Could All-on-4 Dental Implants Benefit You?

Are you struggling to get to grips with missing teeth? Perhaps it's time to do something about it.

Living with gaps in your smile or uncomfortable dentures can significantly impact your oral health and quality of life.

If you're looking to replace teeth lost through periodontal disease, decay or trauma, All-on-4 dental implants might be your solution.

But first, let's take a closer look at the treatment to help you decide whether it's right for you.

What exactly is All-on-4?

All-on-4 is a way of replacing a whole arch of missing teeth with a denture. Treatment involves embedding four dental implants in the lower or upper jaw, or both, and attaching a denture to them. The denture can be fixed or removable, depending on patient preference.

Advantages of All-on-4

• The All-on-4 procedure is fast, with the potential for patients to receive a new set of teeth in one or two visits
• Improves oral health by preventing bone loss and gum recession with the placement of implants
• Enables patients to bite and chew without the worry of embarrassing denture slippage
• Retrospective studies show up to 18 years of documented clinical success with the correct aftercare and maintenance
• All-on-4 implants are easy to care for with daily brushing and flossing around the implant sites, plus regular dental check-ups
• Provides natural-looking results that boost confidence and morale
• As few as four implants support a prosthesis that can accommodate 10-14 teeth

Who is a suitable candidate?

All-on-4 dental implants are best suited to individuals that have lost most of their teeth or all of their teeth along the dental ridge. They need to be in good health and have sufficient gum tissue and jawbone structure to support the implants when they're placed. Typically, All-on-4 candidates will be middle-aged or in their senior years.

Patients with a history of poor oral health and underlying medical conditions such as autoimmune disease, diabetes and high blood pressure that could jeopardize healing after implant surgery are unlikely to be good candidates.

Furthermore, you may not be suitable for All-on-4 implants if your teeth have been missing for an extended period and you have suffered extensive bone loss. If your gums have receded due to periodontal disease, there may be insufficient tissue to support the implants or the denture.

Gum and bone grafting to improve the chance of candidacy

Just because you're not an ideal candidate right away, it doesn't mean you can't undergo the All-on-4 procedure at a later date and following additional treatments. Gum and bone grafting can improve your chance of candidacy.

Gum grafting involves taking tissue from other areas where the gum is healthy or the top of the mouth and grafting it onto the area that requires more tissue.

With bone grafting, our dentist will take bone from another section of the body, such as the jaw or hip or use artificial bone and graft it onto the area needing more bone to support the implants.

Provided the grafting treatments are successful, there is a good chance that you can go ahead with the All-on-4 procedure. However, you need to be aware that gum and bone grafting will extend the overall treatment time because they need time to heal before the implants can be placed.

What's involved in the All-on-4 Procedure?

The following steps are generally involved in the All-on-4 procedure:

• Extraction of any remaining teeth along the dental ridge to make way for a complete denture
• An x-ray and scan to determine the best placement for the implants
• Oral surgery to place the implants, giving careful consideration to optimize the denture's stability
• Surgery over, a denture is snapped into place
• The patient leaves our clinic with a complete set of teeth

Typically, the procedure is faster than conventional implant procedures because instead of replacing every tooth with a single implant, our dentist utilizes just four implants per arch.

Following surgery, patients are fitted with a temporary denture that enables them to talk, eat and smile free from worry or stress. Once the implants have healed, the temporary denture is replaced with a permanent denture, usually within six months after surgery.

Want to know more?

Because every patient's mouth and medical history are different, it's vital to undergo an examination with our dentist to see if the All-on-4 treatment is suited to you. If it's not, we can discuss plenty of other teeth replacement options with you.

Why not book a free consultation with the friendly, experienced team at Chesterfield Dentistry and take the first step to a brand new smile and more confident you? Contact us at 314-936-3621.

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