If anyone has dental implants or knowledge could use a little input.
Already had the bone grafts done and now getting 3 screws in my mouth plus a sinus lift (nice little bike accident) -4,12,13- I think.
How incapacitated shall the screws and sinus lift make things? Am I looking at hrs days or weeks?
Training - does the sinus lift cause any issues?
The limited info I got is it’s just to make room for the screw and I shouldn’t feel a thing.
Do I have to worry about jaw shifting while waiting on the screws to take hold? The main doc said he was only concerned about having the partial denture in my mouth for 8 hrs/day while waiting on the screws to take hold.
If anyone has dental implants or knowledge could use a little input.
Already had the bone grafts done and now getting 3 screws in my mouth plus a sinus lift (nice little bike accident) -4,12,13- I think.
How incapacitated shall the screws and sinus lift make things? Am I looking at hrs days or weeks?
Training - does the sinus lift cause any issues?
The limited info I got is it’s just to make room for the screw and I shouldn’t feel a thing.
Do I have to worry about jaw shifting while waiting on the screws to take hold? The main doc said he was only concerned about having the partial denture in my mouth for 8 hrs/day while waiting on the screws to take hold.
What do you guys have/experience?
probably a couple days to a week. usually not that bad. it mainly depends on how much bone needs to be added. i wold take it easy for a few days for sure.
shouldn’t be any lingering issues once healed. you’ll be numbed. doesn’t hurt. no jaw shifting.
Sinus lifts are common practice when fitting upper implants. Very simple procedure and may give a slight bit of sinus pressure after surgery for a few days but nothing major at all.
After implants I would probably take a few days off to give things time to heal and also to prevent bleeding.
Nothing to worry about. Just take it easy, & let things heal.
I had 2 implants put in and needed the sinus lift / bone graft. They did the lift and the graft at the same time. It was done in January so as to not lose much training time. Just easy workouts the entire time for about a week, made sure that the bleeding stopped. For me, the sinus lift / bone graft was a bit painful and caused black and blue under my eye for a week - looked like I had been beaten up. Definitely the worst part for me, but having the 2 screws drilled into my skull 6 months later was a walk in the park and did not present any pain whatsoever. Definitely worth it. Also, feel like I can breathe much much better after the sinus lift.
I’ve had 7 implants and a sinus lift/graft. I had all of it done under local anesthesia and really never took anything but Ibuprofen for pain … after the implants I always ran the next day but waited 3 days to get back in the pool. The sinus graft/implant was the most painful overall … but still ran the next day with Ibuprofen.
I think a lot of how it turns out is how skilled your oral surgeon is and how good they are at in giving dental pain blocks. How many implants they put in yearly is also a huge issue … my healing caps were put on the same day as insertion of the implant.
For me, this really wasn’t a big deal.
Dave
Replying to all as I’m short on time. Thank you for the input! My greatest concern was the sinus lift and the pressure for swimming. I knew many on here had to have gone through this lovely experience.
I can’t imagine doing 7. These 3 have been a pain, but thankful for the options that are now available.
My first Slowtwitch response where I’m the informed one!
I’m a general dentist who places implants.
The “screws” (your dental implants) are the kind of thing you could literally go out and complete an olympic tri the minute you walk out of surgery.
The sinus lift comes in lots of flavors: from practically nothing to cutting the side of your maxilla/sinus area open. Ask your surgeon after he’s done what he wants
in terms of rest. I’d take a wild guess that you’re simply having a little bone tucked up above the implant itself, and that you could just take the rest of the day off and then
return to normal.
There will be no jaw shifting if you’ve got the rest of your teeth present.
Keep the partial denture out of your mouth as much as possible to allow the best healing around the implant healing caps. (Again, I’m guessing that you’re having
the healing caps placed right at surgery - they’ll look like little silver disks or thimbles sticking out of your gums)
Feel free to ask any other questions you might have-
steve
I had a dental implant put in about 3.5 months before I did IM CDA in 2006. I asked the dentist if there were any restrictions on training, and he said “no.” The day after I got the implant I ran 14 miles, and two days later I did a century ride. A few days later I was in excrutiating pain - the worst pain of my life, by far. My dentist brought in lots of other specialists to consult. Nobody knew why, but the implant was obviously failing. After a few days of the pain continually getting worse and worse, they took out the implant, and the pain immediately went away. They put in the implant again a few months later, after IM. I didn’t do any training for a week after getting the second implant, and had absolutely no problems (and never have in the 5.5 years since). I don’t know for sure why the first implant failed and the second didn’t, but the only variable I could identify was the training.
Not intending to hijack this thread, but can I throw in a related question? I have a bridge now but one anchor tooth is failing. When it goes, I’ll be looking at potentially 3 implants (front, top). I’ve been told that more than 2 implants in a row won’t work - that I could get one or two implants but not three, so I would still need a bridge. Is this true? Why wouldn’t 3 in a row work? Must be possible, considering the guy who said he’s got 7 implants. Anyone know?
3 implants in a row may not work if there is not enough space for 3 implants. Ideally you would want to replace 3 teeth with 3 implants but often you can’t due to spacing. You need more space between implants than you do between real teeth. They key for implants to work is to have enough bone around them. When implants are too close together the bone between them becomes very thin and blood supply is compromised leading to necrosis(dying) of the bone and the implant failing.
