At Affordable Dental Implant Excellence, we believe in fully educating every patient about their procedures to ensure they can decide what is ideal for them. Part of that education includes information regarding the recovery process and what to expect after dental implant placement.
We have prepared a complete guide to eating after dental implants: what you can eat and what should you avoid.
What Can I Eat After The Dental Implant Procedure?
Dental implants will allow you to eat practically whatever food and drink you desire, and after the dental implants have fully integrated with the bone, you will be back to eating as normal.
However, you won’t be able to do so right after your dental implant placement. As with any procedure, you must expect a recovery period. After the dental implant is inserted in the jaw, that area will need to heal. During this period, you may feel a little discomfort and sensitivity so try to stick with liquids and softer foods that can be easily cut with the side of a fork.
What Can I Eat Within The Initial 24-48 Hours?
For the first 24 to 48 hours, you must consume only cold liquids and avoid hot foods and drinks as the numbness from the local anesthesia may take a few hours to wear off.
Eating a nutritious, balanced diet is always important, but it’s especially essential when you’re healing after getting dental implants. Vitamins and minerals play a key role in helping your body recover after surgery. However, it’s just as important that the foods you eat are soft enough not to irritate the dental implant site.
Thankfully, with a planned soft dental diet there are plenty of nutritious foods to choose from when picking your meals during the first 24 – 48 hours after dental implant placement:
- Vitamin-rich broths and blended soups to help you stay hydrated while providing nutrients.
- Mashed pumpkins, potatoes, and bananas, as well as applesauce, avocados, or hummus, all of which contain a variety of important vitamins.
- Scrambled eggs, salmon, and protein shakes since protein can help speed up the healing process.
- Smoothies and cool ice cream can help numb your mouth, ease swelling, and keep you in high spirits!
Recent bone healing research has determined that after tooth removal, a bony ridge deformity occurs from the remodeling process resulting in crestal bone collapse. The outer edge of the bone wall is occupied by a genetically-derived bone type called “bundle bone.” The tooth is anchored to the bundle bone and is invested with ligament fibers that provide a vital blood supply to this delicate bone wall (see Figure 2).
What Foods Should I Avoid?
Here is a list of foods to avoid during your recovery, we do advise to follow this guide as much as possible to avoid any healing complications:
- Hot and spicy foods. Avoid spicy foods as they can cause irritation at your dental implant sites, thereby slowing down your recovery. They could even increase your risk of infection. To stay on the safe side, it’s best to stick to warm or even room temperature foods and avoid anything that has been heavily seasoned with spices.
- Hard fruits and vegetables. Raw carrots and apples although nutritious are hard to chew so they should be avoided. Stick with soft alternatives like bananas and peas that offer the same levels of nutrition without being harmful to your teeth.
- Popcorn, and other crunchy snacks. Avoid popcorn, nuts and seeds or any other snack that can lodge in your dental implant site, causing inflammation and discomfort.
- Sticky or chewy sweets. Stay away from sweets especially those with caramel or taffy. They tend to adhere to teeth and may dislodge a temporary restoration. If you need something sweet, choose a fruit protein shake.
- Alcohol. If you are in the habit of occasionally enjoying a glass of wine or a nice cocktail, you will have to put that custom on hold following your dental implant placement. Alcohol can slow down healing and contribute to increased swelling. It could even have dangerous interactions with your post-op medications.
- Dairy products. Milk or yogurt can cause an inflammation in the oral tissues, further damaging the gums and teeth. It is also known to trigger nausea and vomiting, so it is best to avoid it.
You might think eating only ice cream and pudding after implant surgery is an ideal plan. However, eating a soft dental diet will make you feel better, providing your body with all the vitamins and proteins it needs to heal more quickly.
How To Find A Dental Implant Expert
Learning the proper care for your dental implants and remaining natural teeth will help you maintain your teeth for years to come and restore your confidence and beautiful smile.
When you make the decision to have dental implants, you are making an investment that will last a lifetime. With dental implants, you will improve your quality of life and recapture your lifestyle after tooth loss to achieve overall well-being.
Dental implants not only have the power to improve your appearance and give you more confidence, but you will be able to talk freely and enjoy your favorite foods and allow you to live your life without worrying about discomfort or embarrassment when it comes to your smile.
Think of it as an investment that you make in your overall health. It may mean a little sacrifice along the way, but you can benefit from dental implants if you are willing to make some changes! With proper care and checkups, your dental implants should last to the horizon of your health.
Routine care needs to be done in combination with seeing a highly qualified and experienced dental implant dentist twice a year and sometimes more depending on your specific dental implant needs. Choose a Board-Certified Dental Implant Expert to guide through this process so you may enjoy your dental implants for a lifetime.
