Are you pleased with your complete lower dental implants?
I have upper prosthesis. I am not as pleased as I thought I would be. I am now faced with a decision to have lower prosthesis or implants. If you have lower implants I would like to know if you are satisfied -ignoring the related cost of each.
Answer
Implants are the closest you can get to having real teeth, but everybody is not necessarily a good candidate for implants.
If you have had severe periodontitis then it has ‘eaten’ away some of your jaw bone, so you may not have enough bone mass or good enough bone density for implants. You can get bone augmentation, but it is only a good option if your jaw bone has not gone back too much.
Bone augmentation is a surgical procedure; if it is just augmentation then your dental surgeon can do it while you are in his/her chair, but if it is extensive reconstruction then he/she will need to get you into a real surgery at a hospital (sounds expensive, and it is).
Even with teeth, your jaw bone recedes over the course of your life, but the roots of your real teeth stimulate the bone and slows the process down. If you have been missing a few teeth for years or if you wear a prosthesis, then your jaw bone will recede at an accelerated pace. This is why it is normally necessary to get the dentures relined/rebased every 2-3 years (often the teeth on your dentures will look worn down in 3-6 years depending on how and what you chew). After getting your dentures initially then it is necessary to reline the dentures after 6-8 weeks when the gum and jaw bone have healed and settled.
Implants integrate with your jaw bone (osseo-integration) and will stimulate the bone to slow down the process around the places where you have the implants. That is why implants is a good choice if the condition of your jaw bone is still pretty good.
Your upper prosthesis has a part that spans over your palate, so it uses suction to stay in place, therefore implants are normally wasted money for holding an upper denture. A lower prosthesis is only a horse shoe shaped gum prosthesis with teeth, so it will be a bit more difficult to get used to than upper dentures. Most people get used to upper dentures within a couple of months, but it may take up to six months before they get used to their lower dentures.
What I normally recommend is for my clients to start with normal lower dentures and then wait for a few months to see if they can learn to agree with the prosthesis. Most learn to live with it by only using dental glue while others decide to go one step further and have two implants placed in the front to keep it in place – a few opt for six implants (if possible) for their prosthesis as the result is close to getting a 12-crown bridge on implants, but a much more economical option.
