When you lose teeth, your whole life is affected. Things that you once did with little thought, like eating and speaking, become challenging. The quality of your smile suffers, and your confidence plummets. The more teeth you lose, the greater the effects.
At Summit Dental Group we can replace missing teeth with dental implants. We offer a wide variety of different dental implants, which allows us to meet numerous needs. One such dental implant product is the All-on-4® Treatment Concept.
What are Dental Implants?
Dental implants are a treatment for replacing missing teeth. With this treatment, small titanium posts are surgically placed into your jawbone. Your bone slowly fuses to these posts, stabilizing them within your jaw and turning them into artificial roots. The posts are used to provide secure support for your replacement teeth. Dental implants are an incredibly versatile treatment that can be used to meet many needs. They can replace a single tooth or even an entire arch.
Bone Loss and Your Jaw
Your teeth perform many important jobs. One such job that most people are unaware of is keeping your jawbone strong and healthy. The teeth stimulate your jawbone when you chew, which tells your body to send essential nutrients. Following tooth loss, your jawbone loses the stimulation from your missing teeth. As a result, fewer nutrients are sent. Over time, the jaw begins to weaken and lose bone mass.
All-on-4 Treatment
If you have lost too much bone mass, a bone graft may be necessary to restore strength to the jaw before placing dental implants. A bone graft is a surgical procedure that is performed before implant placement that involves transplanting bone mass to the weak areas in your jaw. This adds more time to your overall treatment process, as well as additional costs. If you are missing an entire arch of teeth, though, you may be able to receive a full arch restoration without a bone graft first. This treatment is known as All-on-4.
With a typical full arch restoration, six to eight implant posts are used to provide support for the arch of missing teeth. All-on-4 Treatment uses only four implant posts. These posts are placed specifically within your jaw to maximize contact with your jawbone and optimize the fusion of your existing bone mass to the posts. Two posts are inserted vertically at the front of the jawbone where there is naturally more bone mass. The other two posts are placed at the back of the mouth and are inserted at a 45-degree angle. Not only does this maximize contact with your jawbone, it also helps to avoid the sinus cavities, preventing complications and implant failure.
Benefits of All-on-4
All-on-4 Treatment provides many significant benefits. These benefits include:
| • | Less surgery. Fewer implant posts are needed, so you require less surgery, and your surgery time is shorter. |
| • | Reduced recovery time. Fewer implants mean a shorter healing time. |
| • | No bone graft. With the All-on-4 Treatment, the posts are placed in such a way as to help you avoid the need for a bone graft. |
| • | More affordable. Fewer implant posts, less surgery, and no bone graft helps to make the All-on-4 Treatment more affordable. |
All on 4 in Fort Wayne
With All-on-4, we can replace an entire arch of teeth without first having to perform a bone graft. For more information, and to find out if the All-on-4 Treatment is right for you to contact Summit Dental Group today.
