I had dentures for a while and just really hated them. After doing some research, I decided to get implant overdentures, with eight implants total. This has cost me about $12,000. Yet, in less than a week three of them have fallen out and today a fourth one came out. Should I get a refund for those? Is there a way to get them back in? I really hated the removable dentures.
Penny
Dear Penny,

You should absolutely get your money back on those failed implants. To be honest, I wouldn’t have too much confidence in the ones that are left either. The current estimated failure rate for dental implants is 5%. Your dentist’s failure rate is 10 times that in just a week.
Most dental implant failures come from poor surgical placement. However, you mentioned you have been in dentures for a bit. You didn’t mention how long. When your teeth are removed, your body begins to resorb the minerals in your jawbone. It is possible, depending on how long you were in dentures that you did not have enough bone to retain the dental implants. That is something your dentist should have caught with his diagnostics.
My first recommendation to you is to see a dentist with real dental implant training, such as with Dawson Academy or the Las Vegas Institute of Advanced Dental Studies. Have them look at your implants and see if they can tell you what went wrong. If you had adequate bone support and it was a problem with the dentist’s surgical placement, then don’t just ask for a refund. Instead, ask for him to pay to have the new implants replaced by a dentist of your choosing.
This is because it will cost more to repair this than it did originally. Losing or removing dental implants takes bone with it. The missing bone structure will have to be replaced in order to have a succesful outcome the second time around. That can be done with bone grafting, but your dentist should cover that if you had enough bone to begin with.
If you didn’t have enough bone to begin with, then you would only need a refund. You would have needed bone grafting to begin with in that case.
You should not have any trouble getting a refund on this, especially if you have a second dentist advocating for you.
Best of luck. You can still get the implant overdentures you want!
This blog is brought to you by Salem, MA Dentist Dr. Randall Burba.