Failed Dental Implant

mendacity

I got an implant for one of my front teeth about 18 months ago. I was at a different dentist this week and he told me the implant had failed and had also impacted on the tooth beside it which is now loose. He advised I return to the dentist who fitted the implant, but in his opinion the implant and the neighbouring took would need to be removed and replaced by dentures. I have a few questions - why do implants fail? Is it mistakes in the surgery or something else? If and when I go back to the dentist who did the implant, then what should I be asking of him and what should my expectations be? Is he obliged to resolve the problem for me? Should I have to pay again for any repair work?

Any information or advice appreciated.

davo10

Mendacity, sorry to read about your situation.

Dental implants are like all medical/surgical procedures, they do not have a 100% success rate. The best we as dentists and you as patients can do is try to mimimize in as much as possible the risk of failure. The way to do this is always to have an implant placed by a specialist (oral surgeon/periodontist) and have a quality implant system inserted, not a cheap generic.

Implants fail for a variety of reasons, poor patient healing, poor health, poor oral hygiene, poor implant placement, poor implant system, smoking, occlusal problems, excessive load from grinding, pathology from adjacent teeth etc.

OP, the fact that the adjacent tooth is loose, it is possible that you have periodontal disease/abcess on this tooth which may have effected the bone around your implant.

As the other dentists on this forum will agree, the first bit of advice is always return to the clinician who placed it and ask him/her for an opinion on why this has happened. This is easy to do if you have had it placed locally and no clinic will want an unhappy implant patient so they are likely to help you out. The implant may need to be explanted and the bone allowed to heal for 8-12 weeks during which time you may need to weaqr a denture, a new implant can then be placed.

OP if you smoke/have poor oral hygiene the risks of failure increase, this is something you would have been advised prior to surgery and if it is found to be the case, the chances of success of future implants may also be compromised.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Why are you reluctant to go see the original dentist OP, usually people who have complex implant work done will have spent a lot of time with the dentist or specialist over a large number of visits and would use them as the first port of call if there were any problems.

Apart from that I agree with everything davo10 says. Implants are really about 95% successful which us a fantastic success rate but some do fail.

Mi

mendacity wrote: »

I got an implant for one of my front teeth about 18 months ago. I was at a different dentist this week and he told me the implant had failed and had also impacted on the tooth beside it which is now loose. He advised I return to the dentist who fitted the implant, but in his opinion the implant and the neighbouring took would need to be removed and replaced by dentures. I have a few questions - why do implants fail? Is it mistakes in the surgery or something else? If and when I go back to the dentist who did the implant, then what should I be asking of him and what should my expectations be? Is he obliged to resolve the problem for me? Should I have to pay again for any repair work?

Any information or advice appreciated.

Hey Mendacity
Sorry to hear about that, really it seems really unfair handing away that kind of money for no guarantees really. i'm in the same position; I have been recommended to a practice to get 1 implant. It's costing me 2900e incl cat scan, moulds, extraction etc. i recently had to reschedule a date and they tried to charge me a cancellation fee; A bit rich i thought so I started googling other practices that offer implant treatment. I got a few and most charged 1800e which would incl the crown. The guy that I'm attending now doesn't even throw the crown in and I have to pay for that seperatly afterwards. Im not gonna rant on but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind pm the dental practice in question as eventhough I know there's a failure rate with all procedures I would prefer to keep a wide berth of this particular chap you've used..Jeez we're really in the wromg business; A licence to print money and the thing is implants are not cuting edge surgery anymore and some would say to an experienced professional pretty routine. A colleague in work got 2 done nearly 20 years ago when she lived in the U.S.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Dental Implants have been around since the 1960's. I would suggest that each implant for each patient is unique and charges will differ. If a CT scan is necessary there most likely is very little bone, or the gums need to be very well managed. This could involve many many visits and multiple surgeries, temporary restorations, tooth removal etc, etc.....

The expensive dentist may spend ten times the time and make much less profit, its the type that will quote you over the phone that I would be worried about (see low balling). Also there is the entire question of specialist dentists and general dentist, comparing specialist treatment with a general dentist is not a level comparison in price or in expected outcomes.

The ammount you pay for a dental implant and the ammount of money the dentist makes are two different things, its an amature mistake to confuse turnover and net profit.

Mi

Ulises Screeching Barley wrote: »

Dental Implants have been around since the 1960's. I would suggest that each implant for each patient is unique and charges will differ. If a CT scan is necessary there most likely is very little bone, or the gums need to be very well managed. This could involve many many visits and multiple surgeries, temporary restorations, tooth removal etc, etc.....

The expensive dentist may spend ten times the time and make much less profit, its the type that will quote you over the phone that I would be worried about (see low balling). Also there is the entire question of specialist dentists and general dentist, comparing specialist treatment with a general dentist is not a level comparison in price or in expected outcomes.

The ammount you pay for a dental implant and the ammount of money the dentist makes are two different things, its an amature mistake to confuse turnover and net profit.

Fitzgeme I think it's a bit unfair to suggest that I would not know the difference between turnover and net profit; Also for you to suggest that the cost of getting this kind of work done is not a lot of money in this climate then you are clearly very far removed from the contraction that has hit economically on both a domestic and global level.

