All-On-4 Teeth replacement treatment is the best in its class for patients needing full restoration of the upper or lower arch. This is an excellent solution for patients with no teeth or have teeth that are soon to be lost. The All-On-4 treatment involves implanting 4 (or 6: All-On-6”) dental implants to the upper or lower jaw “arch” that

Of all full-arch replacement options available, All-On-4 implants provide the most natural-looking and highest functioning option in its field.

Why should you choose All-On-4 dental implants?

It’s Cost-Effective

• The All-On-4 treatment is less costly when compared to other implanting methods, as only 4 implants are needed per arch, as opposed to upward of 10.
• All-inclusive upfront costs gain you the certainty of  All-On-4 treatment. NSOMS will give you a quote during your initial consultation and this will be unchanging, even if there are additional treatments required!

You’ll See Immediate Results (Immediate Loading)

• A temporary bridge will be fitted on the day of the surgery, meaning you can have your smile back from day one!
• Due to the posterior implants being tilted to use existing bone, bone grafting is highly unlikely, meaning a faster process toward your permanent smile!

Life-Long

• Your All-On-4 implants are surgically screwed into your jawbone. If you keep up with caring for your teeth and dental visits, you’ll find that these teeth are with you for life. Studies tracked from 1998 there is a 94.8-98.0% success rate if properly cared for!

Start to Finish: All-On-4 Dental Procedure

Pre-Surgery

• Consultation and CT Scan. You will meet with our capable NSOMS specialist team who will take X-Rays, Intra-Oral Scan and a Cone Beam CT scan. From these images, your specialist surgeon will use our incredible software to get an overview of your upcoming dental procedure, including determining the right implant sizes for your jaw and lowering the risk of damaging any major nerves.
• A date will be booked for your surgery and a pre-surgery care plan will be given to you to minimise infection and to maximise your knowledge about your upcoming surgery.

All-On-4 Surgical Procedure

Did you know: NSOMS is the only oral surgery in Auckland that offers in-house general anaesthetic as a sedation option. As the surgery can be several hours (between 90 minutes to 2 hours per arch), this is an increasingly desirable option!

• Under IV sedation or general anaesthetic, any teeth that need to be removed in order to complete your All-on-4 surgery will be extracted. Any problem areas (infection, decay or disease) will be treated and disinfected.
• Your 4 implants will be surgically inserted accordingly into the affected arches. The two posterior implants (either side at the back of your mouth) are tilted 45degrees, avoiding bone grafting or damage to the jawbone.
• Your implants will be aligned to work with both your accessible jawbone and the permanent dental prosthetic which will complete your new smile.
• A temporary prosthetic bridge will be attached by a prosthodontist until your bone has grown around your implants and until your implants have healed. The healing process will be followed up on to ensure everything is healthy before the final step.
• 4-6 months after your surgery, your provisional bridge will be removed and your permanent prosthetics will be screwed into your implants, secured in with a strong dental glue which will stabilise your new teeth.

Post Surgery

• After your All-On-4 implant surgery, you may have up to 5-10 day period of bruising and swelling. Painkillers, ice, rest, and soft food will help you recover quickly. Follow our care plan to minimise pain and post-surgical risk.
• Check-ups between 1-day and 4-months may be needed before your implants are at maximum strength and function. This will differ per individual case.
• 4 – 6 months from surgery your permanent implants will be fully integrated.

Ensure your oral surgeon gives you the all-clear before you tuck into any hard or particularly chewy food. We want you to have the best long-term results!

How to Care for your All on 4 Dental Treatment

Your NSOMS surgical team will teach you how to care for your new smile!

• You will require specialised dental tools to optimise cleaning to help your implants last as long as possible.
• You will need to schedule regular check-ups to ensure your oral hygiene is at its best. Remember, once your biological teeth are removed, it is harder for your teeth to fight off infection as your All-On-4 implants, although realistic, are not a living organism like real teeth.

The results of All-On-4 dental implants can improve your health, well-being and quality of life. It is the leading implant technology in its class; minimally invasive, financially competitive, and producing an organic-looking replica of real teeth, giving you the chance for the smile of your dreams.

For quotes, queries, and to book your next consultations, ring NSOMS today!

When looking at options for dental implants, a lot of patients have questions and concerns around the materials used to hold the implants in place. After all, adjusting to having implants can be a nerve-wracking process, so it’s reasonable to want all of the information possible before making a decision.

The two most common materials dental implants used to hold crowns in place are titanium and zirconia. While both are safe to use and have been successfully implemented by oral surgeons globally, each has its own pros and cons.

To help you make the decision that best suits you, let’s explore the differences between titanium and zirconia implants.

Definition of a Dental Implant

Dental implants are tooth root replacements that are capped with ceramic dental crowns that replace a patient’s original tooth or set of teeth.

There is a range of dental implant options available from single tooth replacement, to All-On-Four replacement and Zygoma Implants, each designed to treat patients with varying needs for tooth replacement.

