Anyone considering a single, multiple or full mouth dental implants should watch this very informative video…15 important things to know about dental implants.
Too many people embark on implant surgery without enough information. Learn before you make a decision and end up with a problem implant that needs to be fixed or removed.
There are over 250 articles and videos throughout my website to guide you, but this particular article will help you understand the basics….things to know about dental implants.
15 things to know about dental implants to get you started on your journey:
1. What are dental implants?
2. Who is a good candidate for dental implants?
3. What are the advantages of dental implants?
4. What are the disadvantages of dental implants?
5. How painful is a dental implant procedure?
6. How do I find the right implant dentist?
7. How much do implants cost and does insurance cover the cost?
8. What is the success rate of dental implants?
9. How long do dental implants last?
10. How long does it take to get dental implants?
11. Do I need a bone graft before implants?
12. What are All-on-4® implants?
13. Can dentures be made into implants?
14. What type of teeth are best for implants?
15. What are zygomatic and other special implants?
The transcription below was created by AI (with some light editing for easier reading) so there may be grammatical errors. It is only intended to help fill in any gaps if you missed something in the video.
(00:01): 15 things to know about dental implants…I’m going to go through some of the real basics. I’m going to keep this kind of a little bit superficial, just so you kind of get some info.
1) What are dental implants?
First off, what is a dental implant? It’s an artificial tooth root. It replaces a missing tooth.
It’s strictly just a root, a titanium screw essentially that goes into the bone…surgically inserted. And a crown could be made on top of it. A bridge could be made on it, a denture could be snapped onto it, it could be reused and repurposed for different things, but it’s essentially a root that goes into the jawbone, deeper where the roots are.
2) Who is a good candidate for dental implants?
Who is a good candidate for a dental implant? Basically, if you’re healthy and you’re not too young, and honestly not too old…about a hundred is my oldest patient and youngest maybe 16 to 18.
(01:02)
Ideally a little bit older than that. You’re a good candidate if:
- you’re healthy
- you don’t have any autoimmune disease
- you haven’t received radiation to your jaw
- you don’t have severe uncontrolled diabetes
Drug and alcohol problems can be an issue, though.
So basically, a healthy patient who can get around…you can go up a flight of stairs and you can take care of your implants as well, right?
Just like you take care of your teeth, you have to take care of implants. It’s not just put them in and then forget it.
So basically, if you’re healthy enough to have a tooth extracted, you’re healthy enough to have an implant. Of course, some people need one implant and some people need 12 implants, and that’s a different level of care as well.
Now to the third question for things to know about dental implants…
3) What are the advantages of dental implants?
What are the advantages of dental implants? You know, I can go on forever on this one….a really important thing to know about dental implants.
(01:50)
You know, mainly it’s going to restore, it’s going to give you back what you had before, right? If you’re missing teeth, it can play a big role in your self-confidence, your ability to eat, embarrassing situations, and just keep your smile nice, healthy.
It’s a tremendous advantage for preventing shifting of teeth, preventing bone loss, preventing your face from shrinking over time.
If you start missing many teeth, many patients end up losing like a back molar and then another molar, and then a few years later they don’t have the back teeth to support, so they end up losing their front teeth.
So the advantage is it restores your mouth and your teeth to its original, or at least as close as possible. Nothing is like your original teeth…dental implants are a close second place. If you can keep your teeth predictably, then, that is the way to go.
4) What are the disadvantages of dental implants?
Disadvantage of dental implants is, well, it could be costly, right? It’s a surgery. You have to have surgery. The jaw has to be open for it to be put in, and it has some risk, right?
(02:58)
It has some risk of bruising, swelling, bleeding, numbness. There’s anesthesia that you have to go under or at least get numb. Most of the bigger procedures require sedation, but it’s overall a very safe procedure.
And a dental implant does not last forever. So please don’t be fooled by misleading marketing. It says it lasts forever. I’m going to go into that shortly, but just like anything else, a crown, a filling, there’s risks to those procedures as well.
And that would be that, you know, some of the minor disadvantages of having implants, you’d have to keep them clean. Having dentures, you don’t have to do anything really.
5) How painful is a dental implant procedure?
How painful is the procedure? You know, I find a wide array of patients’ pain responses to, at least when they come to me with past implant experiences, most of my patients almost have no pain at all.
(03:53)
I have a very special technique using blood plasma, IV sedation…some magic in the iv. Even my patients who go through full mouth implants, even cheekbone, are called zygomatic implants. They hardly have any pain.
My average patient who has one or two implants will take ibuprofen or Tylenol afterwards, and that includes even if they had bone grafting.
So pain, at least in my practice, is not a factor, although I do hear a lot of stories about people who couldn’t get numb during the procedure at other offices. A lot of pain and swelling afterwards. Prolonged healing, a bad smell, we’ll go into a little bit about why that could happen and really kind of segues into the next question.
6) How do I find the right implant dentist?
You know, how do you find the right implant dentist? Do you go on Yelp? Do you go on Google? Sure, there’s some of that social proof.