Big_G

You have proven twice Mi that you don't seem to understand the difference between gross and net profit. Economic contraction has happened, but the cost of doing surgery in Ireland has not decreased one little bit. Wages, fixture cost, materials, surgery time etc. I have recently started placing implants and have found it to be not as profitable as I had originally anticipated due to the amount of time spent training, the amount of time it takes to treat a patient including placement time, preparatory time, review visits, lab time and cost and ongoing care. Plus failures, which even the best implantologist in the world couldn't claim to have higher than a 98-99% success. They all cost.

im invisible

Lisa needs braces
DENTAL imPLANt??

davo10

Mi wrote: »

Hey Mendacity
Sorry to hear about that, really it seems really unfair handing away that kind of money for no guarantees really. i'm in the same position; I have been recommended to a practice to get 1 implant. It's costing me 2900e incl cat scan, moulds, extraction etc. i recently had to reschedule a date and they tried to charge me a cancellation fee; A bit rich i thought so I started googling other practices that offer implant treatment. I got a few and most charged 1800e which would incl the crown. The guy that I'm attending now doesn't even throw the crown in and I have to pay for that seperatly afterwards. Im not gonna rant on but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind pm the dental practice in question as eventhough I know there's a failure rate with all procedures I would prefer to keep a wide berth of this particular chap you've used..Jeez we're really in the wromg business; A licence to print money and the thing is implants are not cuting edge surgery anymore and some would say to an experienced professional pretty routine. A colleague in work got 2 done nearly 20 years ago when she lived in the U.S.

So many points in this post are incorrect.

Firstly no medical/surgical procedure of any type comes with a 100% gaurantee, if they did the surgeon would effectively be gauranteeing the patients ability to heal, to overcome surgery, their future health and well being, in the case of implants the patient's adherence to a strict cleaning regime etc, this is an impossibility. Failures occur from time to time, as stated in earlier posts the aim of clinician and patient should be to limit the risk of failure. Incidently the OP did not come back with an answer about smoking/oral hygiene.

Secondly, if you book an appointment and cancel at short notice/fail to attend, this prevents the dentist from filling the appointments and denies other patients the opportunity to obtain treatment at that time. Every clinic has patients ringing up every day looking for emergency appointments and can be quite annoyed when they cannot be seen the same day. There is nothing more frustrating for a receptionist when she gets an earfull from a patient who wants to be seen immediately but the clinician is fully booked, then someone like you cancels at short notice or doesn't turn up. It also represents a loss of income for the dentist so it is right that you pay. At my clinic we take a credit card number at time of booking and advise the patient there is a charge for cancellation with less than 24hrs notice. Failure/cancellatin rates have dropped dramatically and no one has ever refused to give the card number.

http://www.consumerconnect.ie/eng/Hot_Topics/Guides-to-Consumer-Law/Services/cancelling-a-service.html

Thirdly, i'm afraid you do seem a little shy on the understanding of how businesses work, notably the difference between gross and net profit. If clinician A uses a good implant, abutment and Lab made crown which costs quite a lot, and clinician B uses a generic implant and a cheap lab and charges less, it does not mean A makes more profit than B because he/she charges the patient more.

Fourthly, implants will never be "routine", the clinician requires the expertise and experience to know when to and when not to place an implant. They require the training and skills to carry out the procedure and the ability to solve any problems which may be encountered eg the need for grafts etc. Again this can be put down to your lack of understanding so I hope this helps.

If you want to avoid any clinician who has placed an implant which has failed, you will never have an implant. The good implant systems have a failure rate of less than 5% after 10 years, most specialist centres with qualified implant experts place hundreds of implants per year so it stands to reason that all experience a couple of failures.

Lastly, I'm pretty sure that most specialists would be content not to have you as a patient if you cannot grasp the concept of the possibility of failure and the courtesy of informing the clinic in good time if you cannot attend. It makes the issue of consent ambiguous if you cannot understand it.

Incidently, one of the growth areas in our clinic is the re-treatment of failed implants/crown and bridgework. There is a common theme running through all these cases, treatment was originally done cheaply and very quickly with little planning and attention to detail.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Mi wrote: »

Fitzgeme I think it's a bit unfair to suggest that I would not know the difference between turnover and net profit;

Why? its a common mistake and one you have obviously made in your post.

Mi wrote: »

Also for you to suggest that the cost of getting this kind of work done is not a lot of money in this climate then you are clearly very far removed from the contraction that has hit economically on both a domestic and global level.

When did I suggest it was not a lot of money exactly,

Davo - I too find re-treatment to be making up a larger and larger part of my time. I hope that patients never start to think that implanting a metal cylinder into their facial bones is routine dental work, but these day if you can goggle it you think anyone should be able to do it.... And anyone can, but only a few can do it well.

Mi

Well i guess it's nice to see that demand for elective dentistry has been driven down as the there is no shortage of dental practitioners hanging around with plenty of time for monitoring and replying to threads; in particular Fitzgeme

Take care Folks!

davo10

Mi, Fitzgeme is a moderator, that's what they agree to do on all Forums. By "no shortage", do you mean the 5 or 6 dentists who read these posts?, to be quite honest I read them when there is nothing good on TV in the evening, I also read the posts in the Golf, Entertainment, football etc forums as well, this has no impact on my work at which I am very busy.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Yep at lunchtime and after work if you look at the timestamps :rolleyes:....us mods get emails about new post, thanks for the concern about my job, never been more busy. I do feel the ban hammer calling.....

Vudgie

I don't think Fitzgeme made any comment on procedures not being expensive for people, his comment (in my opinion) was in relation to the perception that dentists and specialists are fleecing people and making enormous profit.

I think everyone accepts that serious dental work will hit you hard in the pocket but it is all relative.

My dentist spent over an hour with me two weeks ago touching up a few things, giving me advice etc and charged me €120 which is hardly milking it given that he has overheads, 30+ years experience and staff to pay.

He is currently crowning another tooth and in total will spend about 3 hours with me before materials, labs etc.

Don't get me wrong all of this work is expensive for me and couldn't have come at a worse time but I really don't feel that he is taking the proverbial at all...and to be honest I wonder how he is making much profit with some of the stuff he is doing for me. I suppose there are some more lucrative procedures than others.