3 Tips to Speed Up Your Dental Implant Recovery

Having one or more missing teeth isn’t exactly anybody’s idea of a good time, but it is a lot of people’s reality. Having missing teeth doesn’t just make you look a little less than perfect but it can also have more detrimental impacts on the health of your mouth. When you have a missing tooth, it can lead to deterioration of the jaw bone and it can also result in shifting teeth. To prevent this from happening, we have a variety of different restorative options including dental implants.

 

What Are Dental Implants?

Dental implants are one of the most popular types of restorative dentistry because they give patients an almost permanent way to restore their smile without having to worry about things like dental bridges or dentures. As a two step process, we will first surgically implant a rod into your gums which will require several months of healing. To make sure that your mouth heals fully, let’s go over a few tips.

 

Watch What You Eat

For the first few days after your implant has been placed, we encourage our patients to be especially mindful of foods they eat. For instance, try to avoid foods that are hard to chew or that are hard in general. Why? Because they may open up your incisions which can lead to things like infections.

 

Take Some NSAIDs

If you are in a little bit of pain or if your mouth is swollen, that’s pretty normal. To help you get rid of any pain or swelling, try to take some over-the-counter anti inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen for the first few days; this should do the trick and help you feel better in no time.

 

Use Ice

If you have a lot of swelling on your cheeks, then you should ice. Just make sure that you wrap the ice pack in a towel or cloth so that it doesn’t give your cheeks a burn.

 

Healing from dental implants doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it shouldn’t be much of a process at all. If you notice any signs of infection like more swelling, pain, or irritation on your gums, then contact us. To learn more about dental implants and recovery, contact us at our office today and call us at  (505) 881-1159.