anyone got one?thinking of this over a bridge,is it a better option?

front tooth is out and i look a c**t! 🙂

will have to sell mi arse even more to get it sorted

Yup. I’ve got 2 crowns where my front teeth used to be. Knocked them out when I was a kid!
You get the added bonus of having titanium spikes holding them in place 😉

how much?
better than a bridge?

A big lot is the short answer. My teeth are really sh**t so after losing one of the front two it was either a falsie or an implant as there wasn’t an adjacent tooth good enough to run a bridge from.
The dentist kept giving me the bill in dribs and drabs but it must have come to 3k. You can get it cheaper so shop around but it really is worth doing, no probs whatsoever in the 2 years since.

Get yourself over to hungary and get it done. Fraction of the price that it is over here.

I have a mate lives there and he reckons the dentists are better than they are in the UK.

Depends on a lot of factors which include cost. How did you lose it in the first place? If it was trauma i.e. face plant, I’d be dubious about getting an implant as it’s integrated to the bone and assuming it was a biking related injury, high chance it’ll happen again. A resin retained bridge might de-bond after a few years but in an impact it’ll cause less permanent damage. Just mentioning a few things for you to think about, there’s a lot to take into consideration which your dentist will probably mention (unless he’s a dick who just wants your money…)

I was considering this option too, fractured a molar earlier this month when I landed on my scone, had to get it pulled 🙁

Dentist estimated around £1800 for an implant & that it would be a procedure which would stretch over a few months.

Think I probably won’t go for it, mostly because I’d be concerned about having a lump of metal embedded in my face if (when) I head-dive again. If it was somewhere visible however I would definitely prefer it over a bridge.

knocked out a front tooth and after 3 months with a false one (on a plate) started with an implant, June 2010 which was finally fixed Nov 2010. It is by far, far, far the best thing I have ever done. It cost £2000 but was worth every penny,

C

hmmm cheers for the replys..

yeah i chipped it when i was a kid,had a cap over it for years,then 3 absesses in the tooth,tooth was dead and brown when they pulled it out.

sounds like those who have an implant are happy with it.

i read that bridges can cause more absesses over the long run?

Generally speaking implants are the best option for small gaps (they have a 90% success rate but only about 4% of prosthetic work is implants so we don’t have a big pool of data to work from). If you smoke, it doubles the failure rate of the implant. Depends on the angulation of your front teeth and obviously the quality/quantity of bone around the area, if you have very long/angulated incisors then likelihood of it getting knocked is much higher.

Bridges on the front tend to last the longest of anywhere in the mouth and nothing permanent has to be done (again this depends on how your teeth meet), it’s just stuck on and they tend to have very good aesthetics. Much easier to make a poor implant than a poor bridge so if you do go for an implant, go for someone with experience that hasn’t just fitted 10 implant on a model during a weekend.

I thought that a bridge was going to cost £1200-1400 for me and if i ever the teeth either side of the gap I would be knackered whearas with teh implant i could afford to loose more teeth (with old age!) and get a double job made to screw in the implant.

Anyway, main thing is I can eat apples again and whistle!!

C

Had a ‘Maryland’ Bridge – one of my canine teeth lost in a tarmac face-plant.

Looks perfect but feels a bit odd – not ‘solid’ like an implant would. It was pretty inexpensive though compared to an implant.

Strange how this thread is now littered with ‘buy an implant’ ads already 🙄

my misses is a Dental nurse!
i have worked with a dental implant specialist for the last 7 years and certainly implants are the best solution to replace a missing tooth. They cost in the region of £2000 for one tooth which sounds alot,however, an implant will last you a lifetime whereas a bridge is variable depending on the type of bridge you have. Someone mentioned about bone quality… it’s the amount of bone that you have that’s the issue, if you’re deficient that can be corrected with a bone graft which is a standard procedure Someone mentioned about the angulation of the tooth… any experienced implant surgeon will get the implant in the correct position.
I’d go for it 🙂

Whoa there Geoff, we certainly don’t know whether implants last a lifetime mostly because they haven’t been around long enough. The clinical evidence says they’re good but not perfect. The quality of bone certainly matters, you wouldn’t give an implant to someone with osteoporosis in practice unless you wanted a nice lawsuit on your hands. I see a number of poorly placed implants on clinic, many from work done abroad. I’ve just finished on a case for a guy who spent 10k+ having some done in Thailand, awful work that ended with me redoing the only saveable implant and the rest replaced by a denture.

