Replacing fallen teeth with an implant surgery is now a very common practice with very high success rates, however, some patients may experience discomfort during the treatment of peri-implantitis.
Inflammation of the dental implant is now considered the number one cause of late implant loss.
Implant Infection: How It Occurs
Peri-implantitis is the infection of the dental implant. After an implant surgery it can happen, after months or years, that inflammation occurs close to the dental implant.
Inflammation results in the loss of bone in which the implant is osseointegrated, thus causing loss of the implant itself.
In most clinical cases of patients with peri-implantitis, inflammation of the dental implant is due to poor implant care:
- few or no periodic checkups;
- poor oral hygiene;
- pathologies or inflammations of natural teeth adjacent to the implant.
Can the treatment of peri-implantitis be painful?
To treat inflammation of the dental implant, the dentist mainly proceeds in two ways:
- non-surgical treatment;
- surgical treatment.
The first option is to break down the bacterial load, in the second option the possibility of restoring the damaged tissue and evaluating the bone defect is evaluated.
Until last year, no research had ever been carried out on the patient’s pain during and after the treatment of peri-implantitis.
At the end of 2019, a study entirely dedicated to pain following the treatment phases of peri-implantitis was published in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica.
The sample of patients on which the study was carried out was equal to 30 subjects. They each reported pain intensity after nonsurgical and surgical treatment using a visa-analog scale (VAS).
The information taken into consideration for each patient was:
- taking analgesics;
- number of plants affected;
- location of the implant affected by inflammation;
- severity of peri-implantitis;
- habitual and non-habitual smokers;
- gender.
Dai risultati è emerso che sia nel trattamento non chirurgico che in quello chirurgico per la cura della perimplantite il dolore è principalmente ascrivibile a:
- pulsazione della zona trattata;
- numbness;
- pain spikes at intervals.
Patients reported these conditions of pain and discomfort mostly in the first two days after treatment.
After a surgical treatment for peri-implantitis, more analgesics are taken than non-surgical treatments.
The best advice for avoiding pain due to peri-implantitis treatment is to take care of the dental implant and thus prevent inflammation of the implant.
