a specific job. For example, the function of your upper and lower incisors is to cut food with sharp, thin edges. Canine teeth are strong and stable and are ideal for holding or grasping food, while molars quickly and effectively grind food. When just one tooth is missing, all remaining teeth withstand greater force as they take on the jobs meant for the missing teeth.
Losing a tooth is like removing a domino or Jenga block during a game—the structure may hold for a time, but the stability of the surrounding pieces is compromised.
Even though losing a tooth initially puts your mouth at risk, the news isn’t all bad. Today, you have more options than ever before to replace a missing tooth. Dental implants are a natural-looking alternative to dental bridges and dentures that provide much-needed support under the jaw’s surface.
Implant posts give the jaw a purpose, keep it active, and allow you to retain healthy bone mass.
The main component of a dental implant is a small titanium post that our Milwaukee dentists surgically place into the jawbone. Medical doctors regularly use titanium in joint replacement procedures because it is biocompatible.
The term “biocompatible” means that your body readily accepts the material and the titanium will gradually become a part of your jawbone in a process called osseointegration. Osseointegration of dental implants creates the most stable and durable tooth replacement option available today.
After we place your dental implant post, the area needs to heal for several months. As soon as the site has healed, the healthy dental implant will function well with help from a dental crown, dental bridge, or denture. If you receive a traditional dental implant, our dental team will complete the treatment by adding a metal abutment and a porcelain or ceramic tooth crown to the top of your implant post.
While dental implants may seem like a recent innovation, they have been around for many decades with great success and many functional benefits. Some of the best advantages of dental implants include:
Improved Stability: Dental implants acts as an “anchor” or artificial tooth root that stabilizes and supports your jaw. Other tooth replacement options, such as dentures and bridges, only replace the tooth’s crown portion and fail to address the missing root. Dental implants provide a solution that returns 100 percent of a tooth’s missing components.
Versatility: With dental implants, we can replace a single tooth, several missing teeth, or even an entire set of upper and lower teeth. Dental implants can also support a dental bridge or retain a full or partial denture. One of the best advantages of dental implants is their versatility and our ability to customize the number of dental implants to fit your treatment plan.
Restoring Function: Your natural teeth withstand a lot of wear and tear each day. You rely on your teeth to chew your food comfortably and to help you speak properly. Dental implants help restore these functions when they otherwise might be lost.
Easy Maintenance: It is easy to care for dental implants. You need to brush and floss as you usually would, and continue to visit our West Allis dentists several times each year for your routine cleanings and exams. Dental implants are permanent and fixed, which means you won’t have to remove them for soaking, cleaning, or applying adhesives.
Appearance: We make dental implant restorations from tooth-colored materials. The dental implants then fill out the facial profile, preventing the “sunken” look that sometimes develops when people have lost teeth. The look of your smile will only improve when you add dental implants!
Dependability: Since we use medical-grade titanium in our surgical process, implants can serve you well throughout your lifetime. With proper dental care, your titanium dental implant post should last forever, and your porcelain dental crown that rests on top should last over a decade.
Dr. Monteagudo’s Treatment GuaranteeDental implants are historically 95–98 percent successful, but if you’re still leery, you can take comfort in our lifetime treatment guarantee. We use the most updated and advanced treatment methods, and, when coupled with our guarantee, you can have full confidence in your dental implant treatment.
Dr. Monteagudo will discuss the specific guidelines of our dental implant treatment guarantee at your initial dental appointment.
Now that you know a little more about dental implants and why they make such an excellent treatment choice, it is time to schedule your dental implant appointment with our West Allis dentist.
If you’re suffering from missing teeth, call our clinical team today at (414) 383-5833. Our convenient dental office location is easily accessible to patients in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Wauwatosa, and Elm Grove. We look forward to working with you and helping you take your smile to the next level!
With all the rapid advancements in the field of dentistry, and specifically dental implantology, we now have more choices and techniques than ever to choose from. It's the rare case that we can’t treat with a dental implant or a combination of implants.
At WisconsinSmiles, we can design and employ a dental implant treatment plan to accommodate any number of problems. For example, we may find that you don’t have adequate jawbone in either the front or back part or the jaw for placing a dental implant in the bone. In a case like this, we may decide to place an over-the-bone type of implant in both areas, then fabricate non-removable teeth that are made to attach to the implants.
Over-the-bone implants have been used successfully in dentistry for over 30 years. This type of implant also offers the added benefit of supporting a fragile jawbone, and help prevent fracturing of teeth. At WisconsinSmiles, using multiple implant techniques is an essential part of the effective placement of implants.
