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Fifteen Dental Implants and Fixed Bridgework Case Study
A patient named Susanna came to us two years ago. She was in her early sixties, and had lost all but 6 of her lower front teeth. For over 40 years, she had worn a removable upper denture, believing that this was her lot in life, and that she would simply have to put up with the embarrassment of the sounds it made, the limited diet options it carried with it, and the need to take it out and clean it periodically in a glass. It was not until she learned of our many payment plans and financial assistance programs here at the Houston Medical Center Dental Group that she realized that implant dentistry was actually within her grasp. For the first time ever, she considered what it might be like to have a full set of fully functioning teeth that worked and looked like the natural ones she had lost so many years before.
Many people who wear dentures make the same assumption that Susanna made. They have read publications and online sources that tout the virtues and benefits of implant dentistry, but have also been led to believe this practice is only available to the ultra rich and is a luxury beyond the reach of the average citizen. This is not the case. While implant dentistry is a sophisticated practice that carries with it a rather high price point, cosmetic dentists such as the ones at the Houston Medical Center Dental Group have made it a point to create financial options that make dental implants affordable to a wide variety of patients from many different walks of life.
Susanna was one of these individuals. She had good credit and enough of a steady income from savings and retirement plans to qualify her for a payment program that would allow her to finance implant dentistry at a price point that was comfortable to her budget. Interestingly enough, the placement of dental implants in her case took almost as long as her payments, because there was so much to be done to fully reconstruct her upper jaw.
Susanna was a rare case in the sense that she had lived without natural teeth for over 40 years, yet remarkably, she had suffered negligible bone loss. We were actually rather shocked by this when we took x-rays of her mouth. In most cases like Susanna's, jaw bones deteriorate to the point that insufficient bone mass remains for implantation, and fixed bridgework has to be used in conjunction with implant dentistry to perform a full-mouth restoration. However, Susanna's upper jaw had virtually all of its original mass left. Susanna claimed that daily doses of calcium had kept her bones strong throughout the years, and that her passion for healthy foods that she picked up in the late 1960s had accounted for much of her vitality and overall good health in later years.
Life can be mysterious like this, even to implant dentistry experts, but we never complain when it works to the benefit of our patient. Over the course of the next 1 ½ years, we placed 15 dental implants in Susanna's upper jaw. In between the implants we fixed porcelain bridges to reconstruct her upper jaw with a full set of teeth.
After the procedure was complete and total healing accomplished, Susanna reports that today she can eat anything she wants (although she still insists on eating only the healthiest of foods). She has also remarked that she loves brushing her new teeth—something she hadn't been able to do since her early 20s. While this is not the typical feedback we get from an implant dentistry patient, as dentists we can only be happy that a patient takes genuine pleasure in oral hygiene.
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