I am a tad frustrated and need some advice. Before my dental implant procedure, my dentist told me that I was good to go and an excellent candidate for dental implants. Then, when the procedure finished he completely changed his story. He told me once he got in that he realized I did not have enough bone to make the implants viable. He placed the implant anyway, though. I have a few questions. One, shouldn’t he have known this before the surgery? Two, why would he place the implant knowing it will fail? Three, once it fails, what do I do?
Emily
Dear Emily,
I am frustrated on your behalf. Let’s answer these questions one by one. First, yes, he should have known that you did not have enough bone support. Either he did not do enough diagnostics to know what you were dealing with or he did not know how to read the diagnostics. Either one does not make him a great dentist. Second, no, he should not have placed a dental implant knowing it would fail. That was unethical. My opinion is that what he has done is malpractice. Do not just ask for a refund. My suggestion is that you tell him that instead of giving you a refund that he pay for this to be repaired. But, make sure it is with a dentist of your choosing.
One of the reasons for this is you will need an additional procedure in order to make this work. When your dental implant fails, you will need to have some bone grating done in order to place the implant again, they will need to do a bone grafting procedure. You already did not have a lot of bone according to your dentist. Once the implant fails, it will take some of the bone with it. You will need to build that bone back up, which will require a bone grafting procedure.
The good news is once you have that procedure done and the healing has time, you actually will be a good candidate for dental implants. You picked the best tooth replacement option. Again, I am sorry for how your dentist handled it.
This blog is brought to you by Decatur, AL Dentists Drs. Drake and Wallace.