While dental implants boast between a 95 and 98 percent success rate, they may not fare as well in smokers. Smoking makes the long-term success of implants much more risky. It doesn’t mean that you definitely cannot get an implant if you smoke, but there are many more factors to take into consideration.

What Studies Say About Smoking And Implants

Smoking can make implant placement, and its long-term success complicated. Consider the following:

Your mouth receives the worst affect from smoking because it is on the front lines. By inhaling the smoke into your mouth and lungs, your teeth and oral tissues get assaulted with over 4,000 chemicals. This includes 43 carcinogenic compounds, as well as 400 other toxins including tar, nicotine, arsenic, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, ammonia, DDT, and others.

The smoke inhalation affects your oral health in a number of ways including the fact that your oral tissues become burned which causes keratosis–the thickening of the top layer of skin cells. This also blocks/damages the salivary glands, causing dry mouth. A decrease in saliva means an increase in pathogenic bacteria which cause gum disease, and bone and tooth loss.

Nicotine restricts the peripheral blood vessels in your mouth and skin reducing blood flow. Lack of blood flow decreases the ability to heal and damages your body and oral defenses.

One study comparing the mouths of smokers and non-smokers who received implants showed that smoking increases the rate of bone loss around the implants by 0.16mm/year, which may not seem like much, but adds up over time.

Because smoking promotes bone loss around the implants, it may lead to failure if the fusion between the titanium implant post and the jawbone is broken down.

With That Said…

With that said, each individual is unique and how long you’ve smoked and how much you smoke will be taken into consideration as well. Your dentist will also give you a thorough oral evaluation and help you to decide if dental implants are the appropriate treatment for you.

Interested In Dental Implants?

If you’re a smoker and you’re interested in dental implants, schedule an appointment with Dr. Huffstutler, your Forth Worth, TX, dentist, and his team today by calling 817-918-3038.  We also proudly serve North Richland Hills, Denton, the Mid-cities, Southlake, and all surrounding communities.