All-on-4® Dental Implants

So if someone's missing teeth and they come in with a denture, their options are essentially to make a new denture or to have multiple implants, four, five, or six implants placed in the upper or lower arch, and have their mouth restored using implant-supported dentures or implant-supported bridges. Difference between having four, five, or six implants versus a conventional denture is that the conventional denture moves around, patients are very uncomfortable when they eat, and they can't taste their food. They speak funny because the dentures are moving around. They have to use paste and glues to hold the dentures in place. But when implants are considered for the upper and lower arch, you now have teeth that are made that don't need to be glued in, that don't move around, that are stable. So having these implants placed allows the patients to be able to eat foods they never ate before. You could still have a denture made for cost reasons, but it clips into those implants. By clipping into those implants, it's still removable, it's easy to clean, easy to repair, but they don't move. They're locked in, but they are removable by the patient. So the candidates for this type of treatment involving four, five, or six implants really is anybody who has adequate bone. If the patient takes care of them, and comes in regularly for their recalls, and is monitored and maintained, the implants should last a lifetime. So the feedback we get from these type of treatments regarding four, five, or six implants for upper and lower arches is that the patients come back and they say, "I can eat everything now." The biggest thing is patients wanting to eat steak. That's what they always ask. Will I be able to eat steak? With these implants, they can eat steak. And now they're getting the nourishment that they need for their body which is very important.