Can I Get Dental Implants Instead of Dentures?

Questions submitted by: Lee

I’ve got pretty bad periodontal disease which has caused me to lose about eight teeth. I’d like to get dental implants. My dentist is recommending dentures. Is it possible for me to get dental implants?

Lee

Dear Lee,

While technically, it is possible for you to get your dental implants, you will need to take care of a couple of things first. I would start with the dentures so that you have some teeth. Then, the first thing you will need to do is deal with the gum disease. This is urgent or you will continue to lose teeth.

Once you have the gum disease treated, the next step would be to build up the bone that you’ve lost. Without adequate bone structure, you will have no way to retain the dental implants. There is a procedure known as bone grafting that will restore lost bone. Then, once there is a period of healing, you can move forward with the dental implants.

One thing I want to caution you about is the fact that both of these are quite advanced procedures. You will want to be certain that you are seeing a dentist with post-doctoral training in dental implants. I would not consider dental school enough training. There are countless dental implant horror stories from dentists who destroyed people’s lives by messing up the procedure.

One option would be to get a prosthodontist. The have specialized training. If you are looking at a regular dentist, then you will want to make sure they went to an additional institution for that training, such as the Dawson Academy or the Las Vegas Academy of Advanced Dental Studies. There are others but these are two great ones.

Additionally, I would check with them to see what their success rate is. You’d want a minimum of a 95% success rate.

This blog is brought to you by Tucson Prosthodontist Dr. Howard Steinberg.