The Weeks Following Dental Implant Placement
After your dental implant procedure, you’ll be anxious and excited to start eating your favorite meals again. But it is important to eat the proper foods during each healing stage.
A softer food diet is the best approach during the first few weeks after surgery. Stick to foods like soups, softened pasta, and mashed potatoes. If you’re feeling confident, try introducing soft meats like shredded chicken or fish.
Get your daily vegetable intake by boiling or steaming them until they are soft and easy to chew. Avoid anything that is too hard or crunchy, and anything that requires you to open your mouth too wide.
Cooked oats and soft cereals are great and very easy to eat while your mouth heals. Just remember that you shouldn’t eat anything that is too hot. Rather, enjoy your oatmeal at a lukewarm temperature to avoid irritation and discomfort at the site of your dental implant.
How Long After Dental Implants Can I Eat Normally?
After receiving a dental implant, healing usually takes only 2 months but can take up to 4-6 months if bone grafting is performed. It’s important to be careful and take your time whilst introducing harder foods. Pay attention to your mouth, if eating something hurts, you’re not ready for it.
So, to heal faster it’s necessary to have a diet rich in protein, many people immediately think of eating meat and nuts first. And let’s be honest, neither of these foods will be very appealing if you’ve just undergone dental implant placement. So, we recommend these easy steps to make your diet rich in protein:
- Soft, seedless fruits (bananas, mangoes, pears, peaches)
- Steamed vegetables
- Soups and stews with soft meat
- Broiled fish
- Waffles and pancakes
- Cooked cereals (oatmeal, grits, etc.)
- Thin pasta (spaghetti, elbow macaroni, orzo)
- Mashed potatoes
- Very soft bread and muffins
- Ice cream
- Scrambled eggs
Dental implants are the next best thing to healthy, natural teeth, as they restore chewing abilities and help patients enjoy their favorite foods. But until they heal properly, patients should stick to a softer diet and avoid the following foods:
Seeds and nuts, if you bite down on hard food too soon, you will certainly feel pain and may also cause the dental implant to fail. As a rule, if your foods makes a noise when you chew them, you should really be avoiding them.
Pizza crust. It’s important to stay away from foods that are crunchy, tough, and chewy. After a few months of your selfless sacrifice, your newly installed dental implant will be fully integrated, permanent, and ready to handle any kind of food and beverage you throw its way.
Many people have asked us: What about coffee or wine? How long should we avoid them too?
As we mentioned before, hot beverages and alcohol are not recommended within the first 24 – 48 hours after dental implant placement. Right after the procedure, antibiotics will be prescribed, once you have finished your medication, you may incorporate your favorite drinks in moderation. After you enjoy a cup of joe or a great glass of red wine, make sure you brush and rinse your teeth afterwards. This will help keep the stains at bay, it also removes the acids left behind.
Oral Hygiene After Dental Implant Placement
Dental implants are designed to be a permanent solution and if you take good care of them they can last a lifetime. Their durability does not depend solely on the brushing and maintenance you give to your teeth, but also on the lifestyle choices as a whole: choosing a healthier diet, avoiding excessive sugary products, dealing with stress, or grinding and even quitting bad habits like smoking.
Daily home care is important for the long-term health of your dental implants. Your cleaning regimen with dental implants is almost the same as it is with your natural teeth, just brush, floss, and rinse with mouthwash every day. We will recommend adequate toothbrushes and accessories for your daily oral hygiene care (for more information on cleaning around dental implants, click here).
And if you still have bits of food stuck between your dental implants, don’t worry you just might need a different flossing system. For such instances, an oral irrigator or “water flosser” can be a real lifesaver. This handy irrigation tool can reach those hard-to-get spaces in your mouth and effectively clean between teeth, under gumlines and around dental implants. There is an abundance of research showing that water flossers remove more plaque from your teeth than traditional floss.
We also recommend visiting your dentist regularly; this is the most important piece of advice.
At home, you can probably see and therefore control what is right in front of you. Meaning the crown and the gums, but you have no control whatsoever on what goes on beneath the surface of the bone, meaning the dental implant. So, a regular visit to the dentist for a quick check-up and a few x-rays is crucial to the survival and longevity of your dental implants.
Long story short, taking care of dental implants or any other artificial restoration for that matter, doesn’t differ much from taking care of natural teeth. The next time you start wondering how to clean dental implants, just think of what you would do to keep your natural teeth clean and do just that!
Learning the proper care for your dental implants and remaining natural teeth will help you maintain your teeth for years to come and restore your confidence and beautiful smile.
This needs to be done in combination with seeing a highly qualified and experienced dental implant dentist twice a year and sometimes more depending on your specific dental implant needs. Choose a Board-Certified Dental Implant Expert to guide through this process so you may enjoy your dental implants for a lifetime.