At What Age Can You Have Dental Implants?

Are there any lower age restrictions for the placing of dental implants?

With dental implants becoming more and more established in people’s minds as the best solution for replacing missing teeth, it is not surprising that many younger people have expressed an interest in having them, especially given the publicity they have had via media personalities who have had them placed.

Cosmetic or medical?

First of all, when it comes to dental implants, we need to look at the reasons why a patient might want these.

Most younger people should have teeth that are healthy and strong, providing of course, that they have looked after them. Although teeth can be lost in accidents, most youngsters’ teeth should not need to be extracted and replaced. It should be borne in mind that some celebrities you may have read about who have had them, may have had otherwise healthy but unattractive teeth replaced due to the desire to simply look their best in front of the camera. However, this is not someting that we would advocate.

For most people though, this is completely unnecessary and dental implants should only be used when a tooth has been lost, and, although implants look like a natural tooth, they should not be used to replace one that is healthy.

What age?

As regards the age at which people can have implants placed; this does vary from person to person and needs to be determined by our experienced Bromley implant dentist. The key factor here is in their growth and development.

Dental implants are only placed where a patient’s jaw has developed fully. This is because, if an implant is placed into a patient’s jaw who has not yet fully developed, the implant will move as the bone develops in the jaw. This will likely not only lead to a crooked implant eventually, but could also affect other teeth around it and even cause some discomfort to the patient.

At the Smile Dental Practice, we are happy to discuss the option of dental implants with older teenage patients and also to offer, where appropriate, other temporary solutions such as a partial denture until such time that they can have a safe and reliable implant procedure.

Although we appreciate that it can be frustrating if you have lost a tooth at what can be a very important time of your life, our ethics simply do not allow us to perform a procedure that could be damaging to the patient in the long term. The good news is that if you do have a dental implant placed in your late teens, you are very likely to still have it, with few problems, for a long time to come. Such is the strength and longevity of our high quality titanium implants and the high success rate of our implant dentist.

If you are a teenager who is considering whether a dental implant is for you, why not arrange a consultation at our Bromley dental practice by calling us on 020 8462 2473. Please note that, depending on your age, parental consent may be required.