Eating With Dental Implants

If you’ve been considering whether or not you’ll benefit from dental implants Turkey or if you’ve even recently undergone the procedure, then you’ll likely be wondering exactly what you can and can’t do with them when it comes to eating and drinking.

A number of foods and drinks can be especially notorious for damaging and staining our natural teeth, let alone dental implants, so we’re here to help guide you through all the ins and outs and ensure that you’re not going to be finding yourself back in the dentist’s chair any time soon.

Unlike other options for replacing lost or broken teeth, dental implants act just as your own natural teeth do, perfectly replicating their look and feel. For comparison, dentures only allow those with them to retain 20% of their former chewing ability, whereas with dentures, you’ll instead be retaining 90%. Therefore, you’ll essentially be able to eat just about whatever you want. There are a few exceptions though.

During your initial consultation before you undergo your dental implant surgery, and again once the procedure is complete, your surgeon will walk you through what you should and shouldn’t be eating. You’ll find chewing to be most difficult though during the first week or two of your recovery, and this is naturally where you’ll be at the highest risk of problems. Therefore, it’ll be highly recommended that you stick to softer foods for this period, and anything that you’d normally struggle to chew should be avoided. Alcoholic drinks should be avoided too, along with anything that’s overly sugary or acidic. Furthermore, there’s a condition known as ‘dry socket’ that can occur when drinking through a straw; so avoid drinking through a straw.

So what exactly can and can’t you eat?

As previously mentioned, you’ll effectively be at 90% of your previous chewing ability once you’ve had your dental implants fitted, so there are a few little changes you’ll want to make for the long-term to ensure the health of your new implants.

For a start, dental implants will be much more susceptible to staining than your natural teeth, so it’s important that you brush your teeth immediately after drinking any red wine, black tea or coffee. These can have a negative enough effect on your natural teeth, so if you’re frequently drinking any of these in excess, a good brush afterwards can help decrease any potential damage.

Since there are a number of popular foods that get asked about time and time again by those having their dental implants fitted, we’ll break them down into their own sections:

— Eating apples: Apples and other hard fruits can be tough, and in many cases can even be the contributing factor that lead to a patient getting their dentures in the first place. You should avoid biting straight into apples, at least for the first few weeks after getting your implants fitted, and instead cut them up first. Later on down the line you may be okay with biting straight into an apple, as long as you do so with care, however it’s always best to err on the side of caution.

— Eating nuts: Even after your initial recovery period is up, you should still proceed with caution when eating nuts. Some nuts can be especially tough, and while you shouldn’t need to avoid eating them altogether, you should still make sure you take care whenever you do.

— Eating ice: Eating ice is a big no-no. Whether you’ve dental implants or not, chewing ice is always going to be especially tough on the teeth, and this could soon lead to a cracked or otherwise damaged implant. Unless for some reason your life depends on it, you should probably avoid chewing on ice.

— Eating candy: While in reality all candy should probably be avoided altogether, the fact is that’s never going to happen. For the most part, the odd bag of sweets or bar of chocolate isn’t going to have much of an effect on your dental implants, however where there may be an issue is with hard or very sticky and chewy candies, like boiled sweets or chewy toffees. You’ll want to avoid anything that could potentially crack or get stuck in your dental implants.

— Eating popcorn: Popcorn is somewhat magical in its unique ability to get itself stuck just about everywhere, and even sometimes cut up the gums. On top of this, hard un-popped kernels can always be lurking, ready to surprise you and crack your new dental implants. While you won’t necessarily have to avoid eating popcorn for the rest of your life, you should definitely take caution if and when you do.

So as you’ve no doubt realised by now, a few small changes will need to be made once you’ve had your new dental implants fitted. Compared to eating with dentures though, dental implants are a walk in the park. Since dental implants act no differently from the rest of your natural teeth, not a lot of change needs to be made, while as we previously mentioned with dentures, you could be losing as much as 80% of your chewing ability.

Even the best dentures of all can slip from time to time, especially when it comes to some of the harder to chew foods. Once a slip occurs, it’ll be no time at all until food starts to get stuck underneath. Then comes the pesky task of removing and cleaning them.

In addition to this, while we think of our taste buds as being located in the tongue, the truth is we have a fair number on the roof of our mouths too. For those that wear upper dentures, the roof of the mouth will be covered by a plate that holds all the dentures in place, affecting many users’ sense of taste.

There really is no other option quite like dental implants that not only perfectly mimics the look, feel and function of natural teeth, but also fully preserves your eating ability and sense of taste too.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes