At the clinic we see many patients who come to us wearing upper and lower dentures. What they desire is to be able to have a confident smile with high quality teeth, as well as being able to confidently enjoy their food. In other words, they are seeking for dentures that don’t move around or are bulky and not have the coverage of the palette from the denture, which affects their taste and sensations.
Best Recommended Option
One of the options recommended to these patients is having fixed bridges retained by dental implants. These allow patients to have teeth that are fixed into the jaw, as well as having no palette plate or coverage, which, in turns, provides them with stability with their bridges. The end result gives them, of course, a confident smile and the self-confidence they are longing for. There is not the slightest chance they be embarrassed by the appearance of their teeth or the lack of teeth, anymore, plus they can enjoy all types of food. On top of that, having fixed bridges has an effect on their health; if they can eat properly, this will have an effect on their systemic health in the long run.
Patient’s Case and Procedure Followed to Have Bridges
This is a case of a patient that came in with upper and lower dentures and with all of the above applying to him. We planned to do bridges with 6 implants.
Here are the steps we, usually, follow, before having the bridges on.
1. Initially what we’d do is a standard examination of the mouth, as well as the jaw joints, plus the extra oral, the mouth and the face. | |
2. At the next appointment we make models to show the patient where we are heading and make sure they’re happy with the look of their teeth. | |
3. Once they’ve approved this, we take CT scans to be sure we have enough bones in the upper and lower jaw, and to be able to place the dental implants comfortably. | |
4. From this can place the implants in a 3D fashion, because we use a surgical guide which is created from the CT scan that allows us to place the implants very accurately, within tenths of a millimeter, so that we can achieve great results by planning exactly. |
Note: For our teeth in a day cases, we place an immediate bridge on the same day, so the patient will come in the morning without any teeth, in this case, and then leave with a set of upper and lower immediate bridges.
Needless to say, we only use extremely high-quality teeth to both the immediate bridges and the definite bridges, to ensure durability and great, long-lasting cosmetic results. Patients that have teeth in a day should look after their implants by having very good oral hygiene, and also have a soft diet for the next 8 weeks to allow the implants to integrate in the bone.
5. Over the 4-month healing period with the immediate bridges, the patient is seen on regular review appointments to make sure that everything is comfortable and everything is healing well. | |
6. After approximately 4-5 months of wearing the immediate fixed bridges we go on to the next stage, which is to design definitive bridges. These take a number of appointments to make something which is very accurate and has great precision set, enabling us to have no problems in the future. |
In this example the patient was ecstatic with the results and we always explain to the patient that they should be seeing a hygienist regularly for the maintenance of the implants.
SameDay Teeth Suite provides full-mouth restoration to meet your requirements. Why have we become Midlands’ most trusted and friendly professionals, is something you will easily find out upon your first (free) consultation with one of our friendly dentists, so book it NOW! Have any questions regarding missing teeth? Get the Free Missing Teeth Guide, or call us on: 01509 323420!
Tags: full mouth restoration