Once your implant surgery has been completed it’s time for the healing process to begin. Even if you’ve benefitted from New Albany Implants’ One Day Smile Solution you still need to give your implants time to bond firmly to your bone to ensure maximum stability!

It can take a few months for your dental implants to fully heal and integrate with your bone and there are a lot of things you can do in the meantime to ensure that healing goes smoothly and problem free. In this blog post we want to talk about what you can do to make healing successful so your implants last for life!

Things To Avoid After Implant Surgery

Like any healing process there are certain things you’ll need to avoid doing to make it go well. As always if you have questions about any of these suggestions don’t hesitate to contact us for help!

Tobacco Use: smoking is a definite no for the duration of your implant recovery. If possible you should consider quitting for good! Tobacco changes the balance of bacteria in your mouth so that it is actually overwhelmingly dangerous. The dangerous strains of bacteria in your mouth are responsible for both tooth decay and gum disease, and while your implant might not be natural the bone and gums that support it are!

When you use tobacco during and after the healing process you increase your risks for peri-implantitis, which can destroy bones and gum tissue, making healing simply not happen properly! The chances of complete implant loss are much greater for patients who smoke!

Alcohol: sorry, but a glass of wine to help ease the pain isn’t a good idea. Alcohol consumption can negatively affect your ability to heal by thinning blood and reducing white blood cell count. Both of these factors can lead to increased infection risk, slower healing, and the possibility of implant failure! Alcohol can also have a bad interaction with medications you may be taking after your surgery.

Hard Foods: we know you’re excited to get back to eating all your favorite foods but you’re going to have to take it easy for a while! We recommend only eating soft foods and avoiding those that are hard to chew, crunchy, or chewy for several weeks. You can gradually add them back but don’t rush the healing process!

Steps To Take After Implant Surgery

Just as there are things you should avoid there are also things you can do to make healing easier!

Get Some Rest: take it easy for the first few days after implant surgery – it’s a major procedure! Your body needs time to rest and recover so give it that chance. You’ll speed up your recovery if your body can devote more resources to healing.

Keep Your Implants Clean: caring for your implants doesn’t require any special work – just brushing twice a day and flossing like you do with natural teeth. During the healing process, however, you should be extra diligent in caring for your teeth! Be sure that you’re flossing thoroughly around your dental implant so that there’s no extra bacteria building up around it. Bacteria development around the implant site is a definite way to end up with peri-implant disease, which can cause the loss of the implant and the bone that supports it!

Report Problems: if there is anything that seems out of the ordinary don’t hesitate to report it to our New Albany dentist office! We would much rather have you calling in for each small problem than letting something go until it became seriously wrong! Our team is dedicated to making your dental implant surgery recovery go as smoothly as possible!

Success Is Up To You!

Once your dental implant is placed it’s up to you to make sure that healing goes smoothly. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you understand the recovery process, what to expect, and how to react to anything that may come up but aside from checkups we won’t be there every day! Successful dental implant surgery recovery is a team effort between both of us but ultimately it’s up to you!

To find out more about the dental implant process at New Albany Implants, or to schedule a consultation for your own dental implant roadmap, call us today! You can reach our southern Indiana dentist office by calling 888-469-3982 or you can request an appointment right here online. We look forward to seeing you soon!