(04:44)
You know, my main thing is that you connect with the person who is treating you, that you guys like one another, have a mutual respect. And honestly if they have credentials that have been validated externally, right?
Not just, you know, a dentist who graduated school, but how do they have credentials? A board certification of some sort that has been reviewed by their peers, as well, that have qualified them as a board certified implant specialist.
And there’s many different specialties in implants…from generalists to oral surgeons, periodontists myself, all I do is implant dentistry, but I can tell you is the one thing that’s most important that anything else is nothing replaces experience, right? Nothing.
No sort of, I graduated from this school or that school or whatever.
Nothing replaces experience. I placed about 17,000 implants. I can pivot on any procedure at any time.
(05:39)
I’ve seen it all and done it all. Seen all sorts of complications, both of teeth making side to surgeries, to advanced bleeding. So finding the right dentist is going to depend on the type of procedures that you’re having done.
Do your due diligence. I encourage, you know, second opinions even with my own patients, to go out there and see that they’re comparing apples to apples because it’s not something you just stick in the jaw and go.
There’s so much that can go wrong. And there’s a lot that needs to happen for it to go right.
It’s a very planned procedure, kind of like blueprinted to know exactly what’s going to happen. Especially as we get into bigger cases, our front teeth, we want to know how things are going to look and feel before we ever start. Not just say…oh, hey, here’s your tooth.
(06:31)
And that’s what it looks and feels like, and it’s a complete surprise.
So experience, training, judgment and skill. Those are things that are really important. And finding an implant dentist and then finding a team.
You know, that the doctor has a team of people, lab support assistants and nurses and anesthesiologists, et cetera, that have your care in mind as number one. That this is a routine procedure for them, not just something that’s done every once in a while.
I find some practices have traveling doctors and things, and that could work in some situations, but I prefer an implant dentist that’s in one location all the time. But that’s, again, my preference. That’s what I do. I’m in a single office location for 20 plus years now.
7) How much do implants cost and does insurance cover the cost?
How much do implants cost? And does insurance cover the cost? Insurance covers a little tiny bit if you have it.
(07:26)
If you don’t have it, it’s not a big deal. It hasn’t changed since 1975. Dental insurance maxims are approximately $1,500 capped at that point. That’s the same cap that we had back in the mid 1970s and has not changed at all.
It should be in the $20,000 range by this point in the year 2023, but it just has not kept up. Implant procedures from start to finish can be anywhere from $4,000 to a hundred thousand dollars. There’s quite the range.
Of course, if you need 10 teeth or double upper and lower, it’s more costly than the upper versus just a single tooth.
But again, my main thing is to do it right the first time, even if you’re going to pay a little bit more. That is the key. Revisions and redos (i.e. bargain shopping) are about 35% of my practice. I hate to tell you, but you get what you pay for.
(08:22)
I see a lot of problems out there with implants. It’s not done so well at other offices. There are some weeks I actually remove more implants than I put in, which is really kind of crazy.
But I’m going to keep going here to number eight….
8) What is the success rate of dental implants?
What is the success rate of dental implants? In my own practice, it’s about 98%, 99% nationally, probably 95, 90, somewhere in there.
Depends how long you look at it for. Nothing is a hundred percent. If anybody tells you they never had an implant fail before, they’re lying to you, or they’ve only put in one implant, they’ve never placed more than a single implant and they had that one work.
So of course I’ve had implants that did not work before. We simply replace them, take it out, put another one in. It’s usually early on when it won’t work out.
(09:10)
Implants tend to be a very successful procedure…as successful or even more successful than a root canal would be over time at the 10-year mark. And so success rates are very high.
9) How long do dental implants last?
And number nine regarding things to know about dental implants…how long do general implants last? You know, I wish I could say your lifetime.
Again, watch out for deception and lies misleading advertising that implants are going to last your whole life and you’re never going to have any problem with them. That’s not the case.
As for a disadvantage of an implant..it can lose bone, it can lose tissue. Just like my own teeth have lost a little bit of bone. Naturally with age, that will happen.
So, you know, I consider success to be somewhere 15 to 20 years. I have plenty of patients who are at the 24-year mark with their implants that I’ve placed with no problems at all.
(10:01)
Care maintenance, x-rays, cleaning, having watchful eyes that actually know what they’re doing and know what they’re looking at. It is really important over time to check the bite and to check the x-rays.
So how long do dental implants last? You know, I would say ideally 10 to 20 years, definitely can go a lot longer. There’s a small subset of patients who can have a problem in the one- to three-year mark. Again, do it right the first time. Nothing replaces the doctor’s experience.
10) How long does it take to get dental implants?
How long does it take? Has a wide variety. I mean, I can go on that topic for a long time. It’s going to take somewhere between one day and one year. That’s probably the typical.
For full mouth implants, I can extract all the teeth, put all the implants in all in a day, and you have teeth in less than 24 hours.
