As more and more people choose to replace their teeth with dental implants – which is considered the gold standard among restorative dental options – a growing number are also being told they’ll need bone grafting first.
In fact, some people will be advised to undergo bone grafting to strengthen their jawbone for reasons other than dental implant preparation, for example, as reconstructive surgery for a serious facial injury. However, for the majority, the recommendation that they have bone grafting is a result of ongoing, typically unaddressed gum disease that has progressed to the point that the underlying bone structure has become weakened and diminished in density. As a result, the jawbone must be shored up before it can securely anchor dental implants.
This often comes as a surprise to many dental implant patients. Just when they’ve finally decided they need to do something about their bad teeth and bleeding gums, they find out there’s hidden damage to their jaws that has been caused by advanced gum disease, also known as periodontal disease.
If this sounds like you, make sure you read this article so you’ll be fully aware of your options when it comes to getting full arch or full mouth dental implants.
Exactly what is bone grafting in restorative dentistry?
Bone grafting is a surgical procedure that dentists, periodontists and oral surgeons perform to build up the jawbone’s ability to support dental implants and artificial teeth. Depending on the circumstances and patient preferences, the procedure may be performed using a local anesthetic only or with the patient under sedation.
The grafting material may be human bone that’s either harvested from the patient’s hip or chin or purchased from a licensed donor bank, or it may be made from animal bone or lab-grown minerals. Whatever the source, the bone is typically ground into powder and then placed into the patient’s jawbone through an incision in their gums.
Although the initial healing time after an oral bone graft is usually about a week, the time required for the grafting material to fuse with the patient’s natural bone tissue can take from three months to a year. This translates into a significant delay as well as the need for multiple checkups and expenses before patients can move forward with getting dental implants.
Do all dental implant patients need bone grafting?
The simple answer is no. Some patients retain enough strong bone tissue to support traditional dental implants, whether they need only a few teeth replaced or they opt for an All-on-4® total teeth replacement.
However, the odds are higher that patients seeking full mouth dental implants will have significant bone loss. These patients often seek dental implant treatment only when their periodontal disease has progressed to the point that they have many loose, missing or cracked teeth as well as painful gums. When periodontal disease has gone unchecked for long enough to cause these detrimental effects, the chances are that significant bone loss has occurred as well.
Even so, patients who come to New Teeth Now for full arch or full mouth rehabilitation are unlikely to need preliminary bone grafting, even if they’ve been told they need it by other dental implant providers.
Why? Because our highly experienced oral surgeons specialize in providing full mouth dental implant procedures, and they’ve perfected techniques that allow total teeth replacement with no need for bone grafting, even for patients with severe bone loss.
Zygomatic implants, a graft-free treatment option
The main reason New Teeth Now can help patients get all the benefits of total teeth replacement while skipping the delays and hassles involved with bone grafting is the expertise of our oral surgeons with zygomatic implant placement.
Zygomatic implants are titanium rods that are specially designed to anchor into the zygoma, or cheekbone, instead of the jawbone. As such, these implants provide a way for patients who have extensive bone loss in their upper jaw to get all the benefits of full arch dental implants without first undergoing bone grafting.
Dr. Harley Richards, one of our board-certified oral surgeons and the founder of New Teeth Now, was among the first dental professionals in the nation to offer zygomatic implants to bone-loss patients, and he has been placing these specialized implants for decades.
Bone loss in the upper jaw is the most common reason that many specialists require bone grafting before providing implant placement. However, if the bone loss in your lower jaw is so extensive that your lower jawbone can’t support traditional implants, the oral surgeons at New Teeth Now have solutions that will allow you to skip bone grafting there as well.
Why expertise matters when you want total teeth replacement
Replacing your teeth with dental implants and permanent prosthetics requires a significant emotional as well as a financial investment. You want your procedure to be as pain-free as possible, your results to be spectacular and your implants to last a lifetime. This is why you want to trust your teeth replacement to the experts.
Although general dentists with little more than weekend training have begun marketing full mouth dental implants to patients on a budget, they are unlikely to provide the results you are looking for, especially if you have severe bone loss. They simply haven’t developed a skill level for placing zygomatic implants that’s even close to that of the oral surgeons at New Teeth Now.
On the other hand, our oral surgeons handle complex cases on a daily basis, and they deliver consistently excellent results. Dr. Richards tells prospective patients their choice is quite simple.
“Would you go to your primary care physician for a heart surgery? Then why go to a dentist who does implant procedures once a month when you could go to someone [New Teeth Now] that does this every day?”
To better understand why your choice of a provider is so important when you’re getting full mouth dental implants, it helps to be familiar with the concept of All-on-4 dental implants. This technique, developed in the late 1990s, allowed oral surgeons to mount a prosthetic bridge and full set of teeth in the upper or lower jaw on four strategically placed implants.
Contrast this to the previous practice of affixing each artificial tooth to a single implant and you can easily see how the All-on-4 technique was a game-changer for patients who had extensive gum disease and many bad teeth. Some dentists and specialists also saw this development as a way to standardize the whole mouth dental implant procedure and teach providers how to perform it with minimal training and experience.
However, all patients are unique, and New Teeth Now does not view All-on-4 as appropriate for everyone in need of a total teeth replacement. Our oral surgeons rely on their many years of training and experience to determine the number and placement of implants required to provide a solid foundation for each patient’s new teeth. This is especially important for patients with bone loss or other complications because they are the most likely to need a customized approach to treatment.
The overall success rate of full mouth dental implants is quite high, but complications such as nerve damage, infection and implant failure are possible. And complications are more likely to occur for patients who entrust their treatment to inexperienced providers.
It’s also true that some dental implant providers recognize the challenges of placing zygomatic implants to treat patients with extensive bone loss. In some cases, they may tell patients that bone grafting is their only option if they want full mouth implants rather than refer them to another, more experienced specialist.
At New Teeth Now, we have never turned away a patient or required bone grafting because of bone loss. If you’ve been told by other providers that you’ll have to have a bone graft before you can get whole mouth dental implants, make sure you schedule a consultation with us before you decide on your path of treatment.
Our full-service center of excellence
The expertise and reputation of our oral surgeons is a major reason why so many people choose our clinic to provide their full mouth restoration, especially if they need zygomatic implants. But the quality and customized appearance of each patient’s new teeth is an important component of our consistently excellent results.
To that end, we offer the services of top-notch restorative dentists and highly skilled lab technicians, all based in our facilities in Florida and California. Our all-in-one approach not only allows us to retain complete control over the quality of our services but also provides our patients with convenience by basing all the services needed in one place.
Are you ready to explore your options for full arch or full mouth dental implants with the tried-and-true team at New Teeth Now? The first step is to book a consultation. Contact us today to get started.
