Is it worth it at 78 ? - Implant replacement teeth

[Bohemianfish]

I'd err on saying no. Depends on how much money you have. It depends on how extensive the work will be and the cost. You would need a treatment plan to know the full cost. People underestimate the complexity and risks with implants. You may need sinus lifts, etc, which can get quite expensive and its a lot of time in the chair.

 

I've had a few implants and I'm passing on getting 3 implants due to cost and need for a sinus lift. But it's back teeth and not an issue with me. If I was 20 years younger and had the funds, I'd consider it. I do have the funds, but it's a cost benefits analysis. 

 

Make sure you find someone REALLY good to do it if you indeed do it. And you may not need full implants, but a few and maybe a partial denture. It all depends....you may only need a few crowns, hard to say without the analysis.

[JoseThailand]

11 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

- Are you will to pay a lot of money for this ? (I'm guessing 800,000 baht).

 

I think it may be cheaper, around 500,000. 

[10years]

My teeth were rotting. They'd decay down to the root. I still had some left, but they were in the wrong position. You need pairs that are facing each other to chew on food.

 

Was told that it would be better to extract the remaining teeth and get fitted for full dentures. Went to MSU and got it done for absolutely free. Only had to pay for the x-rays, and maybe could have been reimbursed for their cost but didn't think about it. In the meantime, they found a cyst and I had to get that removed.

 

What is amazing is that they took the time to make an upper denture that would stick to the roof of my mouth by suction. I have never had to use any poligrip.

 

If anyone is considering dentures vs implants, keep in mind that with dentures, your lower jaw will shrink due to the loss of calcium. That will make your lips protrude like those toothless grannies you see on TV. Ie, it will change how your lower face looks.

 

If I had known that, I would've tried implants.

[thesetat]

23 hours ago, bunnydrops said:

I have seen where they now only put four implants in each upper and lower, and then make a whole set of teeth that connect to just those four. I don't know if they do anything like that in Thailand. I am the same age as you and don't think I would bother, but it depends on your teeth' bad.

I was talking to my dentist last weekend about this. Each implant would be 50k then there is cost for the denture. The problem is that those denture implants still need to be taken out daily and cleaned. It seems more of a hassle than just getting dentures that attach to other existing teeth or adding a few permanent implants. 

[thesetat]

13 hours ago, 10years said:

My teeth were rotting. They'd decay down to the root. I still had some left, but they were in the wrong position. You need pairs that are facing each other to chew on food.

 

Was told that it would be better to extract the remaining teeth and get fitted for full dentures. Went to MSU and got it done for absolutely free. Only had to pay for the x-rays, and maybe could have been reimbursed for their cost but didn't think about it. In the meantime, they found a cyst and I had to get that removed.

 

What is amazing is that they took the time to make an upper denture that would stick to the roof of my mouth by suction. I have never had to use any poligrip.

 

If anyone is considering dentures vs implants, keep in mind that with dentures, your lower jaw will shrink due to the loss of calcium. That will make your lips protrude like those toothless grannies you see on TV. Ie, it will change how your lower face looks.

 

If I had known that, I would've tried implants.

And may i ask how you managed it not costing anything? That is an expensive procedure. 

[Mavideol]

On 5/3/2025 at 3:29 AM, Celsius said:

Implants in Thailand are not cheap.

agreed, recently had 4 fixed implants, visited 3-4 dentists to get a quotation and all had same expensive price, for a little less expensive I selected the Korean ones as the ones from Europe/Germany are very expensive

[still kicking]

On 5/3/2025 at 4:28 AM, merck said:

How bad are your teeth now?

Well, put it that way, love to have a nice steak, but have problems chewing. 

