I want to get dental implants after about seven years of dentures. My dentist said I’d lost some bone because of the dentures, which seems weird to me. He suggested we do bone grafting first. Well, we did. Then when I went in for the dental implant surgery he told me the bone grafting didn’t take and he had to close me up. Now, he’s talking about doing all-on-4 dental implants, which he said doesn’t require as much bone. Why didn’t he do that to begin with? Am I being taken?
Kevin
Dear Kevin,
All-on-4 dental implants
It doesn’t sound like you are being taken by your dentist as much as it sounds like your dentist is in a bit out of his depth. It is true that after wearing dentures your body loses jawbone. Our bodies are remarkable. It recognizes when your teeth are removed. Knowing there are no longer any roots for our teeth it perceives the minerals in your jawbone would be of better use elsewhere. It resorbs those minerals which leads to your jaw shrinking. After a while, you wouldn’t have enough jawbone left to even retain your dentures. This is known in dental circles as facial collapse.
Bone grafting is a great solution for this because it restores the missing bone structure, enabling you to get the dental implants which will improve your life so much. It sounds like he’s new at bone grafting which is likely why this was a struggle. We all start somewhere. Truthfully, the fact that your dentist is adding to his skill set and working toward keeping up with the advancements in his field is a great sign.
While his suggestion of all-on-four dental implants is okay, I wonder how experienced he is with this procedure. It’s a little more complicated. If one part of it goes wrong, the whole thing will have to be re-done. If you were to go this route, I’d ask your dentist how many of these procedures he’s done and what his success rate is.
Options for Your Dental Implnats
You can go with the all-on-4 dental implants, but if your dentist isn’t very experienced with this procedure, I’d seek someone else to do it.
You also have the options of getting traditional implant overdentures, but you will need to have the bone grafting re-done. This can be successful. The more bone you have, the better your chances at a successful dental implant procedure. Again, to do this, you’d need another dentist.
This blog is brought to you by Atlanta Periodontist Dr. David Pumphrey.
