The Best Ways to Keep Your Dental Implants Healthy

Dental implants feel like real teeth once they’ve healed. You won’t have to worry about adjustments and frequent checkups to fix issues, such as those you’ll encounter using braces and dentures. With dental implants, you would feel great eating your favorite food without fear of bending your dental wires or the dentures sticking to the meat.

The most challenging part of dental implant surgery is the aftercare post-op. Accelerate the growth of your dental implants by doing the following excellent practices that keep them safe and healthy.

Take Your Medications

You won’t feel too comfortable right after your dental implant surgery. Some parts will feel swollen and tender depending on the implant’s location. You must have received prescription pain medications from your surgeon to cope with the pain and alleviate the discomfort. Take these prescriptions on schedule to ensure you won’t feel severe pain and aid your tooth’s healing process.

Handling Post-Operative Bleeding

Post-op bleeding is normal for dental implants. Apply moderate pressure to the gauze to stop bleeding from occurring 24 hours post-surgery. On the other hand, if you feel a mild or slow ooze from the implant site, call your surgeon to learn the best steps to handle post-operative bleeding effectively. If your surgeon is unavailable, it’s safe to have dental emergency services look into your implants to receive immediate care.

Use Cold Compress

Swelling is a normal part of dental implant surgery. Your gums, tissues, and jawbone will have suffered force that causes physical trauma. A cold compress using an ice pack will help alleviate the swelling by restricting the blood flow. After two days or 48 hours, your dental surgeon will recommend other means to alleviate swelling if it hasn’t visibly started shrinking.

Soft Diets Only

Avoid sticky, hard, and hot foods because they will inflame and cause unbearable pain from your dental implant. Soft diets made of soup and soft meats will help accelerate your dental implant growth. Once you do well within a few weeks, you can eat pasta without meat. Ask your surgeon about the possible timeline to eat meat after your operation.

Regular Oral Health Routines

Adopt a healthy oral routine. If you’ve been brushing your teeth regularly, add more disinfecting and cleaning procedures to keep your dental implants healthy. Your surgeon may recommend using soft-bristled brushes to avoid applying too much pressure to your enamel and scratching your dental implants. Furthermore, they may prescribe a non-abrasive toothpaste because regular ones have chemicals that remove stains and scratch the titanium implant.

You can also use non-alcoholic mouthwash to disinfect your mouth. Only rinse your mouth with gentle pressure when swishing the liquid. Be gentle when rinsing because the stitches and incisions might open up. 

Avoid Strenuous Activities

Your dental implant is far from your muscular system, but the physical and mental strain on the body can slow down your post-op wound. Let your body rest and avoid strenuous lifting, running, and other activities that could increase your blood pressure and heart rate. If possible, avoid coming to work to let your body rest because the stresses of work and daily activity can take their toll on your body’s healing process.

Always Hydrate

Enough water in your body all the time helps remove toxins in the body and aid your dental implant’s healing process. You’ll also feel full of energy and satiated. 

Only drink clear liquids without any flavoring. Caffeine can dehydrate the body, while alcohol will slow down your dental implant’s healing. We strongly recommend drinking alcohol only after six months after your operation.