Dr. Josh Muir and Dr. Tanner Townsend discuss life after dental implant surgery. They emphasize that once the final crown is placed, patients should treat the implant as a natural tooth, avoiding hard foods like carrots, jawbreakers, and corn nuts. Activities such as singing, playing instruments, and kissing pose no issues. Dr. Townsend reassures that dental implants are secure and do not come out, unlike dentures, providing patients with increased confidence and functionality. They highlight the emotional benefits of dental implants, noting that patients often forget which tooth was replaced, indicating a successful outcome.

Dr. Josh Muir 0:05 Welcome back to another episode of the Smile Reconstruction Dental Implant Podcast. My name is Josh Muir, and I’m here with Tanner Townsend, and we are your hosts for the day. So, we have a cool topic, and we want to introduce this idea to you of what happens after you complete your dental implant journey. The journey starts with you have you have a problem, a catastrophe, something happens, and you end up losing or breaking a tooth. You go through all this stuff to get the tooth replaced, and now you’re to the point that you’re wondering, what happens now? So, what is life after the dental implant? So, Dr Townsend, let me ask you some questions. When a patient has a tooth replaced and you’re giving them those instructions on Okay, here’s what you can do. Here’s what you can’t do. Functionally, chewing wise. What do you instruct them?

Dr. Tanner Townsend 1:08 Now, let me ask a clarification question. Here you’re talking during the healing phase. Are we talking…

Dr. Josh Muir 1:13 Totally done. They just got their final crown. Everything’s polished. X ray looks good. Feels good.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 1:20 I tell them, go hog wild. It’s a natural treated as a natural tooth. The only thing that I kind of caution them on is, like, if you feel that you’re hitting that tooth first, like when you go home, sometimes, like if we had to adjust the tooth a little bit, I say, hey, don’t go hog wild if you’re feeling that. But if it feels like your normal tooth, feels like your bite is fine. Go hog wild. Floss it like normal. Brush it like normal. It’s just part of the family at that point.

Dr. Josh Muir 1:47 Okay, so once it’s adjusted, once everything you know, all the bugs are worked out. If there are any, go hog wild. Use the tooth. Now, eating. What things would you avoid?

Dr. Tanner Townsend 1:58 Nothing.

Dr. Josh Muir 1:59 Okay. Now timeout, I’m going to interject. What I tell patients a little bit is I say, okay, carrots. Can you eat a carrot? Absolutely? What if it’s a fresh carrot? Absolutely, once it gets bigger than your pinky or one of your fingers. Okay, at that point, maybe you need to cut the carrot. If it’s bigger than your thumb, probably cut the carrot. What about jawbreakers, hard candies, that kind of stuff.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 2:30 I tell them to avoid that tooth with jawbreakers candies.

Dr. Josh Muir 2:36 Corn nuts?

Dr. Tanner Townsend 2:37 Corn nuts I say just chew them. You got, if it’s one implant in the front, there’s lots of other real estate where you can chew that corn nuts, chewing ice, same thing, chew it, chew it in a different spot but I’d prefer you don’t chew ice at all.

Dr. Josh Muir 2:51 Yeah, don’t chew ice and don’t chew corn nuts. Those are those hard things. And to be honest, the more I see, how many people break teeth on those things. I just stay away from them. I love corn nuts. I love chewing on ice. But nope, nope, not gonna do it.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 3:08 Not even that pebble ice from Chick fil A?

Dr. Josh Muir 3:11 In a moment of weakness, maybe, maybe, but no, so, all right, we talked about the function as far as chewing. What about singing, playing the trumpet, speaking, all those sorts of things. Do you see any issues there?

Dr. Tanner Townsend 3:29 No issues at all.

Dr. Josh Muir 3:30 Go hog wild.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 3:31 Go hog wild

Dr. Josh Muir 3:32 Play that trumpet

Dr. Tanner Townsend 3:33 Play that trumpet

Dr. Josh Muir 3:33 Okay. I have had multiple patients that are members of bands and they that’s one big concern. Okay, that mouthpiece is going to push up against here. Can I just use that? Absolutely use it. You’ve earned it. You’ve earned it at that point. Okay, dating and love life. Are there any things there that patients need to be aware of?

Dr. Tanner Townsend 3:55 I think treat it as a natural tooth at that point. You know, I think you’ve if the implants healed. We don’t want to obviously, like, you can kiss as normal. You can do all those things that you want to do, just treat it as a normal tooth. But I think I go back to the ice and the corn nuts, like, don’t go. I don’t know where I’m going with this.

Dr. Josh Muir 4:19 Don’t go don’t go hog wild. Well, I do have one story. This is why I brought this love life, part of because, you know, life after an implant. Now you must understand a dental implant doesn’t have a nerve in it, and so you can’t always tell how hard you’re biting. So, if you’re biting just on that one implant, you may not realize that you’re putting the pressure you are so love life. I had a patient who was telling me, you know, they’re playfully nipping at each other, and he’s just kind of nibbling on his wife, and he did not realize how hard he was biting. I mean, that’s a funny story, but other than that, smooching all that stuff, totally fine. Okay, let’s see here. Now, what about confidence I had? I had a patient today who came with a denture, and it was broken. The problem was this person had sneezed, and the denture flew out of their mouth, landed on the floor and broke multiple teeth on the denture. Now that person has about zero confidence in wearing that denture at this point, because they’re very worried that something suddenly will happen again, because that sneeze came out of nowhere. Now with dental implants, how is that different?

Dr. Tanner Townsend 5:46 With dental implants, everything is secured, everything is screwed down and tightened. It is the closest thing to a natural tooth. And even if you have a denture that snaps in or screws in, that’s not coming out at that point, let alone a single implant tooth. That is the closest thing. You don’t have to have those fears and worries of a partial coming out or the denture coming out, it’s not going to happen.

Dr. Josh Muir 6:12 So what I like about all of this discussion is, you know, I asked these questions and I stated, you know, life after an implant, but it’s really life with confidence. It’s really life with function, life with love, life with something that works. And, you know, amazing. There’s a huge emotional payoff with this as well. When, when this finally clicks to patients. And what we typically see is patients will say, you know, I don’t even remember which one was the dental implant.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 6:47 Yeah.

Dr. Josh Muir 6:48 So, I mean, that is significant, because that was, that was their life, like that was the worst thing that ever happened to them, and now they don’t even remember which tooth that was. And that’s a success story, right there, 100% so if you find yourself needing a dental implant, if you find yourself wondering, you know what, what does happen after this whole process? How does this influence my life? Well, I hope that this answered some of your questions. There are so many myths out there that can lead you astray, but just know this is something that can give you your confidence back. It can help you function with chewing, speaking, smiling, smooching, all of those special things that make life. And so, give us a call. We’ll get you in for a free consult, and we’ll help you understand what your options are as you begin your dental implant journey. Thanks for joining us today. And this is Josh Muir and Tanner Townsend with the Smile Reconstruction Dental Implant Podcast.