Hi all I just wanted to ask a question regarding dental implant surgery and was wondering if anyone could help?
Today I went for a consultation to get a dental implant fitted where my upper right premolar used to be before if got taken out around 6 months ago. I had a scan there and then and the dental surgeon was unsure whether an implant would be possible as the jawbone at that point is only around 3mm wide which just seemed to him to be more to do with the structure or my face. He said that a bone graft would be the only option to try and generate enough bone width to place the implant but said he wouldn’t be able to tell the quality of the bone either until he started drilling and if he wasn’t happy then he would not go through with the procedure.
Would this be normal at all or would a second opinion be better before I committed to a procedure that may not even work? Also would the prognosis for just leaving the gap and not getting a bridge or denture be poor (I am a 25 year old male from the UK and have all my other teeth)?
Sorry to hear about your situation Metronomy993…
“Bone grafts” are fairly common in dental implant work – for example, my endodontist used “packing material” (a kind of material taken from cadavers to fill in holes where teeth were) to hep regrow the bone. My wife had more of an actual graft to deal with an issue she had with her teeth in her lower jaw. Regardless, it’s still a crap shoot whether or not it will work for you. If you play the odds, it works for most people (maybe more than 80%), but there are always exceptions.
But here’s what you NEED to know. There is more than one kind of implant – in the US, I know of three kinds. Now, your dentist may have a preference, but it’s also possible that another type might be a better “fit” for your bone structure. What’s more – when I had opted for an implant, it was a long (and costly) process. I had to wait (at least six months) for the bone to regrow, then have the base set (wait another six months), and then have X-Rays to ensure the implant has “taken” – after all of this rigmarole, you get the “cosmetic crown” – which is different from a standard crown. When my wife had hers done, it was far shorter (but just as costly) – she had the extraction, fill-in, and implant in one day. It seems like we had to wait a short while for the cosmetic crown part, but during that time, she had a “phony” that looked good, but couldn’t be used like a real tooth.
I would definitely get a second opinion. I would also go to a periodontist or endodontist as opposed to a regular dentist. For example, I suspect my regular doctor (she a GP) could deal with most minor foot issues, but when I had an odd sprain in my left ankle, I went to a podiatrist.
Now – given all of the above…if you don’t need the tooth, you’re probably fine leaving it “as is”. Dentists will tell you that the teeth can “move around” without others in place to hold them steady and I guess that’s true in some cases, but I have another tooth on the opposite side of my mouth in the upper jaw. I’m also male (now 51). I had it pulled a few years ago (maybe when I was ~40) and I eat a lot of hard foods (baby carrots, hard sourdough pretzels, hard candy, ice, etc.). I have had no movement and I don’t expect any either. I was going to get an implant and I still might, but it is truly cost prohibitive for a tooth that’s not visible and I haven’t had any issues…