[ronnie50]

Implant materials have advanced quite a bit over the past 15 years or so. Straumann are one of the top brands - but there are others. Best to go to a dentist who does implants almost every day. Not some little clinic (every clinic offers them). I go to one of the most established places for mine in Bangkok (but not the most expensive places). You will first need a full mouth xray (a CT scan while you stand), which will help to determine the amount of bone available. They can use a powdered artificial bone graft to augment the area of the implant - but really, if you don't have much bone left after decades of no teeth there, then it's risky business getting implants. The place I go to is quite advanced. They don't even do the gooey impressions anymore - it's all done by a high tech wand - a sort of gum/bone ultrasound. (also, if you are on blood thinners, aspirin, etc., you need to tell the dentist well in advance so they can develop a response if there is a lot of bleeding).

[Somjot]

Maybe I can add some useful information, as I might know a thing or two about this matter.

Truth to be told, I'm doing implant surgery for more than 30 years now.

 

First some general information:

 

implants are made of titanium and in some cases of Zirconia, and once inserted into the bone, they osseointegrate, meaning bone grows on them, which takes about 6 to 12 weeks, may be longer in case of bone grafts.

 

 

NOTE: these days people talk about surgery, no matter if dental surgery or some facial corrections like a facelift or even those silicone breasts so many women seem to have, as if they are talking about their next visit to the hairdresser. EVERY single time when surgery is performed there is inevitably scar tissue plus you always have the risk of failure.

 

NOTE: implant manufacturers love to present the statistics which says that after five years 95% of the implants are still in the mouth of the patient. True, but they forget to mention that after five years less than 75% of the prosthetic once put on those implants is still in use.

 

The reason in most cases is the implant-abutment connection, which I will explain now:

 

 Once the healing process is finished, the dentist can put some kind of denture on the implant.

That can be the crown or a bridge or even some removable kind of denture

(I wrote quite a lot about that in another thread. 

 

 

To connect the implant with the denture, some kind of connecting device is normally screwed onto the implant, which is called abutment.

 

Depending on the kind of prosthetic you need a different kind of abutment.

 

 

The screw connecting the abutment with the implant is, as one can imagine, very small and tiny, yet it has to withhold huge forces caused by different levels of temperature in the mouth (coffee, ice cream) and most importantly the force used when chewing.

 

The chewing muscles are  based on their weight the strongest in the human body and can close the teeth with a force as great as 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms).

 

 

NOTE: Here is where wheat is separated from the chaff, the precision of fit between the different components, which is normally much better in the more expensive implants, resulting in much better durability.

 

 

NOTE: another important point is the deliverability of spare parts. Let's say you have two or three implants with crowns on them. With time passing you lose a few more teeth and now you want to use these implants to insert a bridge or maybe even a removable denture. All your dentist has to do, is to remove the crown, replace the abutment by another one, matching the new prosthetic and fix that prosthetic on it.

 

The question is if the manufacturer of your implant is delivering those spare parts to the place you live or even worse, does he still exist, because if not you're in real trouble as maybe the whole implant has to be removed from your jawbone to replace it with another one which is way harder and bloodier compared to a tooth extraction.

 

So if you are living in a place, which you will never leave and are being treated by a young dentist, who will never leave (keep in mind that compared to other academic professions dentists have the lowest life expectancy and the highest suicide rate) and economic is just great, so that your implant manufacturer will be there forever, then you can take any brand you want.

 

If not I'd recommend a brand which is selling their products worldwide like Nobel Biocare, Ankylos, 3i and the number 1: Straumann.

 

The weight of titanium or the price per Kilogramm has nothing to do with the price of the implants. The oxygen tank from your grandfather is probably made of the same austenitic stainless steel (316L) which is used in your expensive watch, yet the tank is much heavier and way cheaper.

 

I'd like to present a case, which I have treated:

 

this lady had only a few rotten teeth left, hadn't seen a dentist for many years and did not like to be in public due to obvious reasons:

 

 

 

after tooth extraction we gave her a temporary full denture and later inserted 4 implants in both the upper and the lower jaw.

 

 

 

A few weeks later we inserted telescopic dentures.

 

 

 

 

 

That is the result and I will never forget her reaction when she saw her new smile for the first time: she was in tears.

