Friday, October 23, 2009

Mini Dental Implants ~ Do They Hurt?

See the full post of this blog at: http://www.minidentalimplant.typepad.com

Mini Dental Implants ~ Do they hurt?

I get asked this question quite often. Of course there is going to be some discomfort you would think having a titanium screw inserted into the jaw bone.....but believe it or not most if not all of my patients claim it was less painful than having an extraction.
Not ever having an implant placed or a tooth removed from my own mouth I always think when I see the condition of most of the mouths that need implants...how is this not hurting to begin with?
But as with most things in life the older I get the more I figure out I don't understand.
So without further adieu...our patient in her early 60's is now ready to introduce her broken down teeth to Dr. Good (as in good by to the broken and unrestorable roots she has left). They have been in this sort of condition for the last decade or so.
The teeth are atraumatically extracted (how an extraction is autraumatic I am not quite certain). But we try and preserve as much bone as possible I guess is the point.
The sockets are packed with our freezed dried mixture of mineralized and de-mineralized bone and closed up tight so we hopefully will have some bone to place our mini implants in a few months.
Tick tock...tick tock...tick tock...
Wow...its now been 4 months all in the space of a few lines.
The patient has mini implants placed in the healed areas and we will splint the minis together with some composite while the integrate into the bone.
On the patients left side the mini ended up having to be placed a bit closer to her natural tooth as there lack of good bone where I wanted to place the mini implant.
She is coming back to see us in 6 weeks and I will continue the post at that time. To keep costs down for her she has elected to have resin crowns made to fit over the mini dental implants.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Mini Dental Implant Bridge is Here!

Do you have a Denture? Would you like to get rid of it for good? Well thanks to mini dental implants and my good friend Ken Clifford you have that option.


A patient of mine came to me and said, "Dr. Patel, I am so glad that I had mini dental implants placed to keep my lower denture from coming out every time I tried to eat or talk....but can you give me some teeth that I don't have to take out?"


Pan X ray and clinical photo of 4 Intra Lock Mini Implants to secure a lower denture



After pondering the thoughts of how to make a bridge that most people could afford I saw my friend Ken at the Annual Academy of Mini Implant Dentists in Orlando. He had a great idea; why not take high quality 4 layer acrylic teeth(in my opinion they look better than some porcelain crowns I have seen) and make a fixed mini dental implant bridge for our patients who suffer with dentures? The more I thought about it the more it made sense.








Why should I tell patients that if I take some really accurate impressions and then make a tracing of how your chewing motions are with a soft reline material that I will be albe to create a set of dentures that will work? Its just not true...they might work...but I think most just make do with what they have. Dentures resting on gum tissue and chewing muscles will always create some sort of problem. Soreness in the gums, irritations when chewing foods that get under the denture, the list can go and on...most denture wearers will attest to that.

So with mini implants in hand and soon in our office, a Cone Beam 3D x-ray machine, its 'time to get to work' as Ken would say. After some careful planning we decided to upgrade Vicki's ability to chew by adding 7 additional mini implants to her lower jaw. One Intra Lock 2.0 x 18mm was placed in between the 4 minis she had. 3 additional Intra Lock 2.0 x 11mm minis were placed on each side for a total of 11 mini dental implants.



These will be used to hold a molar to molar (Roundhouse) Fixed Mini Implant Bridge.






This bridge will be cemented over the top of the mini implants and will not be removed by the patient.
The existing denture was modified to allow it to seat over the additional mini implants. She will comfortably wear her denture until the fixed set of teeth are made.

It will be designed in the same fashion as a traditional fixed hybrid bridge over regular diameter implants.
I will continue the post as I get the model work back from First Impression's Dental Lab.

Visit my dental office on the web at:
www.dentalminiimplant.com or if you are in Lenoir NC
Visit my other mini implant blog at
Visit Dr. Ken Clifford on the web at: www.kenclifford.com or if you are in Chico, CA.