Dental Implants Throughout the Years
It’s no contest. Dental implants simply are the only solution you need if you’re missing one or more teeth. With today’s technology plus a bright future of dental advancements and technologies, dental implants don’t look to slow down anytime soon. Fact is, 98% of all dental implant cases will be successful up to a lifetime. That’s not something you can say for other solutions, including dentures.
Dental implants make life easy. They improve your chewing ability, prevent jawbone deterioration and help support surrounding teeth. Above all, they look and feel just like natural teeth! However, dental implants weren’t always this cool or easy to obtain.
Modern dental implants may have transpired in the 1950s, but new discoveries show humans have been trying out other materials and techniques to restore missing teeth going back as far as 2500 BC. Dental implants have grown slowly over a very long time into what they are today. You wouldn’t believe what dental implants used to be like dating back to early humankind, until right now!
The Need to Restore Missing Teeth
Humans have always needed and found a way to replace missing teeth. Just think, long ago there were no dentists, no toothbrushes and no oral hygiene tips written in stone. Tooth decay was a huge problem back then, but our ancestors still needed to eat. Over time, here’s what they came up with to restore missing teeth.
As early as 2000 BC, the Chinese began to use carved bamboo shoots to replace missing teeth. A millennia later and across the world, the Egyptians became the first civilization to use metal to replace a missing tooth. First records show an Egyptian king had a copper peg hammered into his jawbone, but archeologists are unsure if the tooth replacement happened before or after his death.
Despite the severed communication between civilizations across the world, the most common solution to replace a missing tooth was using the teeth of animals or stones. The Etruscans – predecessors to the Romans – took animal bone from wild game and carved into a tooth-esque shape, which they’d hammer right into an empty socket. Ouch! The Mayans were the first to use seashells as an alternative, finding small, sharp shells that would help with chewing food. And if that wasn’t enough, the Hondurans took small, but still heavy stones to replace t
The Beginning of Modern Dental Implants
It was only a matter of time before people began to realize the need for a better solution to restore missing teeth. Prior to this, people were using whatever they could get their hands on – bone, seashell and stones – and they just weren’t good enough.
At the turn of the 20th century, dentists began to find new solutions to restore teeth, but none were all too successful. In 1886, a doctor used a platinum disc to mount a porcelain crown, but the solution was short-lived. Gold and silver endosseous implants proved futile after continuous rejection by the body’s autoimmune system.
It wasn’t until 1952 where a surgeon accidentally stumbled upon and found the solution that’s at the top today. After discovering titanium can fuse back together a femur bone of a rabbit, he went on to use it for dental implant work. The first titanium dental implant came around in 1965 and was the starting line for day dental implants.
Implant Innovation Brings us to Today
Dental implants have seen improvements and innovation since the beginning of time. With the introduction of titanium dental implants, many more advancements have happened in such a short time.
Titanium alloy screws grew in popularity as they have a greater chance to osseointegrate with the jawbone than any other material. Nowadays the only visible part of a dental implant is the crown, making an implant undistinguishable from natural teeth. The combination of a lightweight titanium implant and porcelain or acrylic crown causes no stress or extra pressure on the jawbone that’ve been problems with solutions in the past.
Dental implants have inspired other solutions as well. In 1998, Nobel Biocare introduced All-on-4 dental implants, a technique that uses only 4 dental implants to support a prosthesis that restores an entire arch of teeth. We’ve also seen the development and use of 3D treatment planning and guided dental implant surgery. There’s even research that’s diving into the possibility of regrowing teeth using stem cells!
It sure has been a wild history for dental implants. From bamboo shoots to animal bones, shells and stones to titanium and more, dental implants have only history to thank for its rise in popularity. Over 2 million people have gotten a dental implant in the last 12 months. Have you? If you’re missing a tooth, treat yourself to the number one, most affordable solution for dental restorations. Schedule a Free Consultation with One Stop Implants & Dental today by phone at (800) 862-2249 or online today!
