How To Care For Your New 3D Printed Dental Implant

Photo by Amir Seilsepour

3D Printed Dental Implants

Congratulations, you have just had a 3D printed dental implant placed! If you are wondering how to take care of your new tooth, you are in the right place!

3D printing technology allows for a titanium dental implant, which is like the root of a tooth, to be placed precisely at the right depth and position in the jaw bone by the oral surgeon. A custom milled abutment (which attaches to the implant and serves as a base for the tooth) with a 3D printed tooth can then be placed at the time of surgery. The ability to place an implant and tooth at the same time may not sound very difficult, but it is quite an achievement to have an implant with its tooth at the same time.

Taking Care of Your New Implant

Care of your new 3D printed crown (and the hidden dental implant) is simple but there are some things that are off limits for the first couple of months as the implant heals.

Off limits:

Don’t bite into something hard like an apple or sticky foods like toffee. You can actually damage the implant and/or tooth by doing this. You can eat hard foods but should cut them into small portions and place them in the side of your mouth rather than biting into them directly.

Do not use any kind of ultrasonic toothbrush to clean the tooth and implant. You can actually cause enough vibration using this type of toothbrush that you damage the implant. You can also loosen the tooth attached to the implant. So, while the implant/tooth is healing, you should use a manual toothbrush to clean around and on the implant tooth using a fluoride containing toothpaste. Once things have healed, you can switch back to an ultrasonic toothbrush if that is your preference. 

Additional Care:

You should floss around your implant! This is very important as you do not want to create inflammation as the implant heals. I always recommend using Superfloss to really get everything clean.

Get additional post-operative instructions for after Dental Implant placement by clicking here.