Dental implants, for all intents and purposes, are permanent. You are expected to have them most of the rest of your life. However, different unusual circumstances, such as a bar room brawl, domestic violence in the extreme, or a car accident can loosen or knock out implants. That aside, if you take good care of your oral hygiene and your implants, they will remain in very good shape. Here are some tips for keeping those implants right where they are and looking like healthy, natural teeth. 

Brush Them

Yes, they are fake teeth, but they can collect food deposits and discolor from things like cigarettes and black coffee all the same. Brush your implants as though they are real teeth so that they will continue to look nice. Brush them for the benefit of keeping your gums around the abutment screws healthy and free from infection, too. The last thing you want is an infection to develop in the gum tissue near an implant, because then your dentist has to do all kinds of restorative work to heal the gum tissue and keep the implant in place. 

Keep Your Gums Healthy and Your Bones Strong

It is easy to keep your gums healthy. You just need to consume plenty of vitamin C, brush twice a day, and floss at least once daily. As for your bones, that gets a little tougher with age when people begin developing osteoporosis. If you keep up with health exams with your regular doctor, you can catch osteoporosis and other bone diseases before they can impact your jaw bones. Keeping the jaw bones healthy prevents the abutment screws and implant crowns from becoming loose or breaking the jaw bones. 

Crown Replacements May Be Necessary

Similar to the crowns placed over the tops of natural teeth, implants may need replacement crowns eventually. This is usually quite a way off in the future, however.  You should still tuck the thought into the back of your mind so that it does not catch you off guard when your dentist tells you in your seventies that your implant crowns need "a face lift" (so to speak). Just as an example, if you get a few dental implants in your forties, you may need to replace the crown parts of the implants in your sixties or seventies, depending on how well you have taken care of your oral hygiene and implants by then.