I have been living in dentures for the last year and really hate them. I spoke to my dentist about how much dental implants cost and he quoted me about $4000 including the crown. Figuring adults have 32 teeth they’d need to replace that makes the cost $128,000. How in the world does anyone afford them? I’d have to sell my house in order to have teeth that aren’t dentures. Did I mention how much I hate them?
Randall
Dear Randall,
You are not alone in your lack of enthusiasm for dentures. The good news is, dental implants won’t cost you nearly as much as you believe. The way you ran the numbers, you were planning on one implant per tooth. That is more implants than are necessary, especially when we’re referring to complete dentures.
Unless you are independently wealthy and want to drop that amount of money, most patients will get implant overdentures. This uses between four to six implants. When there has been time to heal and for your bone to integrate with the implants, then your dentist will anchor your dentures to them. Let’s say you get six implants. That is a savings of $104,000 based on your dentist’s fee.
This is completely different from your removable dentures. For one, they’ll be completely secure— no slipping or sliding around. Plus, you will find it will dramatically increase your chewing capacity. The best advantage, however, is it prevents facial collapse.
Implant Overdentures and Facial Collapse
When your teeth were removed, your body begins resorbing the minerals in your jawbone. It does this in an effort to be as efficient as possible with your body’s resources. Perceiving, you no longer have teeth, it decides your jawbone is no longer high priority. The problem with that is after ten or so years, there will be so much jaw bone loss there will no longer be enough jawbone left to retain your dentures.
The dental implants supporting your overdentures serve as prosthetic teeth roots. Your body interprets that as having teeth again. Because of that, it leaves your jawbone intact saving you from facial collapse.
This blog is brought to you by San Antonio Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Imam.