All-on-4® Dental Implants: A Permanent Solution for Missing Teeth

The medical term for having no teeth is edentulism, a problem that affects millions of people. If you’ve lost your teeth, you may be thinking about getting dentures. Dentures are an option, of course, but perhaps not the best one available. 

At Oral & Facial Surgery of Mississippi in Flowood, Mississippi, Dr. Michael Nichols offers several tooth replacement options. One of the most popular is the All-on-4® treatment concept. Here, we discuss why it’s such a popular choice. 

The difference between dentures and implants

Dental implants are considered the gold standard for replacing missing teeth. Each time you bite down, the roots of your teeth stimulate blood flow to your jawbone, which nourishes the bone and keeps it healthy. 

When you’re missing a tooth, the section of your jaw that the tooth’s root previously stimulated can begin to degrade. Missing all of your teeth compromises the health of your entire jawbone. Over time, the shape of your face changes. 

A dental implant is a prosthetic tooth root (titanium post) surgically placed in your jawbone. A prosthetic crown — the part of the tooth you can see — attaches to the top of the post. 

Dentures, on the other hand, are a set of prosthetic crowns that sit on top of your gums. With dentures, nothing stimulates your jawbone. 

Also, most people who wear dentures need new ones every 10-15 years. Dental implants can last a lifetime. 

All-on-4 dental implants

With dental implants, one problem that people who are missing most or all of their teeth have is insufficient bone volume to support the posts. That would be particularly true if you needed an implant for each missing tooth. 

The All-on-4 treatment concept sidesteps that problem. Dr. Nichols implants four posts in both your upper and lower jaws, then attaches a bridge, or group of prosthetic crowns, to the posts. You don’t need a post for each tooth. 

Bridges are manufactured to fit your mouth perfectly, though Dr. Nichols can give you temporary ones the day of your surgery so that you can eat normally while your implants fuse to your jawbone. 

The benefits of All-on-4

The All-on-4 treatment concept offers several benefits. For one, because you only need four implants for each jaw, the cost is significantly less than you might expect. Also, fewer implants and the placement method reduce the need for bone grafting to increase bone volume. 

Compared to dentures, All-on-4 offers a much more stable experience. Implants don’t slip or rub against your gums uncomfortably; with proper care, they last much longer than dentures. 

If you’ve lost your teeth and are considering replacement options, we encourage you to schedule a consultation at Oral & Facial Surgery of Mississippi to learn more about the All-on-4 treatment concept. It could be the permanent solution you’re looking for.