35 y/o male, athletic, missing one molar (kind of a frontish molar) due to hockey (as in ice) violence. Retired from hockey, seeks to replace said toof.
While window shopping for a toof, said ex-player (aka ‘me’), is presented with the following options, neither of which was layed out in a glass cabinet on a velvety surface. The options are:
A ‘bridge’…which basically is a fake toof connected -like a bridge, duh- to the two closest teef. Non-intrusive (Me thinks of various jokes about bridge work and old people. Me no like)
An ‘implant’…which basically is like hammering and or drilling a fake toof into the bones of my jaw. I’m sure smoke and dust will be involved…probably a smell of smoke, and 3-5 days of pain killer. (Me thinks more risk. Possible infections. Me thinks, maybe chance for chronic pain? Me don’t know. Me can only wonder)
Anybody got an opinion? Cost is not a factor.
If you have good bone, and I assume the dentist thinks you DO or he wouldn’t have suggested it, an implant is the best option. It is MUCH easier to clean and feels like a “real” tooth. Or at least mine does. (mine is the front molar on the lower right side) An implant also doesn’t impact the teeth on either side of the space, which is a GOOD thing, especially if the teeth on either side don’t already NEED crowns.
It was also a relatively painless procedure. I never even filled my pain meds prescription, nor did I fill the Rx they gave me for valium to take the day of the procedure to “place” the implant. I didn’t need it, and I had too much to do that day to be all zonked. I did take ibuprofen, but only because they suggested it for inflammation…pain was never an issue.
I work for a dentist. Out of the probably 500 implants we have dealt with, only 3 failed. The periodontist did them again, two were fine the second time …the third failed again and we did a bridge. I’d say that was pretty good odds.
Ditto what Scotticher wrote.
I’ve got two perfectly good teeth that I didn’t want to get ground down (ya gotta do that for the bridge to be anchored). Also, the implant is basically supposed to be good for life. Minimum pain during the procedure, when the anesthetic wore off (hour and a half later), I took 1 advil, then another about 5 hours later and used an ice pack to keep down the swelling. The next session, the titanium screw gets implanted (unfortunately it’s a 6 month wait for the bone growth). The doc prescribed amoxocillin, and vicodin (I’ll save the vicodin for real pain later.
I lost one of my front lower teeth in a car accident and got a bridge (nobody gave me any implant options–technically I was a minor, I guess). I hate it, and would recommend an implant if you can get one.
The bridge is metal, so the teeth it’s connected to look bluish. On teeth, this is not a healthy color, and I’ve had people ask me about it so I guess it’s obvious. Plus it’s a bitch to clean, since food is easily trapped under it. I have to use fishing line to thread dental floss underneath it, and then try to get both sides. And I can’t bite into apples. Also I’ve noticed that I have some pronunciation problems, with S sounds and such, but that probably has to do with the location in my mouth.
It sounds like some of these problems won’t matter much to you because of where your tooth is, but that’s my experience, for what it’s worth. Ultimately, it’s not a big deal and I don’t usually notice it, but one of these days I’m gonna save up some money and see if I can get an implant.
It should also be pointed out that when you get a bridge the 2 adjacent teeth are ground down and capped. So it’s not like they just connect it. The dentist would need to mess with them which might not be so great if those 2 teeth are in good shape.
Oops, seems BF mentioned the ground down thing. Other things about implants. If you need your teeth straightened get them straightened first. Implants can’t be moved with braces like real teeth.(Apparently because they aren’t connect by the periodontal ligament like “real” teeth. See, there’s advantages when one of your childhood friends becomes a dentist:-)
Damn - I forgot about the bridge issue requiring MORE teeth to be ground down. Yeah, my bones are outstanding, say the dentist, so I am an excellent candidate for implants.
I am going forward with implant in mind. What the heck, I’ll have some titanium in me.
Let’s see, got some chrome steel in my hand, some mercury in my teeth and soon I’ll have some titanium. I guess I’m in the ‘adding parts’ phase of my life. Before I know it, they’ll be ripping parts outta me.
