Same Day Implants – The All On 4 Procedure

An excellent solution for replacement where multiple teeth have been lost

Most of you will probably know what a dental implant is by now. In essence, it is an artificial tooth root that is placed and left to fuse with the bone before a crown is attached.

It is a highly successful and increasingly popular procedure, but one that also requires quite complex treatment and for some, a significant financial outlay, although this provides good value for money over time.

But what happens when a patient has lost a full arch of teeth? To replace these all individually would be very time consuming and expensive, to say nothing of the amount of treatment and recovery period that would be needed. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be done this way and at locally based Blue Sky Dental we are able to offer our Chelmsford patients a more convenient procedure known as ‘same day implants’ or sometimes, ‘all on 4’.

Replacing multiple teeth

Although dentures could be used to replace multiple lost teeth, they would not have the advantages that dental implants offer. The same day implant treatment then offers an excellent solution to replace all of these teeth but without doing so individually.

Instead of replacing each missing tooth one by one, this treatment uses a selected number of implants; usually four but sometimes six depending on the situation. These are placed strategically into the jawbone with regular implants used towards the front of the mouth and two specially designed dental implants used towards the rear of the mouth. These latter implants are placed at an angle that provides additional stability and it is this that allows the fixed bridge of teeth to then be attached immediately without the need to wait for three months for the osseointegration period to complete.

Because of these specially designed implants placed towards the rear of the mouth, it is sometimes possible to avoid the need for a prior bone graft for patients whose bone has deteriorated due to losing their teeth. This is a significant benefit as it not only means that you don’t have to undergo this additional procedure, in turn lengthening the overall treatment time, but also helps to reduce the cost of the overall treatment too.

Advantages of same day implants

As mentioned earlier, this method of restoring multiple tooth loss is significantly cheaper than doing so individually and also means that you can, in theory, use them as you would your natural teeth straight away. Although there isn’t the need to be as cautious as is the case with individual implants, we still recommend that you take care about what you eat for a little while, mainly for your own comfort. Softer foods are recommended for a while as the treatment area heals and your implants ‘settle in’.  You will likely be eating normally again sooner than you would with individual implants.

As it wouldn’t be practical (or even perhaps affordable) to replace a full arch of teeth with individual dental implants, the patient’s choice would then be this treatment or perhaps dentures. Whilst dentures do still have a very useful role to play, this procedure offers a number of distinct advantages from a long term perspective.

Dentures lack the stability of same day implants and may be more prone to moving around in the mouth. This often means that wearers choose to avoid certain foods that might be challenging. This doesn’t apply with this procedure and after the initial ‘bedding in’ period, you can eat whatever you like. In addition to this, same day implants are far easier to keep clean and don’t require removal and cleaning outside of the mouth as dentures do.

It is also worth noting that a similar treatment method can be used to stabilise insecure dentures for those who want to continue with dentures but would prefer them not to move around.

If you have missing teeth or perhaps are tired of your dentures and would like to find out more about the teeth replacement options that we have available for our Chelmsford patients, please call Blue Sky Dental on 01245 211070.