What is a Titanium Implant?

In this type of implant, the main metal used from the implant screw and hold the tooth crown in place is titanium. Backdating to its inception 65-years ago when Professor P-I Brånemark made the discovery of natural bone attachment to titanium (known as osseointegration), the titanium implant has been the material of choice of practitioners for decades.

Titanium is a metal that is strong, lightweight, non-toxic and corrosion-resistant, making it a perfect option for an implant. In fact, titanium dental implants have proven clinical efficacy (>95% over 5 years).

Benefits of Titanium Implants

• As titanium is a longstanding solution in implantology, it is well researched with long-term case studies supporting its use. Most cases show that with proper care the lifespan of a titanium implant is over 25 years.
• Titanium is biocompatible, FDA approved and considered safe, which means that it interacts favourably with the human body and is non-toxic. In fact, many other surgeries incorporate titanium, including hip and knee replacements, as titanium replacements are easy to place without complications if bone density and bone health are good.
• Titanium is easy to customise and make alterations to, so for a full set of teeth replacement, it is often preferable as the smile line look and bite alignment will feel more natural.
• Typically, the cost of titanium is slightly lower than the zirconia. Titanium implants are incredibly strong, have high flexural properties and resist fracture.

Challenges of Titanium Implants

• While it’s quite rare to develop this kind of allergy, in some cases patients have reported being allergic to the small amount of nickel found in the titanium alloy used to make dental implants (around 0.6% of patients).
• On occasion, titanium can over time develop a visible grey line under the gum and along the tooth ridge, which is less aesthetically pleasing than zirconia.
• Small traces of the Titanium Alloy may become present in the bloodstream but the past 50 years of study has shown it to cause no adverse reactions, whereas zirconia has been shown not to seep into the bloodstream.

What is a Zirconia Implant?

Zirconia implants are relatively new to implantology and have been used in the US since around 2007 and since the late 1980s in Europe. Often marketed as ‘metal-free’, the zirconia implant is made of the crystal phase of the metal zirconium; zirconium Oxide, otherwise referred to as “zirconia”.

Tinted to the off-white colour of natural teeth, zirconia implants are often appealing to patients for mostly aesthetic reasons.

Benefits of Zirconia Implants

• Zirconia is also biocompatible, hypoallergenic and does not seep into the bloodstream. There have been no reports of allergic reactions to zirconia implants thus far.
• Zirconia is technically ‘metal-free’ and as it has no proven cases of seeping into the bloodstream, is often a preferable material to some patients.
• Zirconia implants also lead to less mucosal discolouration than titanium (the grey line mentioned earlier).
• Zirconia is a ceramic and therefore does not suffer any corrosion.

Challenges of Zirconia Implants

• As the newest material on the dental implant market, zirconia hasn’t been around long enough to prove its long-term success in patients through scientific research.
• Zirconia is typically more expensive than titanium.
• Very rarely, some older versions of zirconia implants have been known to slightly fracture. While a strong material, zirconia is slightly less robust with lower elasticity that its peer, titanium.
• Most Zirconia dental implants cannot heal under the gums because of their “one-piece” design, meaning that they do not have a removable abutment but one that is fixed to the implant.

Which implant material is best?

Typically patients tend to opt for the more scientifically proven and less expensive option; titanium. However, there are significant benefits and risks associated with each option and should be taken as case-by-case with the recommendation of your practitioner.

If you’d like to ask any questions or find out which option might suit your needs best, feel free to get in touch with our team – we’d be happy to offer advice and help you out.

Dental implants can give you a fresh start and a wonderful new smile – but it’s important to look after that new smile from the moment you finish your surgery, as the recovery time is when you’re at your most vulnerable. The level of pain you experience after surgery and how long after surgery the pain may last will differ per person, but how you look after yourself during the recovery period can help alleviate and speed up that process.

Here are our top tips for a speedy and safe recovery after Dental Implants surgery:

Before The Surgery

The day before you have your surgery, try and arrange for someone to drive you home from the procedure so you can relax and not stress about driving. We also suggest going to the supermarket and picking up everything you may need. You can find what food and products we recommend having ready on hand a little further down in the article.

Pain Relief

Your surgeon should give you some pain relief, make sure you clearly read the instructions and take as prescribed. Make sure you take your medication as soon as recommended as they will take a while to kick in. A common mistake is people waiting until they experience pain to take pain relief, forgetting that there will be a period of discomfort as you wait for the medication to kick in. But remember that even if you’re in a lot of pain, don’t take more medication than prescribed or recommended, get in touch with your oral surgeon and let them help sort out what you need!

Food and Drink

The best plan is to prepare soft foods for the first few days of surgery so you don’t disturb the area affected by surgery. Potatoes, smoothies, pasta, scrambled eggs and meal replacement shakes are all great options. Remember, even though you’re avoiding hard foods, you want to still remain well-nourished and healthy, so options like meal replacement shakes will help you maintain your daily nutritional needs. As you recover you can slowly start returning to your usual diet, typically after 2-3 days, but keep in mind everyone’s recovery time differs, so focus more on how your feeling than the time passed.

