Balancing The Need For Healing And Nutrients After Dental Implant Surgery
Knowing the right foods to eat after a successful dental implant operation is not easy. On one hand, you are not supposed to eat hard foods that can damage your artificial tooth. On the other hand, you are supposed to maintain a healthy diet because your bone tissues need the nutrients to promote fast healing.
Some of the foods that may slow down your implant healing process include:
Chewy Foods
Avoid foods that you have to chew several times before swallowing. Such foods may pull away the implant from the gum. Examples of this category's foods to avoid include:
- Rolls
- Chewing gum
- Cookies
- Meat (unless it is stewed or tenderized first)
Hard Foods
Eating hard foods will exert unnecessary pressure and stress on your teeth and implant. This may loosen the implant from the point where it is connected into the jaw, and hinder integration. Examples of hard foods are:
- Dried fruit such as peaches
- Nuts such as almonds
- Raw crunchy vegetables such as carrots
- Hard candy
Foods that Get Stuck Between Teeth
You should also avoid foods that tend to get stuck in your teeth when you eat them. These foods may get stuck between your teeth or in your still-healing gum tissues. When this happens, they provide your oral bacteria with food and encourage infection. Here you find foods like:
- Seeds such as sesame
- Popcorn
- Chips
By now you may be wondering which foods you can eat without worry. Fortunately, there are many sources of nutrients that have not been listed in this category. Here is where you can get the different nutrients:
Protein
If red meat is tough on your implants, then you can avoid it and instead eat eggs, fish and bean stew. Don't forget the dairy products too. These are all good sources of protein, and they are also soft and gentle on your dental implant.
Vitamins and Minerals
For the vitamins and minerals, there are lots of fruits and vegetables you can still eat. Examples include melons, berries and bananas. You can also eat most cooked vegetables such as broccoli and squash. It might be helpful to cut them into smaller pieces first.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are mostly found in hard grains, but the grains are only hard if prepared in other ways apart from cooking. Soft cereals, rice stew, noodles, and mashed potatoes are all good, soft sources of the nutrient.
As you can see, expanding your imagination just a little bit widens the variety of food you can eat even after the implant operation. The good news is that you may only be advised to avoid the difficult foods for the first couple of weeks or so. When you want to start including them in your diet, do so at a gradual pace.
For more information, contact a local dentist like Bruce Mathes DDS.
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