Dental Implants for supporting upper jaw denture : My Father

[zent]

Hello,

Thank you for your time!

My father is 81 years old and lives alone in India. He is in good health and is physically active.

He has been using a full denture (11 teeth ) in his upper jaw since Aug 2014. Yesterday, the dentures came off and he could not chew or bite. Since he does not like using an adhesive on his dentures, he went to see his dentist. When I spoke to the dentist through an electronic chat after the visit, the dentist advised me of two choices:

#1: Make a new denture and secure it inside his mouth with three dental implants. The implants are only for supporting the new denture. The implants will remain in his mouth for all of his life. This will make it easy to chew. The side effects are minimal.

#2: Try a new denture with additional teeth (more than 11 ) and use an adhesive for as long as possible. When this fails, a new denture along with dental implants will be needed (as mentioned in #1).

I would like to delay putting any implants on my father's mouth for as long as possible. But the worry is, at some point in future, he will need dental implants to support his dentures.

Questions:
Will it make it much harder for him to go through the dental implanting procedure at an older age when he might be not as healthy? Should we just go with dental implants when he is feeling fine?

I would be grateful for any experiences people might have with their parents or elderly relatives who had similar issues.


Thank you,
Zent

 

[honestdoc]

Placing implants can be traumatic and integrating them into bone can be less predictable with various medical conditions. I agree that he shouldn't jump into implants. Try maybe relining them if he was able to use them before or new dentures if the old ones aren't performing properly.

 

[zent]

Thanks a lot for your reply! We have sought a second opinion from a Prosthodontist and it was exactly what you said. We are proceeding with a new denture and avoiding implants