Many people are familiar with TV advertising that talks about having fixed teeth on implants placed in one day.  It can/does happen in one surgical appointment, but it is not quite that simple.  Much planning and work pre-operatively needs to go into this.  There is necessary follow up and long-term maintenance too.  This primarily comes from the implant company Nobel Biocare.  They are the offspring of the original Branemark implant and coined the term All-on-4 ® for this type of treatment.

All-on-4 ® is a procedure accomplished in one surgical appointment:  all teeth in an arch are removed, 4 or more implants are placed at angles, and a premade set of teeth is fastened to the implants.  Normally, if you grab onto implants immediately, you will pull them out of the bone.  With this technology, the teeth hold the implants in place and the implants do the same for the teeth.

After several months of healing when the bone is solid around the implants; a second, more precise arch of teeth with a titanium frame is placed.  The original arch of teeth will eventually break, as it is all acrylic.  Anything acrylic fastened to implants without a strong supporting frame, will ultimately fail.

Not everyone is a candidate for this.  Nothing is problem free.  Just because you have fixed teeth, doesn’t me you should chew casually.  The opposite is true.  Until the bone is strongaround the implants in a few months, chewing should be minimal.  You can cause the implants to fail by overloading them.  They must be kept clean and checked periodically.  You are buying a car for your mouth, why not take care of it and make it last.

The next generation of this technology relies completely on computer guidance for construction of the teeth and implant placement.  This is called Same Day Teeth ®(Warning-photos of actual surgery).  This is a major advancement in the basic technology developed by Nobel Biocare.

This new technology results in less surgical time, more precise implant placement in the strongest bone possible, less risk of implant failure, less breakage of acrylic around teeth, fewer appointments, and greater satisfaction all around. We have done dozens of these cases over the last five years and are excited to use this technology now.

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