To maximise the potential for success of your implants it is best to place them in a healthy clean mouth. Your dentist is the best placed person to ensure that your teeth and gums are in sufficiently good health for you to have dental implants placed where you need them. Implants need to be placed gently into bone of adequate quality and quantity to be successful. Good bone quality means the bone for implants needs to be free of infection. It is for this reason that infected teeth should be removed in advance and a sufficient healing period allowed to lapse before placing the implants. If there is no significant infection or if the infected bone can be surgically removed then it is possible to place the implants at the same time teeth are extracted. Bone also needs to be of sufficient volume, so that an adequate quantity of bone surrounds the implant. If teeth are to be extracted they should be removed with care to minimise the loss of surrounding bone. If there is insufficient bone to stabilise an implant then a bone augmentation procedure needs to be carried out in advance. If there is also a deficiency of gum necessary to provide optimal aesthetics or to cover augmented bone then a soft tissue grafting procedure may need to be carried out before placing implants. (
Bone and soft tissue grafting).
Guided surgery (
computer guided surgery) has greatly minimised discomfort following multiple implant placement. If guided surgery is considered a possibility prior to the removal of teeth, then the bone can be reduced and ‘flattened’ at the time the teeth are removed to optimise the anatomy for the guided surgery technique. If hopeless teeth need to be removed prior to placement of implants it is often preferable for us to do it rather than your dentist as it will provide us with an opportunity to prepare the site for your future implant (s).
