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I have had a dental bridge since I was sixteen years old. I can see bone loss in the area. My general dentist wants to do a dental implant instead. How do I know if I need bone grafting for the dental implant? My dentist hasn’t mentioned anything about that, but the bone loss worries me. Can any dentist do a dental implant or do you need a specialist?
Cindy
Dear Cindy,
When you have bone loss of any kind, you will need bone grafting done. The reason for this is the need to have enough bone structure to integrate with the dental implant and hold it in place. Without that, you end up with dental implant failure. This is super important.
You are asking all the right questions and I am surprised your dentist has not brought anything up about it. This leads me to your final question. While any general dentist is allowed to do dental implants, not many of them are qualified. You need a dentist who has significant post-doctoral training.
Your case will be more complicated then most because of the bone loss. Because of that, I recommend you see a dentist who is a fellow with the International Congress of Oral Implantologists. These will be the dentists who have the the most training and proven expertise.
Why Did You Have Bone Loss?
When you lost your tooth, your body was signaled that there was no longer a tooth root there. Because of that, it begins to resorb the minerals in your jawbone in order to use them elsewhere in your body where the minerals will be put to better use. This is why completely removable dentures are so devastating in the long term.
The longer the minerals in your body are being drawn from your jawbone, the smaller it gets. Eventually, patients do not have enough of their jawbone left to even retain their dentures. Dentists call this facial collapse.
The way to prevent this condition is with dental implants. Patients who’ve lost all of their teeth would have a few dental implants placed in each arch. Then, once the bone has integrated with them, their dentures would be anchored to the implants. This is sometimes called implant overdentures. The implants signal to your body that there are teeth roots there and, as a result, it leaves your jawbone intact.
This blog is brought to you by Baton Rouge Dentist Dr. John Theriot.