When Should Dental Implants Be Considered?

By R.S. Mayberry, DDS

Mayberry Dental

. https://www.mayberrydental.com/

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When Should Dental Implants Be Considered?

Dental implants are a newer technology for the replacement of missing teeth and have many advantages for patients requiring treatment for a variety of dental problems.

Here is one example of a complete upper dental implant patient. First of all, this patient hates going to the dentist and only sees a dentist if it's an emergency. He is very anxious and will only accept treatment under sedation.

The patient has a history of ongoing dental problems, such as untreated tooth decay, gum disease, and missing teeth. He had multiple missing front teeth that negatively affected his appearance; several infected abscessed teeth that required root canal and crown treatments to be saved; gum infections that would require many appointments to treat. He would require sedation and Novocain to get through these appointments.

Conventional dental treatment could salvage his teeth, but it would require many appointments, with sedation and local anesthetic injections. For conventional treatment to be successful long term for people like this, they must commit to regular cleanings, scaling and root planing, fluoride treatments in the dentist's office every 3-4 months for life. Patients like this are termed “periodontal patients,” because they require regular periodontal care the rest or their lives, otherwise they face increased risk of tooth loss.

An alternative treatment plan was to remove natural teeth and replace them with dental implants. This option would require a surgery appointment with sedation and Novocain similar to the conventional option, but only one treatment appointment would be required. The cost for each option was almost the same.

Since the implant option would require only one appointment with sedation and Novocain, compared with multiple appointments with the conventional treatment option, the implant option was the plan of choice.

The implant treatment option was seen as less painful and difficult because the surgery would be done in one appointment and the follow up appointments would not require any local anesthetic injections or painful treatment. Lastly, the cost for both options was going to be close to identical. From the perspective of the anxious patient the implant option was the best choice.

It is not unusual for patients faced with this kind of prognosis to attempt to change their behavior and become compliant dental patients. Unfortunately many of these people discover the difficulty of staying compliant with long term maintenance plans and drop out of the program. For many people like this, dental implants are the best long-term treatment option for several reasons.

Dental implants don't decay and gum disease seen around natural teeth is not the same around dental implants. Dental implants can also stimulate the jawbone to grow up and strengthen around the implant, something never seen around natural teeth, and because dental implants are made of titanium they are stronger than natural teeth.

The cosmetic results using implants can be excellent when everything is done properly, resulting in a beautiful smile.