How Long Do Implant Supported Dentures Last?

You may have brushed and flossed your teeth twice a day and kept your twice-yearly dental cleanings, but your teeth are not as strong and healthy as you hoped.  Often, as adults age, they need to have one or more of their teeth replaced with dentures.  Dentists will do as much as they can to avoid removing your teeth, but it is more common with adults to have more serious tooth decay and gum disease.  As the ability for dentists to restore and repair teeth have improved, the ability for dentists to replace your teeth with dentures has improved.  You no longer need to rely on suction and adhesive to keep your dentures in place along your gumline.  The dentist can implant supports below your gums to secure your dentures in place for a more snug and natural fit.  Investing in your dental health and future can be costly up front so how long will your new implant supported dentures last?

Denture implants & dentures are 2 different things

While you and the dentist have reviewed multiple treatment plans, it is important to keep in mind the combination of two dental techniques of dentures and implants.  Implant supported dentures require surgery to place the titanium rods in your gums. The implants are topped with fixtures that click into the dentures.  From start to finish, implant supported dentures take more than one component working together to complete your new toothy grin.  The dentures will have an expected lifetime, the implants will have another and the hardware that connects the two will have another.  Each layer of the dentures and implants will have different wear and tear from daily use.  It is important to follow the dentist’s instructions for at home care and to keep your regular dental appointments to ensure that you are not leaving other problems untreated.

Traditionally, dentures that sit on the gum line need to be replaced every five to ten years because the jawbone deteriorates.  The dentures rely on suction so the fit needs to be snug along the gumline and any serious changes need to be addressed for the dentures to stay in place.  Replacing dentures repeatedly can seriously increase the cost of using them over time.

Implants rely on titanium posts set below the gumline and they fuse to the jawbone.  Titanium is extraordinarily strong and is one of the only materials that is known to fuse with bones.  The implants keep the jawbone strong and from deteriorating due to lack of teeth.  The surgery to place the rods in the gum can be costly, but the success rate for most people accepting the implants and the minimal maintenance they require leave implants with a larger cost up front only once.  Most research shows that people tend to reject implants before the first year and if people still have successful implants at ten to fifteen years, the implants will still be in place at twenty years.

As dentists continue to improve implant supported dentures, they have been able to improve implant placement and even reduce the number of implants necessary.  The newest technique is call All-on-4 and offers patients the opportunity to have only four strategically placed implants instead of six or eight.  While this option is still new, the research offers proof that patients have more than 10 years of success.

More on Implant Supported Dentures : How Much Do Implant Supported Dentures Cost?