How we carry out dental implants in the Darren Bywater Dental Implant Centre in Derby
A. Assessment
Dental implants are suitable for many people but not all. Consequently the first part of your patient journey is to assess your suitability for implants.
To do this, you will be invited for a personalised consultation with the implant dentist during which a comprehensive assessment will be carried out. This will involve a detailed assessment of your teeth, tooth by tooth to ascertain their long-term prognosis. Dental implant surgery should only be carried out on a well maintained mouth with healthy teeth. If there are poor long-term prognosis teeth present, these should be removed and factored into the overall plan. Leaving a poor healthy tooth will compromise the long-term health of your newly placed dental implant which may lead to its ultimate demise and loss.
Once your mouth is healthy and stabilized, can we now consider dental implant treatment. Measurement of the available bone in width and height is made. This should be carried out by using a dental implant ct scan. We have our own ct scanner on site. This allows us to instantly measure your bone accurately and give you an immediate answer to the amount of bone you have and if you require a graft to place dental implants. Along with photo and digital occlusal analysis we will have acquired all the information to create a bespoke plan and costings for your treatment.
B. Dental Implant Surgery
Once you are happy, you are invited back for the first part of the clinical process where we fit the titanium rod into the jaw bone to form a solid base for the placement of the dental abutment and crown. The procedure is typically carried out under a local anaesthetic but we also offer sedation services for nervous patients. Many patients worry that the procedure is painful but this is not the case – in fact no more so than filling (1)
Titanium is used because it is extremely strong, lightweight and integrates naturally with the surrounding jawbone in a process known as osseointegration (2). This can take two to three months so a degree of patience is needed until the implant is secure and ready to accept the new crown (3-4-5)
We also use a new generation implant that is an amalgamation of titanium and zirconia. It has improved strength and integration properties. This can allow us to load the implant with a temporary abutment and temporary crown as an immediate loading case without waiting two to three months to fit a tooth.
In a small number of cases we find that some degradation of the underlying jawbone structure has occurred which prevents the immediate placement of an implant. This can often be remedied with bone grafting or sometimes the use of different implant techniques. Our highly trained team will assess this with you and recommend the best course of treatment.
C. Dental Implant Restorative Scan
Once the implant has integrated we are then able to scan the implant itself. This is a major step forward in dental implant provision that we are very proud to offer to our privileged dental implant patients. Your dental implant is fitted with a engineered scan post. This post is scanned with our intra-oral scanning photo analyzer that feeds the information to our CADCAM integration unit.
Our trained in-house technician will analyze and manipulate the information to design your computer generated abutment and crown.
The design can be tweaked with the simple flick of the mouse rather than tedious corrective wax corrections.
D. Dental Implant abutment and crown/bridgework/denture
Once the design is approved by the dental implant surgeon in collaboration with the dental implant technician the milling process can be started by the simple press of a button. Our own in-house milling machine will construct both the abutment and crown to such an accuracy the union of both is indistinguishable. Either cement or screwed version can be created.
In the rare cases that the crown or abutment fractures or is lost, it’s a simple process of clicking the start button and a new abutment or crown is produced in 20 minutes. The digital revolution in dental implant treatment is truly remarkable and you can be reassured that your leading Darren Bywater Dental Implant Center is at the forefront in this technology.
