Dental Implants for Teens and Young Adults

Adults often choose dental implants in Victorville, CA, because they look and function like natural teeth. Filling in missing teeth with dental implants allows people to speak clearly, chew their food adequately, have a fuller-looking face, and smile without worrying about their artificial teeth falling out.

At What Age Can Children Get Dental Implants?

As great as these benefits are, dental implants are not appropriate for children because their jaws have not finished growing yet. Patients should have reached skeletal maturity before we consider placing dental implants.

The risk of getting implants too young is that they can impede ongoing bone development, which can cause significant complications up to and including implant failure. While every patient is different, the jawbones of many young people are fully developed around age 16 to 17 for girls and age 18 to 21 for men.

The Dental Implant Procedure

Dr. Paul Bell follows the same basic steps when installing dental implants, regardless of the patient’s age. The first step after numbing the patient’s gums is to place the implant screw, which is made of titanium, into the jawbone using a dental drill. The post takes on the same function as natural tooth roots and fuses with those that the patient has remaining. At this young age, most patients need only a single tooth or a few teeth replaced due to facial trauma.

After waiting several weeks to a few months for the implant screw to fuse and the jawbone to heal, the patient returns to our dental practice to have the artificial tooth attached. Dr. Bell first secures a piece called an abutment that connects the artificial tooth and the implant screw together and then places the replacement tooth on top of it.

Please contact us to learn more about dental implants in Victorville, CA, for older teenagers or young adults.