(11:00)
Or sometimes for a really complex single tooth in the front, it may take many stages and temporaries and building bone and building gum and those can take several, several months to do. In my practice, you’re never without a tooth, especially if it’s in the front of the mouth. I have many blog posts about how long it takes to get a better idea.
11) Do I need a bone graft before implants?
Do I need a bone graft? Really common question. Having bone both adequately wide and adequately tall is an absolute necessity for an implant.
You have to have enough bone for it to be put in. And even if you have just enough, it’s still better to add because typically over time that “just enough” is going to shrink a little bit more. So having more bone around the implant is always going to be better than less bone around the implant.
(11:53)
So many cases immediate take out a tooth, put an implant in, you have to reinforce, you have to graft a little bit. Full mouth implant….I’ll often take the patient’s bone, there’s some extra bone and recycle and repurpose their own bone back in, we can use teeth as bone graft materials. We can use cow bone, human bone, synthetic bone.
But do I need a bone graft before dental implants? You really need to be evaluated very carefully to see if that’s a necessity or not. But I would say it’s very common to need a bone graft to support an implant.
12) What are All-on-4® implants?
What’s an all on four implant? An all on five or all on six? It’s a full mouth replacement. It replaces all teeth, which usually consists of four or five or six implants to replace a whole arch as a horseshoe, a horseshoe type of bridge that goes from top, full top and a full bottom….typically happens in a single visit.
(12:50)
I’ve got a lot of information on my website about this. This is something I do on a daily basis. Full mouth dental implants replacement. That’s only done when all the teeth have to go. There’s really no other good options so we replace all the teeth with implants…that’s what’s referred to as all on four.
You can use more than four implants. Having four is typically sufficient in the upper jaw, we’d like to have a little bit more than four if possible on the upper jaw.
13) Can dentures be made into implants?
And the 13th question is, can dentures be made into implants? Yes. If you have dentures, it doesn’t mean you can’t have implants. It’s just going to mean that we have to make sure you’ve got the adequate lip support and bite and build everything so that you have fixed teeth all the time.
(13:38)
There are some snap-on options called over dentures. I’m not a big fan of those. Those are things from the past to be quite honest. Or in situations where maybe you’re elderly and you have a denture that’s really good, it just lost its hold. You just need a little bit extra.
Some implants can be put in underneath. So even though you have dentures, you’re not stuck with dentures your whole life. You can have implants right away and teeth within 24 hours. And that is something that I do in my practice. Like I said, regular basis.
14) Next thing to know about dental implants…what type of teeth are best?
Question 14, the best type of teeth. Obviously the ones that fit your face, look good, feel good, function well, but for type of teeth in 2023, zirconia is the way to go. Titanium dental implants are still the gold standard.
(14:25)
They work, they don’t have allergies, they’re safe and zirconia teeth are typically the best. They can be layered, made to look extremely natural. Some cases need to have some gum overlay put on some pink or bigger, more complex cases.
But zirconia is by far the best material to make teeth with.
15) Lastly a question that comes up a lot in my practice….what’s a zygomatic implant and other specialty implants?
The last important thing to know about dental implants. If you don’t have enough bone in the upper jaw, typically, and we can’t go through bone grafting for a number of reasons, zygomatic implants are implants that go into the cheek bone.
They’re about this long and they go into the base of the cheek bone right here. They’re not by your eye. They go into the cheekbone. And there’s other types of implants called OID implants that go back where the upper wisdom tooth used to be.
(15:20)
There’s some special bone back over there. And then there’s other specialty implants called Trans Nasal or Vomer or Piriform Rim, basically that engage the bottom of the nose.
These specialty implants are intended for patients who have really hollow bone. They have hollow sinuses. The upper jaw is soft and skinny and they’re used for these special cases where regular implants wouldn’t function as well.
Or you’d have to have bone grafting done from your hip in order to replace enough bone to have implants in those areas.
I have used them quite commonly for many, many years now, and they can really provide an awesome solution for your whole mouth replacement, especially the upper jaw.
So those are the top 15 questions to ask to, to know, or to ask or to know a bit more about.
And of course, you know, find out the history of the dentist who you’re working with. What’s their experience? How many have they placed? What’s the staff like?
These are things that are really important. Don’t just show up at, you know, any old place and just have this done. Do a little bit more research into it before you dive in.
Alright, I hope this is helpful.
Sorry for the long video, but I wanted to make sure we covered all these things to know about dental implants. So thank you.
Hi,
I have a question.
I have to get one of my front teeth extracted at some point in the near future.
Dental Implant is one of my options.
I work in construction as a carpenter and I work in an environment that can be a little dusty at time.
Will this be an issue for dental implants?
I do try and wear a mask(N-95) often but will this be a problem or should I find a new career if I go with the dental implant option.
No issue at all! Trust your God given immune system! 😉
Doctor,
I recently had a single dental implant (molar). I don’t feel pain, however on the day my final crown was installed some of my teeth shifted slightly . My dentist said it was normal and he only recommended a new retainer. Should I be concerned about this, can’t this type of movement cause implant to fail later on?
No. This should be fine.