Options for when All your Teeth need to be Removed

Q: What are my options if I need all my teeth out?

A: First, this week’s rant:

What has happened to car commercials? They used to focus on the car; it’s useful features which benefit the consumer, its power, its style and safety. I saw a commercial today for a pickup where two guys with dirt bikes in the bed pull up to a hilly dirt lot and seconds later they both jump their motorcycles over the pickup.

You know what I mainly use my Jeep for? To go to Taco Bell. I literally use my car to get diarrhea. They should use me in their commercials and follow it up with a Pepto-Bismol commercial. Now THAT’S reality.

When an entire arch, upper, lower or both, needs to have all its teeth extracted you have the following option:

• Get a second opinion: Many times I have come up with a less invasive, less expensive plan for patients; especially when they have visited one of these chain-store, franchise implant outfits that run ads on TV.
• Ideal: If you have enough bone, placing four to six implants would allow you to have permanent, non-removable teeth.
• Second choice: Place four implants and allow us to create a removable set of teeth that snaps in and out as needed and is quite stable. A must for lower jaw cases when finances are limited or poor bone quality exists in the posterior ridge areas.
• Third choice, as well as the worst choice: Plain old dentures with no implants. Only done for severe bone atrophy cases and limited finances. Usually needs the use of gooey denture adhesives. Dentures remain loose and can cause pre-cancerous lesions from chronic irritation of the tissues