Teeth migrate. Implants don’t. Therefore, if your teeth migrate it could break the bridge, or cause all kinds of inconviences. This is what happened to my Dad: all upper front teeth were knocked out ages ago, and at the time, implants weren’t an option. Well, over time, teeth shift, and recently the whole bridge area just broke down: one of the anchoring teeth cracked, and an infection set in. Now, he’s on the last few stages of getting implants to anchor the new denture-bridge-thingy down: there’s just one more appointment to ensure that everything is just so.
Well, I have both an implant and a bridge, and have had them both for more then 15 years. I had braces when I had the implant and there were NO problems. I didn’t have to have any teeth ground down when the bridge was put in and the only problems I have had are that the bridge has come out twice because the epoxy was worn out. Aside from the, no problems.
Nightsong, I don’t want to contradict you, but generally a bridge in place will prevent teeth from moving. Unless dad got LOTS of decay under an abutment (anchor tooth), “migrating” teeth shouldn’t have been the problem. If he got decay under an abutment, and it wasn’t detected in time, then yes…the teeth could have moved. As long as a person gets regular checkups to detect incipient decay, a bridge shouldn’t allow movement.
Of course, there are always exceptions to everything, so I could be wrong in this instance. I’ve never heard of any, but all things are possible, right?
In any case, I bet he will be a whole lot happier with the implants than he was with the bridge.
WSLer…Nightsong is correct…implants don’t move. When you had braces, they were moving the teeth AROUND the implant, not the implant itself. Implants are a titanium “screw” with “holes” in it. The bone grows into the implant and voila…you have a permanent part of the bone, more or less. It is like having a piece of bone to attach the implant crown to. If you had the crown done after the orthodontics, they fitted it to where it was at that point. If you had the crown in place when they DID the implants, they moved the other teeth around to fit the implant crown.
Oh, and I should have said that if a bridge abutment gets loose, and a person doesn’t happen to notice it, THEN the teeth can move too. If a bridge abutment is loose, decay can get started REALLY quickly. So even if a person is getting regular checkups, if the thing gets loose it can progress really quickly and cause all kinds of problems.
The tricky part with my Dad’s teeth (real and fake) was that it happened inbetween the bi-yearly checkups: he didn’t notice anything was wrong until Mom spotted the infection. Dad has very little sense of feeling in a lot of areas: it’s a toss up as to exactly what order things happened in.
Also, the bridge went (roughly) from eyetooth to eyetooth, supporting the entire front line of ‘teeth’: not exactly a very stable configuartion from the little I know, since it was attempting to support a curved surface, not a simple straight line, and a lot of ‘teeth’ to boot. If one of those eyeteeth moved a bit, but the other didn’t… that would have been just enough for something to get caught underneath, and then everything would have slid from there.
As for the price:
Usually an implant costs more: it’s a lot more work to get that sucker in, compared to a bridge.
My heavens, that is a really LONG bridge, hon…how many years has he had it? I would say that if he kept it ten years he was a very lucky man.
As far as cost, it sort of depends on what needs to be done in order to have the bridge done. There are so many variables…for instance, do the adjacent teeth already NEED crowns? Etc.
In general, I would say that an implant costs more. In my experience, it is worth it.
The thing is, you are looking at the cost of a regular crown, PLUS the hardware that is necessary to attach the crown, PLUS the cost of the implant itself. Lots of money, but worth it if you can afford it. In general, an implant crown costs about one and a half times what a normal crown costs. And the implant itself is about the same amount again.
He had that particular bridge since… er… 1977ish, actually. I am not aware he had anything done to it since then, except for having it double checked when he’d go in for his teeth cleanings. Before that, he did the partial denture thing: that he had done since he was… er… before High School, most definately, and I think before Junior High. (He was born in the late 40’s, to give you a better idea of the time span.)
laughs I know my Dad would be completely lost… and would have bleach spots on every article of clothing he owns.
