Queastion: I have a full upper denture and no teeth on the bottom. What is a ball park figure to have a lower and upper implant done? Would I need to have upper implants or can the current denture be used with a bottom implant.

Answer:  Wow – lots of good questions here, Gloria.  It is more complicated than it seems, but there are usually many different ways to use implants to stabilize dentures.  Much of it depends on how much bone you have left.  After the teeth are removed, the bone begins to shrink, and it can shrink dramatically, sometimes so much that dental implants are not a good choice. 

There are times when the existing lower denture is in good shape and there is plenty of bone that only 2 denture mplants can make a huge difference.  If the denture is in good shape, it can sometimes be modified to fit implants and have a simple solution.

 More commonly, there is a lot of bone that has been lost, and the existing denture is not really usable for a new project.  In these cases, a more complicated routine works well, but as  you can see, it requires more dental implants and more elaborate denture prosthetics.  This is often the best way to strengthen a difficult lower denture situation.