Mini Dental Implants

Mini Dental Implant

What do you do when its Friday afternoon and this walks in with a crying patient attached to it?

   

Well I looked in the tool box and thankfully I had a stash.  No not anything illegal but a stash of Intra Lock Mini Dental Implants from Shatkin FIRST Labs.  Jay Moore (the well respected and highly knowledgeable sales manager) had just sent me 24 mini implants in the 'Cash for Clunkers' trade in program.

The patient stated that the bridge was 'slightly decayed' for a while and that she had noticed some movement over the past few months.  Well from where I was sitting I don't know where the 'slightly decayed' came from.....it looked more like a stroll down the street in Anbar Province Iraq. 

I was able to tack mush to mush and took a pre op pan xray

 

 

Of course I was drooling over the thoughts of Mini Implants everywhere for this patient!  But I had to slow down and go over all the options from

1. Do nothing...not really an option....but I have heard that patients can get creative with Super Glue!

2.  Extract and recommend a denture or partial.

3.  Extract and implants for an over-denture or implants and a fixed bridge.

4.  Extract and mini dental implants for a fixed bridge or mini implant retained full denture.

To my surprise the patient had done her homework and had come to see us specifically for mini dental implants and a mini implant bridge.

I told her lets's slow it down a bit.  How about we make it the first goal to take out the broken root tips and preserve as much bone as possible with some peritomes(dental instruments to extract teeth with less trauma to the facial bone).  Then see about placing some mini dental implants and for certain figure out how to make her a temporary bridge to wear while some healing occurred.

Minis all went in as planned.  She will return in a few weeks for a tissue check and I will update the photos. 

 iCAT CT scan of mini dental implants in place for a fixed bridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post operative pan xray of mini dental implant in upper jaw for fixed bridge

   

Mini Dental Implant Crowns ~ Mini Dental Implant Bridge ~ Mini Impants Do they Hurt Part II

Ok...so more than 6 weeks have passed since the blog about the mini dental implants and do they hurt.  But the patient has finally come back and we took the impression for her crowns.  If you need to scroll down to the original post you can see the teeth that were extracted and the mini dental implants that were placed.

I really wanted to do some Porcelain crowns over the mini implants but $$$ were scarce in this case so a decision was made to use lab fabricated resin crowns.  I took a standard Poly Vinyl impression and sent the case to Shatkin FIRST Lab.

Nothing new required for me as the dentist.  From there FIRST Labs places the mini dental implant analog into the impression and makes a replica of what is in the mouth.

 The following set of pictures are the resin crowns on the lab mini dental implant model.  I will take clinical photos of the mini dental implant crowns cemented in place in 2 weeks.

 


 
 
 

Mini Dental Implants for Missing Laterals

One of the most prevalent dental conditions is missing upper laterals (about 10% of the population is missing these teeth from birth). 

Some of the time, even with orthodontics, there is not enough space to restore the missing teeth with traditional implants (implants with a diameter greater than 3.0 mm).

Most of the patients I have seen either have some sort of removable appliance or a orthodontic retainer with the two missing teeth on it.  The issue is that these teens don't really care to wear their retainer. 

Another solution, the bonded bridge, seems to fail.  While the bonded bridge works well on missing lowers, the clinical data shows that bonded bridges to replace missing upper laterals fail quite often because the central and canine tooth both move to different degrees under chewing function. 

One solution that works well in my hands is a technique that Dr. Todd Shatkin taught me....use mini dental implants.  The Intra Lock or IMTEC Mini Dental Implant can be threaded in between the canine and central.  This mini implant can then hold a crown in place that the patient does not remove.  

 

This photograph shows a Intra Lock 2.5 x 18mm mini dental implant to replace missing laterals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

www.dentalminiimplant.com

 

One Mini Implant for Each Root?

At the last Annual meeting for Mini Implant Dentists a friend of mine, Dr. Steve Brown, showed several of his cases where he used one mini dental implant for each root on a missing tooth.  Of course I thought, huh?  Not a bad idea, but is there really space? 

To confirm I spoke with Valdi at Sam Shatkin's FIRST Labs.  Valdi is the master lab tech at the Lab and he said, 'No problem, Dr. Brown has been doing that for years.'  So with that information in hand I had to give it a try.

So, having the sink or swim kind of attitude, I enlisted the help of a friend and long time patient of mine.  He had a missing upper molar that he desperately wanted back, not to mention he had been bugging me to death about it.

So with the big day here and multiple sizes of Intra Lock mini dental implants in stock, we got John numb with 1/2 a carpule of Lidocaine...not a lot really.  Just enough to get the gum tissue numb.

We made one pilot hole and placed a 2.0 x 11mm mini....and then another pilot hole was made carefully.  One more mini was tightened into place.....was there space for one more?  I looked over at the assistant, she nodded her head in approval.   The patient was just sitting there just like the guy in the cartoon....'A bit wider Mr. Sprinkle, I need to see if this tennis ball, I mean this last mini implant can be fit in' I said. 

So there it was, 3 mini dental implants all snug in place ready to support a molar crown!

  

An Itero impression was taken and its off to Shatkin FIRST Lab for a PFM Mini Implant Crown.