Part of the job of a San Diego reconstruction dentist is replacing lost teeth. Though the concept of replacing teeth with a bone anchored device seems new, it actually is not a new concept at all. Ancient Egyptian and South American civilizations experimented with re implanting lost teeth with hand shaped ivory or wood substitutes long before San Diego reconstruction dentists came along.

In the 18th century lost teeth were sometimes replaced with extracted teeth of other human donors. The implantation process was extremely risky and had a high failure rate due to the donors body many times rejecting the implanted tooth.

Preceding the work of any San Diego reconstruction dentist, in 1886 a dentist named Dr. Edmunds was the first dentist in the US to implant a platinum disc into a patients jaw bone, and attached to the disc was a porcelain crown. A man by the name of Dr. Strock is the reconstruction dentist that was first successful in placing oral implants in 1937 at Harvard University. After more successful reconstruction implants were done, he followed his patients around for about 15 years to check on their progress until he passed away. He had discovered the use of vitallium implants, and had done many tests on the side effects of vitallium on the body, discovering that there were none. Vitallium is still used today by some San Diego reconstruction dentists.

In 1952, in the midst of quick advancement in the occupation of reconstruction dentists, in Sweden, the first titanium screw for dental implants was used. These early screws were first tested on rabbits, and were put into their thighbones. After the screw had remained in the rabbits thigh for several months, the early reconstruction dentists realized that the screw had actually fused to the bone. Although the leading dentist of the experiment, Dr. Branemark, had struggled for years to gain acceptance of his experiments by the medical community, in 1981 there was finally enough evidence about the success of using titanium screws for reconstructive dental implants that the Toronto Conference on Osseointegration in Clinical Dentistry laid down the outline for what would be deemed as a successful dental implant for North America, including guidelines for San Diego reconstruction dentists.

Since then, many other domestic implant systems have evolved. Most of them are very similar in design to the original Branemark Titanium Screw. Also, many improvements have been made since then by many different companies, and research continues to influence future designs and concepts that may be used by your San Diego reconstruction dentist.