Implants – new teeth in 10 hours?
Despite publications written by groups interested in the
promotion of ground breaking developments of tooth implants,
the reality is that these methods are no more than previously
tried and tested methods enhanced by the application of
new treatment methods. Additionally in reading these ‘sensational’ articles
you can be left with the illusion that synthetic tooth
roots (implants) can apparently heal within ten hours.
Be warned, this is not the case. In reality this process
will take at least 6 – 8 weeks even under perfect
conditions, such as having a jawbone of sufficient quality
available whose density does not first have to be improved
as well as assuming the application of perfect implant
surfaces and finally ignoring any variances in healing
abilities. Simply halving the healing process under these
ideal conditions would already be a huge step for implant
technology.
Quite often the need for the additional regeneration of
the jawbone is the deciding factor in the length of time
the whole process will take, as it is always the regeneration
period that takes longer than the healing time for the
implants. Even with the application of processes on hand,
such as obtaining and applying catalysts obtained from
the patient’s own blood, to speed up the regenerative
healing process, the regeneration process still remains
the time determining factor. Additionally the success of
catalysts obtained from your own blood has proven to be
effective, however, it has yet to be corroborated by relevant
academic studies.
When implants were first being developed, some thirty
years ago, it was common to apply a replacement tooth as
soon as the artificial root has been implanted. This tooth,
however, was generally a temporary tooth fashioned that
same day, similar to screwing the fractured sections of
a broken arm bone together instead of applying a cast that
has to be worn for several weeks.
With reference to ‘new teeth in 10 hours’,
it is possible to achieve this with efficient teamwork
between the dentist and dental technicians, however this
relies on ideal conditions such as sufficient jawbone quality,
an optimised and catalysed healing process and availability
of final tooth replacements. In most cases, though, these
ideal conditions are not available and temporary solutions
such as provisional tooth replacements have to be applied
until the healing and regenerative process has been completed
and the customised implants are available.
With all of this we shouldn’t forget how many years
it takes for us to lose our teeth. The success of the process
will be measured over the years after the procedure, not
in the time saved during the procedure.
