Dental Implant

When a tooth is missing there are usually a number of solutions available.

• You could have a false tooth made and fitted to a plate.
• Alternatively a Bridge can be fitted to an adjacent tooth.
• Or you could have a Dental Implant which doesn’t affect the adjacent teeth.

our practice, we have selected the most modern, top of the range dental Implants from Lifecare(Israel), Nobel Biocare (swiss) and MIS implants. These implant systems are all world class dental implant companies which have been established for many years.

There are many alternative cheaper type of implants available in the market but as we do not have the much needed scientific and clinical support to back their performance, at Smile Architect Dental Clinic we do not think is justifiable to provide them to our patients no matter what the financial benefits can be to both to the patients and the dentists.

Also by using dental implants from one of the major implant companies, we ensure that in years to come if the patient’s implant needs a new screw or an abutment, the company is likely to be still in business to supply the parts needed for maintenance.

Same day teeth

Dental implants Missing or failing teeth can break down your confidence leaving you feeling uncomfortable with smiling and anxious. Dental implants have long been the permanent solution to teeth lost to accident, disease, or decay, and at Smile Architect Dental Clinic we are the leaders in the placement of crowns and bridges immediately after implant surgery using techniques like the All on 4. We can give you a beautiful, natural-looking smile in just one day.

For patients who have lost most or all of their teeth, the All on 4 technique developed by the world leader in Implantology Nobel Biocare can provide teeth that look and feel real in just one day.

That’s just one of the many reasons that people choose us to rebuild their smiles, but there are so many important benefits that come with permanent replacement teeth.

First and foremost, you can eat like normal again. Dentures so often slip and make eating difficult. Even when low bone mass has presented problems in the past, we can help. All-on-4 can often help patients with bone mass issues without the need for costly bone grafting that can be painful and take months to heal. All in all, most patients can come in during the morning and leave with brand new teeth in the afternoon.

• First we assess your teeth to check all-on-4 suitability. We would be looking for cases where most/all of the teeth in any jaw have been lost or will soon be lost due to decay, gum disease or cases where there is a lot of bone loss.
• We will arrange for a CT scan to assess your bone quality and quantity.
• We would then remove the hopeless teeth and place a minimum of four implants in your jaw during a morning session.
• That same day we will construct a full arch fixed acrylic bridge which we will attach to your implants in the afternoon session.

All that remains is for you to enjoy your new natural smile.

Bone Grafting

Dental Implants require sufficient bone of good quality and quantity in order for the dental implants to have stability once the implants are placed in the bone.

Generally speaking the human lower jaw has tougher and more dense bone compared to the upper jaw which usually has more softer bone.

Once a tooth is removed, the bone in the tooth socket starts to remodel and resorb and after several months, there can be a lot of bone loss in the tooth socket caused by the loss of that tooth.

The ideal time for implant placement is around 6-8 weeks after tooth extraction at which time soft tissue healing has occured but a lot of bone loss has not yet occured. Waiting 6-8 weeks also allows any infection remaining in the tooth socket to be cleared up.

At Smile Architect dental clinic, we usually place our implants 6-8 weeks after extractions. At that time we inspect the bone quality and quantity and there can usually be three scenarios:

• One possibility is that there is insufficient bone present for implant placement and we will have to do bone augmentation to build-up the bone in that region. For bone augmentation we will use either donated human cadaver bone OR Bio-Oss (bovine derived) bone granules OR patients own bone. Bone augmentation can fail (25% failure rate) and the bone graft can become infected or become loose and lead to graft failure, in which case it will need to be redone or a different treatment tried. Once bone grafting is carried out we will have to wait around 6 months for the patients own bone to grow into it before we can place the implant.
• The second possibility is that the bone is slightly insufficient, in which case we can place the implant and do bone grafting at the same time.We usually use Bio-Oss (bovine derived bone) along with placing the titanium implant.
• The third possibility is that there is sufficient bone present and we can place the implant without doing any bone grafting. Bone grafting is an important part of dental implantology and you can find our more about it on our bone grafting page.
  For a better functional and cosmetic dental implant outcome, where needed we always carry out bone grafting. We can use the patient’s own bone, irradiated cadaver bone, synthetic bone or bovine derived bone. If bone grafting is not carried out in cases where it is necessary, it can lead to serious problems for the patient.

Overdentures

Overdentures are dentures that are supported by and attached to dental implants or root filled tooth roots, which are utilised to increase the retention and support for the overdenture.

If you wish to have an implant supported overdenture, your smile architect dentist will need to ensure there is enough bone left to install the implants, which are most commonly provided in areas where traditional fixtures are less stable.

What are the benefits of overdentures?

Overdentures are great for patients who wish to have the benefits of dental implants but don’t necessarily wish to go through bone grafting and gum grafting surgeries that is usually required for multiple single implants or do not wish to incur the time and costs involved with having multiple dental implants.

In the case of tooth root supported overdentures, the advantage of not removing the remaining roots from the mouth is that they allow proprioception to remain and the jaw bone to remain around the roots and not to shrink away as is the case with complete dentures. The jaw bone can then be used in future for the installation of dental implants should that be required.

Alternatively to traditional fixtures, overdentures provide a large degree of stability because they are attached to and supported by the installation of dental implants in the jawbone. So overdentures have far better retention compared to complete dentures.

This means that individuals who have previously worried about their dentures falling out or becoming loose could experience an improved quality of life as a result.

Patients will not experience problems with speech and be able to eat comfortably knowing their overdentures are securely fitted following the procedure and they will not have to worry about using messy denture adhesives.