 

 

 

NOTE: any kind of full dentures will never hold as well compared to clasp dentures

 

 

and any kind of clasp dentures

 

will never hold as well as telescoping ones plus you have no metal bar under your tongue or on the roof of your mouth which might cause a gagging reflex, foot impaction and especially for full dentures in the upper jaw a loss of taste.

 

NOTE: Telescopic dentures as you see here can be fixed on implants but also on teeth, if - and this is very important - those teeth can still withhold the stress and pressure put on them during the chewing process. 

 

NOTE: Among all removable dentures telescopic ones are by far the best, strongest attachment to the remaining teeth and most comfortable.

 

So finally to answer your question if it is worth it, @richard_smith237 has given you 

a great answer already. I couldn't have said it better.

 

But as a medical advice I would suggest you see a dentist first to check if your remaining teeth still can be used, as any kind of prosthetic on natural teeth is always way cheaper than on implants.

Which is one of many reasons, why you should keep them as long as they are good.

 

But most important is that you do something, because an impaired chewing ability will sooner or later lead to problems with the maxillofacial joint and worse to problems with your stomach in your digestive system.

 

However, if you don't, you remaining teeth will sooner or later make that decision for you.

 

Hopefully it is a good one, not like the one I made, when I applied for the licensing of my clinic and presented this logo to the dental council of Thailand to be put outside my place.

 

 

They laughed about it but out of some reason I never got the permission for that logo; they never told me why. 

 

[Somjot]

On 5/3/2025 at 8:31 AM, FolkGuitar said:

They cost about 3,000 Baht here, but not all dentists seem to be able to make them.

 

or are willing to.

I personally refuse to give any of these dentures to my patients as they pose an enormous health risk.

There is a reason why they always put some clasps on the other side and connect them with a sublingual or palatal bar:

 

 

Swallowing and inhaling.

 

This denture can always come off unexpectedly for example when eating some sticky rice or while jogging. If you swallow it, it won't be easy to get it out of your stomach but worse than that if you inhale it, you're in big trouble.

 

And so is your dentist, if he has not informed you about all the risks and made you sign a waiver.

 

[newnative]

    I'm 73 and I would do it if I needed it--teeth are in good shape so far.  I don't like the idea of dentures in my mouth.  I had Supersight done on my eyes at age 72.  

[still kicking]

2 minutes ago, newnative said:

    I'm 73 and I would do it if I needed it--teeth are in good shape so far.  I don't like the idea of dentures in my mouth.  I had Supersight done on my eyes at age 72.  

I am not talking about dentures, I am talking about implants.

[10years]

On 5/3/2025 at 10:19 AM, 10years said:

My teeth were rotting. They'd decay down to the root. I still had some left, but they were in the wrong position. You need pairs that are facing each other to chew on food.

 

Was told that it would be better to extract the remaining teeth and get fitted for full dentures. Went to MSU and got it done for absolutely free. Only had to pay for the x-rays, and maybe could have been reimbursed for their cost but didn't think about it. In the meantime, they found a cyst and I had to get that removed.

 

What is amazing is that they took the time to make an upper denture that would stick to the roof of my mouth by suction. I have never had to use any poligrip.

 

If anyone is considering dentures vs implants, keep in mind that with dentures, your lower jaw will shrink due to the loss of calcium. That will make your lips protrude like those toothless grannies you see on TV. Ie, it will change how your lower face looks.

 

If I had known that, I would've tried implants.

Sorry. MSW, not MSU.

[10years]

1 hour ago, 10years said:

Sorry. MSW, not MSU.

Actually, SWU

[newnative]

9 hours ago, still kicking said:

I am not talking about dentures, I am talking about implants.

Yes, I know.  I would get implants rather than dentures because I would not like dentures in my mouth--or having to fool with them.   I like fix it and it's done--which is why I got lasik in 2013 and Supersight last year, so I could ditch glasses and contact lenses.