We have sufficient experience to know that there is no single design that will accommodate every patient in every situation. It may be that you need a bone graft to accommodate the implant. This procedure has proved to be remarkably effective, and in many cases, Dr. Monteagudo can perform this procedure right here at our West Allis office. A bone graft procedure strengthens the jaw and supplies additional bone for placement of the implant.
Whether or not we can place the dental implant immediately after extraction depends on the presence or absence of infection and the amount of available bone in the area. The advantage of placing the implant during the same visit is the preservation of both height and width of bone in the jaw, potentially eliminating the need for bone graft surgery as bone naturally recedes after a tooth is extracted.
This is an important consideration since as much as 40% of jawbone width can be lost during the first year after extraction. In other cases, severe gum disease or decay may have compromised the bone to such a degree that a bone grafting procedure may be necessary before we can place the implant. In this case, a separate visit will be required to perform the grafting procedure.
If it is possible to place the implant at the same visit as the teeth are extracted, this can save at least three months in healing time compared to waiting for an extraction site to heal before the implants can be placed.
We’ll be happy to answer all your dental implant questions. Please contact our West Allis office, and we’ll be happy to arrange an implant consultation with Dr. Monteagudo.
Legally yes. Any dentist can place a dental implant, but like any other medical or dental procedure, not all practitioners have equal experience, training, or comfort with the procedure. Also, with any dental procedure a dentist performs, there is a learning curve. So it’s to your benefit to find a practitioner who has significant experience in this unique area of dentistry. Choosing a dentist with experience and education specifically in the area of placing and restoring dental implants is the best way to get the best possible long term result.
You can be confident that your dental implant treatment at WisconsinSmiles is being handled by a dentist who has a solid record of success in all areas of dentistry. Dr. Robert Monteagudo graduated from Marquette University School of Dentistry in 1990, and has been providing all his patients with top-quality care ever since. He continually advances his education in the fields of advanced esthetics, full mouth reconstruction, and many other areas with recognition for academic excellence.
Dr. Monteagudo speaks frequently throughout Wisconsin, educating dentists and patients alike in advancements in dentistry, Additionally, he serves on numerous boards for community betterment.
We encourage you to contact our office and arrange a consultation with Dr. Monteagudo to discuss your needs and learn more about the ways dental implants may benefit you.
Absolutely! This is an unfortunate situation that many of our patients who wear dentures experience on a daily basis.
In dentistry, it’s a well-established fact that a full lower denture is the most unstable dental prosthetic fabricated in any dental practice. This is because when you chew, the average lower denture is five times more likely to move than the upper.
If you’re suffering with advanced bone loss, you may also face additional problems like difficulty with your speech, poor muscle coordination, and the inability to keep the denture in place. All of these will have an adverse effect on enjoying a normal lifestyle.
Fortunately, dental implants offered at WisconsinSmiles can be a great solution for rectifying all these problems. Even if you’ve experienced significant bone loss, there’s still a good chance that we can do something to help. In most cases, a thorough evaluation and panoramic x-ray is all that’s required to decide if you are a good candidate for implants. We’ll take the time to talk to you about the problem that’s bothering you the most and work together until it’s resolved to your satisfaction.
Give us a call today to arrange an appointment!
It’s hard to believe that an ill-fitting or loose denture can have such a profound effect on your lifestyle. It’s bad enough that the denture is uncomfortable, but you have the added problem of not being able to eat or, worse yet, taste the foods you eat.
There’s a good chance that, in your case, dental implants placed at our West Allis dental office will help resolve the problem. An upper denture covers the roof of your mouth. Since it fits securely over your soft palate, the goal is to "seal" themselves to the palate, thereby staying in place. However, this effective method of keeping the denture in place has the unfortunate side effect of covering up the palate, including many of your taste buds.
When we use implants to support or anchor the upper denture, we don’t need to cover the roof of the mouth for added stability. The roof of the mouth is left uncovered, eliminating gagging and allowing you to once again feel the taste, temperature, and texture of foods and beverages much better.
We would love to talk to you about dental implants and how they may improve your quality of life. Please give us a call and we’ll be happy to arrange a convenient dental implant consultation with Dr. Monteagudo.
Dr. Roberto Monteagudo lives in Milwaukee and makes family time with his wife, Gina, and their seven children a top priority. He also enjoys outdoor activities and is deeply committed to giving back to his community through charitable events such as Dentistry from the Heart, to which he donated over $20,000 in services over the last two years. He also provides academic scholarships to local youth in the Milwaukee community.
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