Your experience with dentures may have been seeing them eerily suspended in a glass beside your grandparents’ bathroom sink. Maybe your grandpa pushed his dentures out to prompt laughter from you and your siblings. Dentures have come a long way in the past five decades. Now, not only do they look more natural than in any previous generation, but permanent implants with dentures eliminate any potential for slippage and wobbling.
In fact, the all-on-four implant with dentures system offers patients many benefits that our grandparents didn’t have. In today’s blog, we’ll review some of those benefits and explain how four little implants with dentures can vastly improve your quality of life.
What Is All-on-Four?
The All-on-Four dental implant technique involves creating a surgical template to guide implant placement so that posts are placed in the most ideal position within the jaw. Four dental implants can hold an upper or lower denture in place.
The procedure is done in one day, and in most cases, the patient is fitted with a temporary denture at the same time. The temporary will not endure forever, but it will allow the patient to eat, speak, and smile with confidence as osseointegration occurs. The term osseointegration refers to bone growing around dental implant posts, and it takes about nine months.
After the bone has sufficiently anchored the implant posts, the long-term, actual denture will replace the temporary.
5 Benefits of the Implant with Dentures System
Patients who wear traditional dentures miss out on many benefits of All-on-Four or a similar implant with dentures system. With implant dentures, you can enjoy:
- Confidence: Knowing that your dentures will never slip, wobble, slide, or loosen will allow you to dine out with friends and family, without worrying about embarrassing denture accidents. You can smile confidently because you’ll look fantastic.
- Comfortable Function: Implants with dentures feel like natural teeth. They function like natural teeth, too. If you’ve experienced speech and enunciation issues due to missing teeth or improperly fitted dentures, don’t expect the same problems with All-on-Four.
- Longevity of Your Investment: With proper care and continued good health, you can expect your implant dentures to last the rest of your life! The denture itself will need replacement with time, but your implants should last forever.
- Jawbone Retention: Another benefit of implants with dentures is that implant posts stimulate the jawbone to aid in bone retention. When you chew foods with natural teeth, teeth roots create vibrations. The vibrations let the brain know that your teeth are still in use, so your jawbone needs nutrition to remain strong.
When teeth are gone, the jaw holds no teeth roots. Even if you wear traditional braces there are no teeth roots. So, your brain tells your body to divert bone-enriching minerals to other bones that are still working, like arms and legs. As a result, the jawbone shrinks, so dentures no longer fit well and your face looks older.
Implants replace teeth roots, so when you eat, they create the necessary vibrations to ensure good jaw health.
Learn More About Implants at Your Consultation
Might implants with dentures be a good fit for you? For an implant consultation in Duncan, call Chisholm Trail Smile Center at 580.255.4880. Dr. Matthew Bridges will meet with you, review your records, and let you know which treatment options are available to replace your lost teeth or to stabilize your dentures. Most patients in good health qualify for dental implants.
