You probably already know that smoking is dangerous to your health and teeth, but did you realize that tobacco products can also destroy artificial dental implants and cause them to fail?
Smoking negatively affects your oral health and can be detrimental to the success of dental implants. To give yourself the best chance to have a healthy smile for life and protect your dental implants from any potential problems caused by tobacco, you should ideally quit smoking for good before undergoing surgical dental implant placement.
Why Smoking Is Bad for Dental Implants
If you continue to smoke before and after your dental implant surgery, the odds of your implants successfully fusing with your jawbone and remaining strong over time decrease significantly.
Cigarettes harm dental implants in the following ways:
- Nicotine weakens your body’s immune system and its ability to right off infection and heal, and the healing process post-implant surgery is essential to your implants’ success
- Smoking leads to chronic dry mouth, which can cause more cavities and tooth decay that will weaken your jaw bone and loosen your dental implants
- Smokers are more prone to developing gum disease because of the dangerous chemicals found in cigarettes—and if you develop periodontal disease and your gums recede, neither your dental implants nor your natural teeth will stay in place
Tobacco, smoke, and nicotine create a toxic environment within your mouth where bacteria and infection will thrive. Dental implants require a clean atmosphere with healthy gum tissue and strong jaw bone to attach to.
Avoiding Tobacco Products to Keep Your Smile Healthy
When it comes to dental implant success, smoking affects your body’s ability to heal, fight off infection, produce sufficient saliva, maintain healthy bone density, protect its gum tissue, and keep the spaces between teeth tight and bacteria-free.
Although not every smoker will lose their dental implants because of cigarettes, the risk for failure will always be significantly higher. Maintaining a healthy smile as a smoker is nearly impossible to do, and dental implants will always be vulnerable so long as tobacco products are present in the mouth.
If you are a smoker considering dental implants in Midtown NYC, please contact our dental office right away. Dr. Philips will need to discuss the risks of treatment with you and the temporary requirements to stop smoking for a period of time before and after surgery. To learn more, please call us at (212) 644-0004.