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If you have healthy and good teeth, you may think that it is all down to proper hygiene and care. While it is a big part of it, there are some instances when genetics, as well as other external factors (such as injuries or illness) can lead to teeth issues. If left untreated, teeth issues tend to get worse and cause other problems as well.
In restore their teeth, people have a few options. Starting with dentures going all the way to full mouth implants. Each of the options has some advantages and drawbacks, but there is a relatively new technique which straddles the fine line between the two options – all on four, or so-called teeth in a day.
To learn more about the procedure itself and its advantages over the other methods, we turned to dental professionals at Temecula Facial Oral Surgery – a practice with plenty of experience and skill.
Right out of the gate, it should be clear that dental implants tend to be expensive. The materials, equipment, and education needed for a dental professional to be able to offer these services are quite high. That being said, there are different types of artificial teeth you may get.
The simplest version of this are dentures – removable prosthetics that you can use as your own. However, these false teeth don’t really give most people the proper feeling of the things they chew and feel like a foreign object in your mouth.
Advances in medicine have enabled us to create individual tooth implants, as well as full mouth dental implants. These include a titanium screw embedded into the wearer’s jawbone (which starts growing around the screw) – which fixes the implant in place. Then a crown can be added and you have an artificial tooth that looks and feels much more like your own tooth. If a person has no healthy teeth, creating implants for each tooth can be a long and expensive process.
Finally, there’s all of four – a kind of in-between solution. The whole arch of your teeth (upper or lower set of teeth) is made in a single piece, but it doesn’t rely on glue like dentures. Instead, they are fixed to your jawbone permanently using 4 implants. Hence the name – all on four.
You may be wondering why you should go for all on four instead of the full set of implants or simple dentures. The answer is simple: you can get a lot of the benefits of individual implants, while not costing nearly as much as that option.
All on four still uses implants, which means that your teeth will be permanent and very durable. More importantly, though, unlike dentures, all on four doesn’t put additional stress on your jawbone – in fact, thanks to the titanium screws, these implants will actually promote bone growth and preservation.
People who have weak jawbone are ideal candidates for all of four type of implants. On the one hand, having a weak jawbone can make wearing dentures uncomfortable and painful. What’s more, wearing dentures can further wear down the bone and cause you further discomfort.
At the same time, a weak jawbone means that getting a full set of implants may be impossible, or at least very difficult. If there is not enough bone to firmly and securely fix implants, this method is not viable.
On the other hand, all on four implants really don’t have such limitations – you only need 4 implants in each jaw.
Picking the best artificial teeth for yourself can be a very simple decision – especially with all on four. It offers the best of both worlds while also negating some of the biggest flaws of each.