3 finest solutions to deal with Loose Dental Implant Screw
Dental implant restoration is proclaimed as the best solution to replace missing teeth regardless of the number of teeth a person lost. As implant teeth mimic the appearance and behavior of natural teeth, revamping missing teeth with implants allows you to eat whatever you want without pain. You might aware of the advantages of dental implants.
The implants trigger some dilemmas when they become old. Besides this, implants have further complications that are mainly categorized as surgically-related problems, peri-implant-related problems, mechanically-related problems, and hardware-related problems.
In this article, we are going to discuss a hardware-related problem – Loose dental implant screws. Our dental doctors have shared the conservative methods available to address it.
Table of Contents
How does an implant restoration screw become loose?
Once the surgically inserted implant post is integrated with the jaw bone, an abutment is fixed and it protrudes through the gums. Later, the tooth-look-like substance is mounted over the abutment. Dentists use a screw to connect the implant and abutment whereas the screw is also helpful in tightening the abutment.
The screw loosening occurs due to several reasons. Here are a few:
- Excessive bite force
- Poor screw head design
- Inadequate screw tightening
- Excessive crown (fake tooth) height
- Improper treatment plan
- Metal shrinkage
In essence, a loose screw on an implant is instigated with improper craftsmanship in implanting a tooth, poor dental care. It is a dental emergency and immediate treatment is required else screw fracture will happen. It would be followed by damage in implant posts, gingival irritations, etc.
How does an implantologist deal with a loose implant abutment screw?
The dentists use radiographs to detect if the screw fragments are visible above the implants or broken inside the implant. Meanwhile, the location, length of the implant posts are also identified during the visual inspection. A tailor-made treatment plant is made what your dentist observes in this stage.
If the screw fragments are visible and above the implant body, treatment is simple. In such cases, dentists rotate the fragment in a counter-clockwise direction to tighten it using a hemostat.
On the other hand, extreme care and effort are pivotal for retrieval when the screw fragment binds with the threads of an implant fixture (i.e.) a broken screw. Then, the dentist would perform one of the following activities depending on how deep the screw fragments are located within the implant.
1) Ultrasonic Scalar – When the implant screw is fractured followed by abutment screw loosening, the remaining portion would trap between the implant fixture threads. The ultrasonic scaler is an on-invasive method to remove broken pieces of the screw. The procedure involves inserting the equipment’s tip in the prepared pit and running in reverse (anti0-clockwise direction) to retrieve the stripped screw.
2) Round bur – This process begins by making a little slot on the screw head through which the round bur is inserted and rotating in a clockwise direction to reach the abutment screw’s stripped portions. Once the contact is made, the dentist rotates the round bur in counter-clockwise rotation thereby the screw fragments’ remains are removed.
3) Reverse-tapping rotary instrument – It holds a variety of accessories to mechanically remove the trapped fragments of abutment screws without damaging the internal structure of implants.
Bottom line
Dental doctors equip various implant rescue and retrieval kits for loose, broken screw removal. Meanwhile, commonly used dental appliances like sharp explorers, a curved hemostat, spoon excavator are also utilized for this purpose. However, your dentist would take care of addressing loose & fractured screws in your implants with conventional treatments if you seek treatments at an early stage.
If you neglect and postpone treatments to treat loose screws in an implant tooth, the screw fragments bind with the implant fragments. It leads to structural damage, thread locking compounds, etc. This is quite complicated and requires extra care to repair.
