How Does Smoking Impact Your Suitability For Dental Implants?

If you smoke, you will no doubt have been made aware of the risks to your health by your doctor or from any one of the many health warnings relating to smoking that you will have seen, read, or heard.

Whilst many of these will be somewhat specific with regards to your heart and lungs, when it comes to your oral health, and in particular your suitability for dental implants, then this is something which does not get as much publicity.

In fact, it is only when a patient approaches a dental implants practitioner that they are first made aware of the possibility that the fact that they smoke means they could be unsuitable for the procedure.

Let us be clear here , it is not the case that just because someone is a smokers it automatically means they cannot have dental implants. Nor is them being told they are unsuitable some kind of arbitrary punishment for the fact that they smoke.

Instead, what it means is that as a result of them smoking, they could have some medical or health issues that puts their suitability for dental implants at risk.

This is not only the case prior to any planned dental implants procedure but continues beyond it should the individual continue to smoke. Let us look at some of the specific health issues relating to smoking and their impact on the suitability of someone having dental implants fitted.

Smoking Lowers Immunity Levels

Although the risk is very small, one health issue that can occur as a result of having the surgery necessary for dental implants fitted is that of infection.

Admittedly the vast majority of patients will never have a problem with this due to the extremely strict and comprehensive procedures to ensure sterile equipment and treatment rooms that professional dental implants centres.

However, if a patient should have some kind of infection, the chances that their immune system is compromised to some degree by the fact that they smoke, any antibiotics that are prescribed may take longer to kill the bacteria or infection which exists.

Smoking Damages Blood Vessels

You are hopefully aware by now that dental implants require minor surgery so that that the titanium base which the artificial tooth is connected to can be fitted into the jawbone.

Any incisions which are made in the gum and the surgery on the jawbone, need to heal, and this is where smoking can hinder that desire.

Smoking has the effect of constricting blood vessels and in particular the nutrients and oxygen which flow within them. These are both vital to the healing process and obviously this is compromised when the patient is a smoker

Smoking Can Weaken Bone Structure

Another consequence of smoking is that it can weaken our bone structure and given that a strong jawbone is necessary for dental implants to be successful, then this could be an issue when assessing the suitability of someone who smokes.

It might be that they are classed as suitable for a bone graft to overcome this, but this would normally only be a solution if the person has given up smoking, as bone grafting has a high failure rate in those who continue to smoke.

Smoking Can Cause Additional Oral Health Issues

Dental implants have their highest chance of being successful if the person who has them has good oral health. Unfortunately, those who smoke, even if they brush and floss regularly, are more at risk of gum disease then those who do not smoke.

Gum disease is an oral health condition that can mean the person who suffers from it will be deemed unsuitable for dental implants, until the gum disease is treated.