Anyone had dental implants?

brook2jack

Although treatment at a dental hospital may be cheaper For the patient (if accepted) the amount they pay in no way reflects the cost of providing them with treatment which is much more expensive than in general practice. A patient may well recieve £1000s of pounds worth of treatment as dental materials, equipment etc are frighteningly expensive and treatment costs are far, far higher in hospital than in practice. This has to come out of the hospital budget.

Getting treatment at a dental hospital may be money saving for an individual but it still costs the Nhs a huge amount hence the drive to limit implants etc to the most needy in terms of health rather than aesthetics (looks).

Interestingly according to the WHO an individual only needs six teeth to be dentally fit.

Toothsmith

brook2jack wrote: »

Interestingly according to the WHO an individual only needs six teeth to be dentally fit.

6????

I thought it was 10 teeth against 10 - I.E. premolar to premolar top and bottom, the 'reduced dental arch'.

That's certainly what's recorded as healthy on Denplan's Oral Health Score on it's Excel program. That includes any denture worn though.

Does that 6 just mean patient's own teeth that would help support a denture of more teeth?

brook2jack

It is 6 natural teeth no denture. There is nothing about having opposing teeth so I assume it means that you have something to incise with and can masticate against ridges with no teeth.

Practically the WHO guidelines are really for populations to be free of pain. Any teeth you have left afterwards are seen as a bonus.

veggieblob

I've just come across this thread. I'm ashamed to say (although I have been repeatedly told by my perio that my OH was good), that nearly all my teeth have been replaced by implants. This is where the teeth are not replaced individually but in one piece attached by several titanium implants into the bone.

I can only speak from personal experience, but this has completely changed my life. I hated wearing even partial dentures and can now act exactly the same as if I had all my own strong teeth. I am by no means wealthy but made this a high priority and used lots of hints from this site to get the money together.

The lower one was definitely the easier for me and I had temp teeth attached to the implant posts immediately. They also seem to be easier to look after than the uppers. However, I had tamazopan (?) for major procedures and really was quite chilled out an relaxed throughout.

One point that I did want to make though is that aftercare is very important. It's actually more time consuming to look after implants than natural teeth properly. One of the earlier posters said about a 15 min routine morning and night. Mine is about 15 mins at night but I'm not good at getting up in the morning so morning is 5 mins and other bits teepees etc get done at various times throughout the day.
Sorry I've rambled a bit but yes, in my opinion, it is worth it and it shouldn't cause too much pain (I was very lucky and had virtually none) or too much time when you don't want to be seen (I had 3 days unable to wear any form of teeth on my uppers at one stage).
Good luck with your procedures.

lolly5648

veggieblob wrote: »

One point that I did want to make though is that aftercare is very important. It's actually more time consuming to look after implants than natural teeth properly. One of the earlier posters said about a 15 min routine morning and night. Mine is about 15 mins at night but I'm not good at getting up in the morning so morning is 5 mins and other bits teepees etc get done at various times throughout the day.
Sorry I've rambled a bit but yes, in my opinion, it is worth it and it shouldn't cause too much pain (I was very lucky and had virtually none) or too much time when you don't want to be seen (I had 3 days unable to wear any form of teeth on my uppers at one stage).
Good luck with your procedures.

No-one has mentioned aftercare to me yet. I have just had impressions taken for my 3 top teeth and am getting the crowns fitted first week in January. What is the special care you have to take? I normally brush 2 or 3 times a day and use floss in the evenings after dinner.

Is that not enough - what else do you have to do?

veggieblob

lolly5648 wrote: »

No-one has mentioned aftercare to me yet. I have just had impressions taken for my 3 top teeth and am getting the crowns fitted first week in January. What is the special care you have to take? I normally brush 2 or 3 times a day and use floss in the evenings after dinner.

Is that not enough - what else do you have to do?

Don't worry it's not that bad! It is just important to keep everything very clean and there are different types of floss and brushes etc that you can use. Your professionals will give you full instructions and this may be slightly different to mine. No harm in asking in advance if you want to know your own particular routine, but you'll probably be given a starter pack of everything you need as part of the treatment. Normal toothbrushes just don't really do the job for implants.

giantmutantbroccoli

Well, it's done!:j
Thank you so much for your helpful posts! I was still terrified when I went into the surgery room, and I stayed that way for all of the 5 mins before they sedated me. Sedation was lovely. I remember bits of the surgery but nothing particularly clear, and none of it worried me at the time. I do remember noticing the surgeon's bloody hands and thinking "Wow, I bet I look like an extra from a zombie movie!" but they didn't give me a mirror until after they'd cleaned my face, so I'll never know if I was right
The surgery itself went so well and was so "clean" that they didn't need to give me any antibiotics. I took over-the-counter painkillers for the headaches/jaw pain (solpadol), but I think most of that was caused by them pulling my face about during surgery.
Obviously it's too soon to say if everything is going to go well or not - implants can fail instantly or over a few years - but I'm doing as much as I can to make sure it works. Mostly at this stage that's just keeping everything clean, not messing with the stitches (harder than you'd think, but luckily my retainer gets in the way) and rinsing everything in salt water.
Unfortunatly no one told me beforehand that I'd need a checkup a week later, so that's completely messed up next week. The checkup is to make sure everything's healing nicely, and that the stitches are dissolving properly.

I hope this is helpful to anyone else considering getting implants, or about to undergo dental surgery. I really was scared but it did help me to read about other people's experiences.

I don't see anything wrong with getting cosmetic work done on the NHS if it's having a dramatic, negative affect on your life. The work I've had done was done on the NHS, yes, but it didn't just benefit me - it also benefited all the students involved in my treatment. And going off how full the surgery room was at those points where I was aware of being stared at by lots of strangers, I'd say that was a lot of students. They have to learn somehow. At some point in their professional lives they will have to deal with more serious cases then mine, and it woudl be terrible if they went into those cases without a decent level of experience, wouldn't it?

Anyway, that's just my thoughts on the matter. I'd rather not get into the ethics of using the NHS/not using the NHS on here though, it's more of a poilitics issue rather than a money-saving one.

veggieblob

Glad you've got the first bit over and done with and hope the rest all go as well. :beer: