Full Mouth Reconstruction Services at Sunbrite Dental
My name is Dr. Ervin Calvo from Sunbrite Dental. We get a lot of questions about full mouth reconstruction and missing teeth. Patients who have a lot of missing teeth usually have to work with dentures. They're called full complete dentures. The problem with dentures is that they are all connected together. As soon as the patients are talking, the denture rocks and moves, and the tongue is going up and down. There are a lot of difficulties trying to use traditional-style dentures.
A great option in terms of replacing complete missing teeth is something called implant-supported dentures or implant-fixed hybrid bridges. They're fixed and not removable. Both options are very good because, one, they will help stabilize the teeth so that we can provide more force when we chew. They don't rock back and forth. There's less of this material that's covering everything. It stabilizes our bones from not shrinking over the years.
The problem with dentures is that the bone shrinks, they move, and though they look great aesthetically, functionality-wise, they just don't work for a lot of my patients. We offer the solution of fixed hybrid bridges on implants or removable snap-in dentures. Both are really great options in replacing missing teeth. If you have any more questions, I would love to talk to you more in person about it and show you a lot of the patients we have taken care of and treated.
Who would be a good candidate for full mouth reconstruction?
Pretty much anyone with enough bone in their jaw is a great candidate for implants. The bone is super important. If we don't have enough bone, if the bone is super thin like a piece of paper, it's very difficult for me or another doctor to place implants without doing augmentation of the bone, growing the bone.
The second thing is the anxiety of the patient. If the patient is super anxious, nervous, or scared, those can be challenges with receiving implants. But there are several ways we can help take care of the patient. We might have to sedate them or give them a little medicine to make them less anxious. Most of the time, patients do very well with me.
The third thing is if you have uncontrolled systemic diseases, like high blood pressure or diabetes. We want to make sure you're healthy overall before we do any big procedures. For the majority of my patients, they do well without any sedation. As long as we can control their diabetes or high blood pressure and they can handle staying awake, which I prefer not to put patients to sleep, we can take care of them. I've been doing this for 19 years, and we take care of a lot of patients without sedating them, and they do very well. They're so thankful at the end of everything that we were able to help them.
What are the different treatment options for full mouth reconstruction?
Everything is a balance. Nature is a balance, right? We have our teeth, and they all work together as a whole. We don't just chew with one tooth or just one tooth in the back. We use everything together. For example, our front teeth are meant to cut our food. Our back teeth are meant to grind our foods. So, our front teeth overlap and cut into our food like scissors. We probably already know this, but a lot of my patients will say, "Oh, it's in the back. No one will see." But that's where we do a lot of the chewing.
In terms of taking care and keeping our patients' teeth for a lifetime, we always look at trying to balance the bite and the chewing. When we have missing teeth or teeth that have ground down over the years, that can cause more problems with the teeth wearing down faster. If we have missing teeth, the other teeth are absorbing a lot of the forces greater than they need to. Then the destruction of the teeth happens a lot faster.
So, it's always important to look at things comprehensively. How are the teeth chewing? How are we functioning? We look at solving the issues from that standpoint comprehensively, not just one tooth at a time. Yes, we can address that, but we're looking at things comprehensively to establish the correct bite and chewing. We do this with several solutions. Implants are one way to replace missing teeth, a single missing tooth, or several missing teeth. Crowns can replace fractured teeth or missing tooth structure.
Crowns and veneers help establish a more conservative type of crown as a veneer. They help replace missing tooth structure or eroded teeth just from all the wear and tear through the years. There are so many different solutions to help correct a patient's bite, but getting it into a harmonious environment and relationship, so that our goal is for our patients to keep their teeth for a lifetime.
How long does a full mouth reconstruction take?
It all depends. Everybody is different, right? I'm different from everyone else, and it just depends on how much destruction the teeth have. It depends on the number of missing teeth. If we're doing implants or even partial dentures, dentures to replace missing teeth, we try to figure out a plan that can help our patients establish that balance of their bite and do it in a way that if their eventual goal is to have implants and not removable teeth, we can do that in stages. So, it depends.
If we take, for example, one person who has all their missing teeth and we're reconstructing their teeth with implants, say four implants on the top and four implants on the bottom, that amount of time will take about 4 to 6 months. Just to give you a general idea, with someone with no teeth at all, and we're replacing the teeth with what they call implant snap-in dentures, it takes around 4 to 6 months. It doesn't mean that a patient is in pain for 4 to 6 months. What happens within that 4 to 6 months is that there are different steps in fabricating the prosthesis.
Also, it takes three to four months at a minimum for the bone to heal around the implant. We have to allow time for healing. It all depends. The best thing is to give us a call to come in for an exam and x-rays, and we can go through all the options to make it work for you. I look forward to seeing you.
Are there special care instructions following a full mouth reconstruction?
This again all depends. Full mouth reconstruction is reconstructing the whole bite and balance. If a patient has all their teeth and we reconstructed their bite with crowns, implants, and veneers, I would like my patients to come every 3 months for maintenance cleanings for the rest of their lives. That is our goal because we know that after three months, if bacteria sits on our teeth or under our gums, it starts to create damage to our teeth, gums, and bone. If we can prevent that damage from occurring at the 3-month mark, you will keep your teeth for a lifetime.
I like four times a year of maintenance cleanings. This is for someone who has their teeth, and we replace their missing teeth with implants, veneers, or crowns, or even if they didn't have to touch all of their teeth, but to maintain them, four times a year is really good.
Now, for a patient who had all their teeth removed and we needed to replace their teeth with implants, it depends. If it's removable, at least once per year. If it's fixed, meaning the patient cannot remove it, at least twice a year. It would be very good to make sure the patient is cleaning, getting underneath the bridge of the implants. Maintenance and cleaning are super important, and we will discuss that at the time and afterwards. It might depend on everybody's situation and how well they're keeping them clean, how well they build up tartar and bacteria. These are all things that we can figure out.
Will a full mouth reconstruction last for the rest of my life?
To be honest, nothing lasts forever. Typically, though, we see crowns and veneers lasting between 10, 15 to 20 years. It all depends on the person, their chewing forces, their maintenance, and their ability to keep things clean. It depends if they don't have great hand dexterity. That all depends.
On average, crowns can give us 15 years. What happens after 15 years? Maybe a little bit of decay happens, something is going on that we need to replace. But if everything looks good clinically and on the X-ray, we don't necessarily have to replace a crown that's been there 30 years. It all depends. Nothing lasts for a lifetime. Teeth don't last for a lifetime. We use them every single day, three times a day, 365 days of the year.
One of the harshest environments is our mouth, with all the food, the acidity of our foods, the chomping, and the chewing. On average, 10 to 15 years is what you could expect on crowns and veneers. Fillings can last around 8 to 10 years. Bridges can last between 7 to 10 years. Implants can give us even more longevity, probably over 20 plus years. It all depends. That's a general overview. Hopefully, our goal is for things to last a long time, but it's unreasonable to say this will last your whole life. So, just a range.
Full Mouth Reconstruction with Care, Comfort, and Expertise at Sunbrite Dental
I hope I answered all of your questions. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to give our office a call. I look forward to helping you and talking to you, and taking care of you and your family.
If you live in or near Las Vegas, NV, and are looking for dental care, contact us at (702) 819-0866 to set an appointment. Our staff would love to talk with you!