Case 5: Fear of Dentures — Immediate Implant Bridges (All-on-4)

A woman from the South-East is concerned about losing all her failing teeth. She has no option other than dentures. Can she avoid “dentures"?

The Prob­lem

Di came to us because she had gaps between her teeth where pre­vi­ous den­tal treat­ment had failed. She wore par­tial den­tures and hated them because they were lose and looked “ugly”. Her par­tial den­tures were caus­ing dis­ease around remain­ing teeth. She knew she would lose her remain­ing teeth and was very wor­ried that there was no option other than full den­tures.

Di had pre­vi­ously heard that if she wanted to have fixed replace­ment teeth using den­tal implants, it would take over a year to com­plete and she would need to endure a com­pul­sory den­ture phase. This hor­ri­fied her as it was her great­est fear. She was very appre­cia­tive when she found another den­tist who said “It does not nec­es­sar­ily have to be that way. I sug­gest you see Dr Lidums. He has a new inno­v­a­tive tech­nique to pro­vide an imme­di­ate solu­tion that may help you.”

By the time Di came to see us, she “never smiled” and had lost self-confidence. She also noticed wrin­kles had begun to form around her mouth.

Her smile appeared “black” in pho­tographs. She felt her top lip had gone “thin” and dreaded the thought of hav­ing a full set of den­tures. She wanted her mouth to last for the rest of her life.

The Solu­tion

Di’s Den­tal Trans­for­ma­tion involved imme­di­ate implant bridges. She was a bit appre­hen­sive about hav­ing the pro­ce­dure, so she decided to have the lower implant bridge only done first. The plan was to delay treat­ment on the upper jaw until she saw “how things went”. She was so delighted with the new lower teeth that she returned the fol­low­ing week for the same treat­ment on the upper teeth!

The Out­come

A new friend could not believe that she is a grand­mother. “There’s no way you could have a 33 year old son! You’re far too young.” Di feels that the treat­ment has taken 10 years off her as well as removed the wrin­kles! She is very aware of how her new smile has given her a fresher, younger look. Some­one asked if her son was her brother.

When Di vis­its us for reg­u­lar main­te­nance, we often hear her encour­ag­ing other patients with her life-changing expe­ri­ence. She also advises them, though the changes were quite pro­found, it didn’t take long for her to get used to talk­ing and eat­ing with her newly designed teeth.

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