Healthy Habits To Adopt After Dental Implantation
The placement of a dental implant required a lengthy, painful, and expensive process. This is one reason why it is wise to pay close attention to the implant device after it is secured to ensure that healing advances in a timely manner. Specifically, you will need to invest in a healthy lifestyle. While you may already know about some things that can benefit your body, you may not understand how they can encourage implant health and longevity. Keep reading to learn about some healthy things and how they can help your implant.
Drinking Water
Water is essential to keep your cells alive and the ensure the proper functioning of your organs. Water allows for the maintenance of your body temperature and it allows for the circulation of blood, digestion of food, and the transportation of nutrients throughout the body. Water is also essential when it comes to healing after an implant procedure.
Fluid is needed to encourage the healing of your gum tissues. The fluid allows nutrients and oxygen to flow to the damaged tissues in larger volumes so new cells can develop in the area. Fluid also allows byproducts of the healing process to be removed. In essence, fluid helps with the breakdown and removal of damaged tissues and the building and nutrition of new ones.
If large volumes of water are not supplied to the body, then both the breakdown and build up stages of healing will be affected. Not only will healing stall, but tissues can succumb to damage from microorganisms in the region and infections can set in.
Water allows saliva to be produced as well. The saliva, along with the act of drinking water, can help to remove bacteria from the mouth that can infect your healing implant wound. Saliva also drops the pH level of the mouth to make it harder for bacteria to thrive.
There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to the amount of water you should consume. Simply put, your needs will vary depending on your activity level, the amount of water containing foods you eat, and whether or not it is hot enough outside to make you sweat. However, your needs will increase as your implant heals, so increase your intake by at least a few glasses of water a day. If your urine is light yellow in color and if you rarely feel thirsty, then you should be drinking enough.
When drinking water, do not use a straw and make sure to take small sips of water from a glass throughout the day. This is best to keep your implant from being disturbed.
Eat Healthy Foods And Reduce Sugar Intake
Your dentist will thoroughly explain the dental implant procedure and how the jaw and the gum tissues will be affected by the procedure. Specifically, you will learn about how the gums and bone will need to heal afterwards. Healing will require a great deal of resources and proper nutrition is needed for this. Some of the vitamins and nutrients you need to heal will include calcium, protein, vitamin D, zinc, phosphorous, vitamin A, and vitamin C.
Since the nutrients and vitamins needed to heal are so varied, you will need to eat foods densely packed with nutrients. Foods like broccoli, eggs, spinach, fortified grains, yogurt, peanut butter, and fish are some essential foods to add to your diet. Foods should be calorie dense as well to provide your body with the energy it needs to heal.
When choosing foods to eat, you should stay away from sweets and foods with a great deal of sugar. Not only does sugar fill your diet with empty calories, little nutrition, and no long term energy, but it can create issues with your dental implant. The sugar feeds bacteria in the mouth that cause gum disease and dental decay. When these bacteria are active around the implant area, they can easily cause an infection to develop. Even if an infection does not occur, the microorganisms can degrade the new bone tissues forming around the implant root. These cells are essential for osseointegration and need to be remain undisturbed.
For more information, contact companies like Pittsburgh Dental Spa.