A busy week, A busy weekend – Implants and teaching

Mentoring future implant surgeons

As you may have read in our previous blog, I am mentoring the current cohort of implant students on the British Academy of Implant and Restorative Dentistry’s implant training programme. We have had a busy day of implant dentistry on Friday and I was able to host 2 students to shadow my implant surgery. This is a great way to show the practical side of implant dentistry to our students.

The feedback we got from the patients and students was very positive with the main point stating that the surgery felt very relaxed. This was a reassuring point for me as at Infinity Dental Clinic, we aim to make everything as relaxed as possible for our patients.

Dental Implants to replace 2 missing teeth – a case example

A patient attended my clinic recently and she had been wearing  a partial denture to replace her 2 missing teeth for the last 6 years. She stated that she had never actually liked the denture and would only wear it for ‘cosmetic’ reasons as it was inadequate for chewing and functioning properly.

She decided a fixed solution was necessary so we proceeded with implant treatment.

After placing 2 implants in this area, the patient was able to continue wearing her partial denture until the implants were ready to restore. As can be seen in the radiograph below, the implant are carefully placed in the bone underneath the gum and then allowed to integrate for a period of approximately 3 months.

During this integration process, their is no pain. As far as the patient was concerned, she just continued to wear her partial denture for ‘cosmetic’ reasons.

Following the integration period, the implants are ‘ready’ to restore. At this stage a bespoke made tooth is carefully designed and screwed in to the dental implant.

The natural look and feel of these implant restorations is far beyond anything that can be achieved using dentures or bridges. As expected, the patient was delighted with the outcome and could finally throw that 6 year old denture away.

• Dr Mohsin Patel BDS MJDF RCS (Eng)