Implants- Necessity rather than luxury

A few weeks ago, there were two articles about dental implants in the same edition of the Sunday Times. Despite not being offered on the NHS, they are slowly becoming more popular in the UK. Some people are starting to recognise that they are the treatment of choice when some or all of one's teeth are missing. Dentures are removable, are often uncomfortable, do not have the same biting and chewing power as natural teeth, and are associated with premature aging and loss of self esteem. One of the specialists quoted in the article went so far as to state that a large proportion of dentures are found '..in drawers rather than in the mouth'. Bridges, the other solution, usually involve the drilling down of one or more healthy teeth, possibly leading to the eventual premature loss of those teeth.

With implants you are able to eat naturally and avoid unnecessary tooth destruction. They look and feel like natural teeth, so image and confidence are not a problem. As the specialist quoted in the article says: '...dentures are yesterday’s solution'. Having said all that, I was somewhat amazed to read that the UK has the lowest take up of implants as a percentage of tooth restoration in Europe, at just 3 percent. Compare this to Italy, the highest at 33 percent, closely followed by Spain at 26 percent. We are a society who scores highly when it comes to buying consumer goods which make us feel good. Surprising as it may seem, the UK are the second highest buyers of convertible cars per capita in the world, despite our weather.

Telegrams gave way to fax machines and now we are unable to function without email. We bought our music on vinyl records and cassettes, then CDs and now we carry our whole collection on mobile phones. We embraced change as it made our life easier. It is about time we regarded implants, in most cases, a necessity rather than a luxury, in the same way.