I had a screw put in my upper jaw four days before a sprint tri. Fortunately, I didn’t need a lift. The event was so-so. I felt flat. But that could have been due to any number of things.
it’s a different type of bridge, one that is anchored by implants instead of whittled-down teeth.
i have a 4-unit crown on front, top with three titanium roots, and it goes like xx_x, with x indicating position of the implants. The 4-unit crown spans the entire four positions.
Artvark’s response is correct and excellent.
Make sure you’ve been told that 3 implants won’t fit by the oral surgeon who would be placing them- some implant systems have quite narrow implants available now.
With narrow implants, you can sometimes squeeze them all in.
The advantage to individual teeth/implants over bridging two implants together is largely two-fold:
Much easier to clean. Individuals you simply floss and brush. Bridges require more complicated methods to get under the “floating” middle tooth (the Pontic tooth, if you’re into proper terms)
The body grows bone around teeth/implants, and slowly absorbs/shrinks bone where there is nothing. The gums rest on and follow the bone. So if you’re missing a tooth/implant, things will slowly
shrink in the area. I’m in Sarasota FL where the avg. age of my patients is 75years old, so we don’t worry much about bone resorption, but a 30 y/o should.
I’m curious where the implant was located in your mouth- sounds a lot more like nerve impingement to me than something related to the exhaustion from training.
steve
It is tooth number 10. We had several oral surgeons, an endodontist (who is also my boyfriend), and my periodontist all working to find out why I was in pain and nobody saw anything abnormal.
Hi Steve,
I’d have to disagree about individual implants being better than a bridge implant restoration. With implants we always want to splint (combine) them together whenever possible. Even if you had 3 individual implants next to each other, you would want to connect all 3 crowns into one bridge rather than 3 individual implants. This is to provide as much stability as possible. The opposite is true for natural teeth where you would be correct in saying individual crowns are better for ease of cleaning. Narrow implants are a possible option but be aware that narrower implants have a higher failure rate because there is less surface area to hold onto bone. Regarding resorption, this is primarily a concern if you have a high smile line, meaning when you smile you show your gums. If you do show your gums when you smile then you want to preserve as much gum as possible so your gum line looks nice. If you fall into this category then you want to make sure that your surgery is planned properly and that the dentist performing the procedure is taking this into consideration.
Anyways, sorry if this thread has been hijacked. Also, great to see so many dentists on here.
Hello-
**With implants we always want to splint (combine) them together whenever possible. **
I’d disagree here, in fact, I go to great lengths to not splint implants.
Even if you had 3 individual implants next to each other, you would want to connect all 3 crowns into one bridge rather than 3 individual implants. This is to provide as much stability as possible.
Again, I’d disagree. Osseointegrated implants are far stronger than natural teeth as regards retention in the bone. While you can “pull” a natural tooth out, you’ve got to drill away all the bone
around a modern implant (once osseointegrated) to remove it. No need to splint.
**Narrow implants are a possible option but be aware that narrower implants have a higher failure rate because there is less surface area to hold onto bone. **
The data on narrow implants doesn’t support that after the implants have osseointegrated. Sure, they might fail to integrate more often, but then I’m wondering if the narrow ones are placed in questionable locations in the first place.
Also, diameter is only one of the dimensions. Length is equally important (Please keep it clean!)
Finally, narrow to me is 3-4mm diameter. While the “mini” implants can work, I’m not ready to risk them on my own patients.
**Regarding resorption, this is primarily a concern if you have a high smile line, **
While a high smile line/cosmetic concerns matter, I’d consider the bone loss after tooth loss as it affects the adjacent remaining teeth with lack of support and root exposure as more important over the subsequent 20 years.
I’d suspect there is a disproportionately high number of dentist triathletes vs the general population.
We buy a lot of bikes.
Hello-
**With implants we always want to splint (combine) them together whenever possible. **
I’d disagree here, in fact, I go to great lengths to not splint implants.
Even if you had 3 individual implants next to each other, you would want to connect all 3 crowns into one bridge rather than 3 individual implants. This is to provide as much stability as possible.
Again, I’d disagree. Osseointegrated implants are far stronger than natural teeth as regards retention in the bone. While you can “pull” a natural tooth out, you’ve got to drill away all the bone
around a modern implant (once osseointegrated) to remove it. No need to splint.
**Narrow implants are a possible option but be aware that narrower implants have a higher failure rate because there is less surface area to hold onto bone. **
The data on narrow implants doesn’t support that after the implants have osseointegrated. Sure, they might fail to integrate more often, but then I’m wondering if the narrow ones are placed in questionable locations in the first place.
Also, diameter is only one of the dimensions. Length is equally important (Please keep it clean!)
Finally, narrow to me is 3-4mm diameter. While the “mini” implants can work, I’m not ready to risk them on my own patients.
**Regarding resorption, this is primarily a concern if you have a high smile line, **
While a high smile line/cosmetic concerns matter, I’d consider the bone loss after tooth loss as it affects the adjacent remaining teeth with lack of support and root exposure as more important over the subsequent 20 years.
I’d suspect there is a disproportionately high number of dentist triathletes vs the general population.
We buy a lot of bikes.
Regards,
steve
i agree with everything you stated. i personally hate seeing mini-implants used for crown retention. they seem to always fail. they don’t integrate. maybe for denture support but not stand alone with a crown. i feel it’s just a matter of time before they fail. i wouldn’t splint. i would do/and do implant bridges.