Can You Get Dental Implants if You Grind Your Teeth?
You want to get dental implants to replace some teeth you had extracted, but you have a terrible habit of grinding your teeth. You've heard that this is bad for dental implants—just as it's bad for your natural teeth. Is there anything you can do about this situation? The best thing to do is get that teeth-grinding problem resolved.
Bruxism & Dental Implants
Grinding your teeth—medically known as bruxism—will wear the teeth down over time. If you grind your teeth while sleeping, that's a particularly destructive action because you probably do it on and off for many hours every night with more force than you'd ever use while awake.
Grinding your teeth also wears down conventional dental implant crowns that cover the metal rods for cosmetic purposes. Eventually the crowns will wear down and even break because of the continual excessive force you put on them. Then you'll need to get new ones. This might happen numerous times over the years.
A Mouth Guard to Prevent Bruxism
A dentist can fit you with a custom-made night guard that stops your teeth from grinding against each other during sleep. The problem is that many people remove the device during their sleep. Even if you wake up and realize it's out, it's hard to have the self-discipline when you're half-asleep to put it back in place.
This method will only work if you are vigilant about keeping the device in your mouth every night. If you believe you can manage this, give the night guard a try.
Extra-Durable Dental Implants
Another option is having the dentist place Zirconia crowns on the metal rods rather than the more common choice of porcelain. Acrylic crowns also are common, but acrylic is even more susceptible to wear than porcelain is. Zirconia is significantly more durable than these materials are and also looks great cosmetically. Unfortunately, it also costs more.
Considerations
There's still a potential problem if you choose Zirconia crowns and continue to grind your teeth. That continuous forceful pressure as you move your jaws back and forth will likely lead to loosening of the rods in the jawbone. In fact, they may never become fully ingrained in the bone because of the bruxism.
Once an implant becomes loose, the dentist must remove it. Then you have to start over again if you and your dentist believe success is possible.
Talk with the dentist and set a goal to stop grinding your teeth. A local implant dentistry will be able to counsel you on the best course of action.
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