Disadvantages of Pterygoid Implants?
Losing a tooth through the years meant losing some degree of your aesthetic appearance and biting and chewing functionality. Losing multiple teeth might have easily meant losing some self-esteem and self-confidence and even some of your natural speaking ability. Dental technologies continue to advance creating restoration solutions improving tooth loss. You can still reclaim your healthy smile with a dental implant treatment.
Dental teams receive extensive training when considering dental implants for tooth replacement. This includes the innovative pterygoid implants if you have special circumstances.
What are Pterygoid Implants?
Pterygoid implants are usually performed if you have been diagnosed with atrophic maxilla, which is a severe shrinkage of your upper jaw. In this condition your upper jaw cannot successfully support traditional dental implants. Even if your dentist placed the traditional implant, artificial root, into your upper jaw, the bone most likely will not be able to integrate with the root and the implant would fail. You still have the option to be fitted with dentures or a partial denture, but dental implants will always offer the best long-term solution for missing teeth. Rather than anchoring the traditional dental implant vertically into your jawbone, the pterygoid implant is instead anchored at a 45-degree angle into the medial pterygoid plate, above the jawbone. The final solution restores your healthy smile despite struggles with jawbone integrity.
Problems with Pterygoid Dental Implants
Problems with pterygoid dental implants usually revolve around not having enough space to use them since they go so far back, almost in the upper wisdom tooth area. This requires a lot of inter-arch space to have enough room for the porcelain zirconia bridge.
The other problem could be a lack of experience with pterygoid implant placement, leading to a compromised stability and earlier failure. They are more difficult to place than a traditional dental implant. They are best placed while you are sedated for your comfort.
If you have had cosmetic cheekbone implants, they could cause a problem. In rare situations these cosmetic cheekbone implants can be removed and zygomatic implants placed.
You may not want to remove the cosmetic implant to make room for a zygomatic dental implant. Or you many decide it is more important that you have healthy teeth rather than cosmetically enhanced cheeks.
Sinus lift bone grafts are very predictable and safe. The problem is they will not allow you to have your teeth restored quickly. Usually, you will need to be without teeth for several months or wear a partial or complete upper denture. The jawbone must heal, allowing the graft to integrate, for several months before the implants can be placed.
Pterygoid dental implants allow your artificial teeth to be attached to the implant right away. This is because they are embedded into very solid bone that is called cortex.
In some situations, the pterygoid implant can be used when a zygomatic or sinus lift cannot. The dental implant is the most successful restoration available today to regain your healthy smile. As a permanent solution is can last a lifetime.