Dealing with Loose Implant Screw Abutment – How Is It Fixed?

Implant dentistry is one of the most popular advancements in the dental field. It delivers natural-looking results for people who have one or more missing teeth. Though about 98% of people dental implant patients don’t experience any problems, for some their implant may become loose. Avoid freaking out.

The reasons could be as follows:

Loose screw: Sometimes the screw connecting the crown and implant becomes loose which can usually fixed by a small 10-minute procedure in majority of cases.
Fractured metal: In rare cases, a part of the implant breaks when using too much force while biting on hard food items. If only the crown or abutment is broken you are lucky but if the implant is fractured, you’ll need a new one.
Missing healing collar: This is a case of dental emergency since gum tissue closes over the implant in a matter of days after which an hour long second-stage surgery must be done to reach out to the implant.

There are different reasons you may find your implant to be loose. If you feel that is the case, contact an experienced professional immediately. If you are looking for a dentist Cypress Tx. contact Orion Dental Specialties. They are the top dental clinics in Cypress with years of experience in dental implants.

They will assess your teeth and find out the actual underlying issues. Most of the time it isn’t the actual implant that is loose but the abutment screw which could eventually break thus damaging other components. Those who have clenching habit or bruxism are more at a risk of ending up with loose abutment screws. Look out for the symptoms.

Symptoms for loose abutment screw:

Minimal to moderate pain/ discomfort around the crown
Difference in bite
Bad taste or smell in the mouth
Swelling or redness of surrounding tissues

Possible diagnosis:

Your dentist assesses the radiographic evidence for diagnosis of loose implant screw which could be one of the following:

Failed cement seal
Failed implant
Fractured implant
Fractured prosthetic abutment

Treatment:

The dentist determines if the mobility issue is due to screw loosening or the entire implant being mobile and provides the required treatment.

Implant movement:

If the entire implant has become loose, it has to be removed. Radiographic tests are done to confirm that there is implant failure.

Abutment screw movement:

If the patient doesn’t complain of pain when crown is moved to a buccal-lingual position, abutment screw movement is confirmed while if the patient experiences pain, the non-integration of the implant is possibly the cause of discomfort after which further tests are done to rule out tissue impingement which confirms abutment screw movement

After confirmation of the diagnosis, if the condition of the screw is good, the dentist re-inserts the screw or else a new screw is fixed at the earliest to prevent the gums from growing over the dental implant.

A loose abutment screw should be treated at the earliest to prevent further dental implant complications. If you suspect that your implant isn’t intact, contact your family dentist immediately and tend to it.