Can I eat pizza after dental implant?

4 Eating Tips to Remember After Dental Implant Surgery

21 October 2020
 Categories: Dentist, Blog

A dental implant offers many benefits. One of the benefits is the ability to eat and chew tough foods like raw vegetables and steak. But until your dental implant heals, you'll have to adapt your diet and eating habits to aid with healing.

Here are some tips to keep in mind after implant surgery.

1. Eat soft foods for 1–2 weeks

For the first one to two weeks after your surgery, you need to avoid disturbing your dental implant as much as possible. This means that hard foods like nuts and raw vegetables are out of the question. Stay away from sticky and tough foods too, like pizza and steak. Instead, eat soft foods like soups, mashed potatoes, boiled vegetables and eggs.

2. Don't chew on the healing implant

Although this might seem obvious, this is an important tip to remember because some patients may make the mistake of chewing soft food with the healing implant. In some cases, dentists place a temporary crown on an implant on the same day as the surgery. But this crown is only there for cosmetic reasons, not so patients can use it to chew food, no matter how soft the food is. For the first three to six months, dental implants are still fusing with the jawbone. If you put too much pressure on them, you could interfere with this process.

3. Eat a nutrient-rich diet

You should maintain a healthy and nutrient-rich diet. Although you will have to avoid tough foods like steak, it helps to eat a diet rich in protein. Protein helps your body to heal wounds faster. This is important for your healing surgical site. To ensure you eat a protein-rich diet, eat soft foods like eggs, boiled chicken. And you can gain protein through drinks like soy milk.  

4. Avoid foods that will irritate the surgical site

One very important point to remember, which patients sometimes forget, is not to irritate your healing surgical site with acidic, spicy or hot foods. This means that you need to avoid hot curries, chillies, hot sauce, citrus fruits, drinks, and foods that are piping hot. Instead, go for mild curries and eat warm, but not hot, food. If you do eat these foods while your surgical site is still healing, you'll slow the healing process down and likely experience severe pain.

The period following dental implant surgery is very important to the success of your implant. With a little patience and discipline, you can adapt your eating habits and help to speed up the healing process.