Smoking and its Effects on the Success of Houston Dental Implants

This article describes the detrimental effects tobacco-use has upon the successful healing of dental implants. This serves as a warning to patients having failing teeth replaced with this dental technology.

The ability of Houston dental implants to biologically fuse with bone tissue, a process termed ‘osseointegration’, has led to their incredible success as a tooth replacement solution. These ingenious dental devices get, directly from the jaw bone as is the case with your natural teeth, all the support they need to remain free-standing and perfectly functional for decades. Qualified and experienced implant dentist, Dr. Wayne Brueggen, has been placing Houston dental implants for many, many years. He has seen the full spectrum of patient cases, from those requiring only a single implant to those that don’t have a single original adult tooth left. Overall, Houston dental implants enjoy massive success in the restoration of smiles that were seemingly irreparable to the decay, damage and subsequent tooth loss they have sustained. But if there is one demon that substantially compromises this success, it is many of the 4,000 chemical compounds created by burning and smoking cigarettes.

Ensuring the Success of Houston Dental Implants

The connection between tobacco use and your general health is well-researched and documented in medical literature. So, there is really no need for a verbal tirade about the hazards of smoking here. What would be more interesting is to learn of the results of a study that was conducted at the University of Murcia in Spain in 2007. In order to test the impacts of smoking on the success of Houston dental implants, 66 patients agreed to have their oral health documented over a five year period. During the study time, the patients had an accumulated total of 165 implants placed. The results were:

• Smokers: 15.8% of the implants placed in smokers failed. This essentially means that Houston dental implants are 11 times more likely to fail if you are a smoker!
• Non-smokers: 98.6% of the implants placed in non-smokers were a success! Only 1.4% failed and this was usually due to a lack of proper post-procedural care or the presence of advanced oral bacterial infection.

The results were astounding! Here, Dr. Wayne Brueggen explains the three things that influence the success of Houston dental implant procedures:

1. Smokers are more likely to develop an infection subsequent to the placement of Houston dental implants. This may require the implant dentist to remove them in order to eliminate the bacterial infection.
2. Smoking reduces the flow of blood to the hard tissue in the jaw (bone) and the soft tissues in the mouth. This compromises the ability of the Houston dental implant to heal properly. It is this reduced blood flow that increases a patient’s risk of developing an infection too.
3. Smoking prolongs the healing time required for Houston dental implants. Subsequently, patients can more easily damage the young fusion between the titanium implant and the underlying jaw bone through simple actions such as eating and chewing.

Houston Dental Implants and Smoking: Your Take Home Message

If you are considering Houston dental implants as your tooth replacement option, you should first do what it takes to stop smoking: not only for your oral health but for your general health and wellness too.