Implants aren’t a means to an end, they’re just another option.

i thought the glued on bridge was a weak way of doing it with chances of it coming off easily?

maryland bridge is the better one of the two bridge types right?

I am in the middle of having an implant. I have had the the second screw head fitted and next week I am being measured up for the tooth. The dentist told me that a bridge will only last for around 7 years whilst an iplant will last for over 30 years. Seems to me that in the long run the implant is the cheaper option.

Maryland bridges are a type of adhesive bridge. There’s a lot of research going into the bonding agents at the moment and their bond strength far exceeds anything in the front of the mouth during normal use but over time yes it can become de-bonded (thermocycling etc but their properties are getting better all the time).

I’ve seen bridges that have lasted 30 years and implants that have failed after 10 months so horses for courses really, from sitting in front of a monitor, I couldn’t tell you what’s best for you but I’ve seen people go for implants just because they think it’s this ultimate solution. Get a couple of opinions and speak to someone who is experienced, unfortunately implantology isn’t a speciality so you tend to get a lot of variety in the quality of work. Don’t be afraid to ask how many implants they’ve done and any case presentations you might be able to look at.

If you’re wondering, I’m a dentist. Work in a teaching hospital in London so when general dentists cock up, the patients get referred to me for sorting out. (I’m not fat, old, divorced, suicidal or rolling in it ; ) )

Got a rear top right 2nd molar (think it’s called molar) took out on Friday having endured for nearly a year of toothache due to an incompetent dentist. £135 plus one tooth gone. A bit sore at the moment but getting generally fine.

She knew my tooth was bad but did not give me any appointment for nearly two months because they have gone private but did not tell me. It could be saved if it was done earlier but she prolonged.

Yes, I am going to watch the documentary on Dentist soon so that will be interesting.

Ive just had a molar pulled and the dentist said in 6 months come back for either a bridge, or implant.
Is there a downside to just living without the tooth? Its second from the back, and anyway its a bit late to ruin my boyish good looks.
I’d rather spend the money on a sea kayak and a set of skis TBH.

sweepy – Member

Ive just had a molar pulled and the dentist said in 6 months come back for either a bridge, or implant.
Is there a downside to just living without the tooth? Its second from the back, and anyway its a bit late to ruin my boyish good looks.

I would go for the bridge first since it cost less and not having to endure so much pain but the question is how strong is the bridge?

But do I even need the bridge? Its not really noticeable from the outside, will not having it affect the other teeth or anything like that?

sweepy – Member

But do I even need the bridge? Its not really noticeable from the outside, will not having it affect the other teeth or anything like that?

Probably loosing one tooth is not going to affect much but not sure about you but I prefer to have full set of teeth. I have one molar extracted on Friday so am thinking about it this two days. I feel like going for a bridge because it is cheaper and I hate pain of having drilled with titanium screw. I don’t mind having it repairs after a while as the crown plus bridge can be repaired easier … I am no expert so I hope babw could give better advice.

🙂

damn wish i had never seen this thread,

i had a bridge put in around 7 yrs ago, it failed at christmas or rather i broke it at christmas biting into a extra hard piece of the wife’s flapjack (always liked the challenge of biting through something),

anyroads, the bridge was a four tooth from the top right canine (socket) to the last on that side(post), i think it would have lasted quite a while longer if i hadn’t killed it,

on my other top side i had a crown which keeps popping out as it’s in the memory zone of the gum which keeps forcing it out, behind that is an old crown 10yrs + and behind that a gap (removed for giving me jip)
and finally behind that is the final molar,

well, the bridge is coming out next week, the one behind the canine which keeps coming out is being removed too and after smashing the lone survivor on the way back from the Q’s last week (biscuit made by the wife again), that is joining the party,

at 42 i’m going to be having a cobalt chrome partial denture, with six teeth fixed to it replacing the tree either side behind the canines, we talked about implants but not for long i am a bauxer, which means one hell of a bite and i would destroy them in weeks i recon,

total bill is 1170, so it’s not too bad but i do feel i’m on the rocky road to soupdom,

consider your options carefully and don’t rush into things is my advice, implants may sound good, but i wouldn’t want to break one especially at the front.

i was quoted £1200 for a bridge,looking at it an implant aint much more.