Try and avoid caffeine and alcohol, as well as all hot drinks as your mouth could be sensitive. We also recommend not using a straw, as the suction used could hurt the wound and slow down your recovery time.

Read more here about what to buy and how to be prepared after surgery.

Rest

Following your surgery, it is important you rest and refrain from exercise and too much physical activity. While some patients are able to return to work almost immediately, others may need to take more time off to recover. This will vary depending on your surgery, how intense it is and your general recovery. Where possible, try and schedule your surgery for a Thursday/Friday so you can use the weekend to recover and return to work on Monday. The more you rest in the initial after-surgery phase, the easier your recovery will be; so use this as an excuse to miss the gym for a few days and chill out.

Dental Hygiene

Having surgery in your mouth is obviously going to require some special dental hygiene in the days following. The area will be sensitive so take care at all times, being especially careful around the wound. You need to avoid bumping or touching the wound and surrounding area while it recovers. Purchase a soft toothbrush to make it more comfortable and avoid commercial mouthwashes as the chemicals in these may sting the wound. Instead, stick to a saltwater rinse to keep the area healthy and avoid infection.

After your initial recovery

Once you’ve gotten over your initial recovery you can pretty much commence life as normal. Make sure to maintain extremely good dental hygiene, brushing, flossing and gargling with salt water as healthy gums will help protect your implants. You can eat as normal, however, if your implants protrude through the gum tissue or you have your implants directly attached to other teeth, you need to avoid excessively hard pressure to the area.

To learn more about dental implants, why not book an implant consultation with an appointment with the friendly North Shore Oral team today. We are here and ready to help you!

 

There is nothing more eye-catching about a person than their smile but, unfortunately, it’s very common for many people to experience tooth loss as they age for a number of reasons. Missing teeth can cause self-confidence issues, feeling embarrassed about the condition of your teeth and you may find yourself not smiling as much as you used to.

Before calling your dentist and putting your money where your mouth is, it’s important to know what’s out there and to do a bit of light research about what solutions may be the best for you – particularly whether or not you should go with dentures or dental implants.

 

The Difference Between Dental Implants and Dentures

Dental implants are fixed teeth replacements and are best suited for those who have lost teeth. A dental implant is an artificial tooth root which is placed into your jaw to support your denture or replace missing teeth.

Dentures are conventionally removable prosthetic teeth replacements for missing teeth that can be taken out and put back into your mouth. Dentures are traditionally supported by the surrounding soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity.

However, with advancements in dental technology over the years, dental implants have become popular alternatives for dental care over dentures.

While the main difference between these two is the cost. Dental implants are designed to last longer, minimise the number of visits to the dentist, and are relatively low maintenance. On the other side, dentures are commonly found to be uncomfortable and can take a bit of getting used to, dentures give you the freedom to take them out of your mouth.

Like most things in life, dental work also comes with its own set of pros and cons. Before calling your dentist to make an appointment, continue reading for a shortlist of the pros and cons of both dentures and dental implants. Hopefully, this makes it a little easier to differentiate what each procedure includes so you can book in to discuss with your dentist about what is right for you.

 

Dental Implants – Pros and Cons

The Pros of Dental Implants:

• Dental Implants are natural-looking as well as low maintenance, so upkeep is a breeze and you have more time for the things you love
• Dental Implants won’t move in your mouth like Dentures meaning you won’t have to worry about them ever-shifting in your mouth or falling out
• If properly maintained and taken care of, dental implants will last for many years to come, maybe even for life

Cons of Dental Implants:

• The cost of dental implants is typically higher than dentures
• The procedure takes longer to complete than traditional dentures
• The possibility of dental implants not being suitable for you, adequate jawbone tissue is required for dental implants

 

Dentures – Pros and Cons

Pros of Dentures:

• Less expensive than dental implants
• Quicker turnaround time, the process to receive dentures is a lot shorter than dental implants
• Very few restrictions involved with the treatment process, which makes dentures a great treatment option for people of all ages
• No surgical procedures are required when undergoing the process of getting dentures

Cons of Dentures:

• Dentures are often not a permanent solution, its common that over time and aging that dentures may not fit as well as they used to
• Ill-fitting dentures can cause infections
• Dentures will need to be adjusted over time to keep them fitting properly
• Ability to taste foods may decrease
• Since they can be removed from your mouth at any time, dentures can move on their own and fall out of your mouth

Anything dental requires research, patience and an expert team to ensure you get the best possible care. The team at North Shore Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons specialise in ensuring you’re always totally comfortable and receiving the best dental treatment you can get. We’ll confidently educate you on your options and tailor the whole process to your specific dental needs.

With personable care from North Shore Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons you’ll walk away with a grin from ear to ear and newfound confidence behind your smile.