Dentalnews (en)

As promised, today we shall give you a detailed explanation of yesterday’s implant x-ray!

What are the problems that should have been fixed before implanting, but weren’t?

Let’s begin with the diagnosis:

• Localised periodontitis (the red streak in the upper jaw on the left outlines the bone), it is obvious that in this area the bone has receded due to inflammation; periodontal treatment should have been performed before implanting.
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• Infected bone in several places (red circles); these infections should also have been treated before implanting.
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• Several teeth which received very poor root treatment (red arrows); root treatment should have been redone – correctly
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• A tooth, probably dead, which is causing an inflammation in the maxillary membrane (blue arrow and blue line); root treatment followed by general treatment of the entire maxillary sinus would have been the right thing to do

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Implants, in and of themselves, are an excellent way to provide your jaw with a permanent denture. However, you do have to make sure that the mouth is well prepared and there are no other problems which would prevent the implant from settling in properly!

Dental implants may be hazardous to your health!

This female patient received dental implants at a clinic in a large European city 2 days ago. Before the implants were inserted, she informed her doctor that she felt pain in her jaw every once in a while – in various places. The dentist replied „we’ll take care of that later …“
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Question is, when? It would have been much better practice to „clean up“ the patient’s jaw before inserting an implant, as inflammations in the mouth can lead to implant loss.
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Tomorrow we will explain the x-ray to you in detail, until then you can try to figure out where the problems are. In order to „read“ the x-ray correctly you will simply need to watch the following video.

Receding bone around implants

Bone sometimes tends to recede slightly around implants. You may not even feel any pain!

About 0.2 mm a year is considered „normal“. This is usually attributable to the implant system used, for example Astra® and Ankylos® implants hardly cause any recession at all. Actually, these systems often cause bone to accrue beyond the head of the implant, due to the conical connection of the abutments. Watch a video on this topic here.

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If bone recedes more than 0.2 mm, this may be due either to a bad positioning of the implant or an inflammation. Dentists call this peri-implantitis. This can only be treated in the initial stages, making regular check-ups‚ called re-calls, after implantation a must. This can help save your implant!

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An x-ray plainly shows the outlines of the bones.

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Watch a video on dental implants here!