Get an implant. The process may take a while longer, but it’s worth it in the long run.
I’ve never had a problem with my two, and they can bite through anything that my normal teeth can (unlike the caps that I had fitted before).
Well worth the money IMO.

Wow, there’s a lot of misinformation/speculation going around here about dental treatment. I can’t really go around giving individual treatment advice without seeing the patient and it’d be wrong of me to disagree with your own dentists choices if they’ve justified/explained to you and you’re happy.

All I will say is, dentistry isn’t an exact science and there isn’t a single treatment out there which can’t fail. Seems silly we can’t guarantee anything we do considering how much patients pay for it but that’s how it is.

they’re a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for:

someone had to.

Yes, I am going to watch the documentary on Dentist soon so that will be interesting.

When is this on?

babw – thanks for all the advice. It’s good to know there are dentists out there who do actually care for their patients and aren’t just interested in how many Aston Martins they can buy.

After having an implant (front tooth) that went wrong after a couple of years, I have distrust of dentists. The proceedure was correctly done by an experience dental surgeon. However my greedy ex-dentist, decided to fit the crown and do all the after care. The tooth (crown) was ill fitted and not the correct shape or colour. After several years I went back to the surgeon who fitted the titanum screw and he couldn’t believe the mess the tooth was in. Its taken over a year of treatment and £650 to correct. The surgeon said he should have provided all the after care and fitted the crown, not my own dentist.

So I would give a lot of thought as to the experience of the dental surgeon fitting the implant, if you go ahead.

It’s also left me with a fear of dentists. Mine needs to go on a ‘bedside manners course’ as he gets cross when I’m gagging and almost throwing up in the surgery 🙄

nedrapier – Member

they’re a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for:

Already got an 853 Implant.

Back to the topic on tooth implant …

Had several bad dentists in my life and I have just switched to a new dentist recently that ended up with tooth extraction.

1. I had one young dentist filed down my good front tooth because he filed down the other new filling too much making it uneven so he filed down my good one. Plus the two lower front ones.

2. A young female dentist did a filling that was so uneven I had to get it filed down twice. I did not know until the local anaesthetic wore off.

3. A rather “experienced” female dentist was so financially focused,she knew I had a bad decay, but only gave me an appointment two month later when I was in pain because I was not on private. After that she was so heavy handed she did the job so fast leaving some of the decay still intact only for me to endure the worst pain of my life for 4 days. Then she took the filling out and drilled a bit more then left me with temporary filling. 3 months later the pain came back and I had it extracted last Friday.

Her reasons. She did not do extraction nor root canal, well I don’t blame her. She was going to refer me to another specialist dentist that would cost me £800 to £900 but I would have to wait.

Good dentist.

1. Was in Leeds in 1995 and got a root canal treatment plus a crown for £58. He was a very good dentist and the crown is still fine.

2. Present dentist I went to last week seems like a good dentist but although he said he could do root canal treatment, he would refer me to his friend who is a specialist. £1200 please if you want to get it done. I said extract it.

3. A youngish dentist managed to patch up my badly crack tooth with gold filling that is still working fine. This one might need a gold crown in future.

Don’t get me wrong but to be frank the workmanship and quality of filling or dental care has gone downhill. I bet dental schools are on mass conveyor belt to produce dentists that are under qualified to do a proper job. Hence, I am not confident to have an implant unless the dentist is competent.

The moral of the story. If you find a good dentist who gives quality work then sticks to him/her like a glue. Pay him/her a little bit more because a good job done will last a lifetime or at least a very long time.

Find a bad dentist then spread the word. They should be struck off as far as I am concerned especially those “cowboys” that charge a lot but deliver a poor quality work.

🙄

Bunnyhop – Member

When is this on?

8pm Tonight Channel 4 – Dispatches. This is the short summary:

Dispatches – The Truth About Your Dentist

As the government’s cuts to the NHS start to bite, Sam Lister investigates dentistry. `Dispatches’ goes undercover to reveal how some dentists are misleading patients about their rights to NHS treatment. The programme exposes dentists who are waiting until patients are lying back in the chair before telling them they must pay hundreds of pounds for private treatment which should be available on the NHS.

Fear of dentist? Same here but worst case is wait until you have the mother of all pain that is a very bad toothache then perhaps you will know what I mean.

Not thought about growing a long ‘tache and beard, and just covering the gap up that way? That’s what I do, and it seems to work ok. 😛