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Dentist Placed Implant Knowing It Would Fail

I went into surgery for a dental implant. When I woke up the dentist told me that he placed it but that he thinks we should remove it because there is not bone to really keep it viable. Then, he can give me a crown. I paid a lot of money for this surgery and now he wants me to get another one to undo the first one. Should I have to pay for the second surgery? Do I have to get a bridge or is it possible for me to get a dental implant? Why isn’t this one viable? What does the bone have to do with it?

Martin


Dear Martin,

An illustration of a dental implant

I am sorry this happened to you. Let’s start with your last question about how bone impacts a viability of a dental implant. This is super important. If you look at the image above, you will notice that the implant is placed into your jawbone. If you drill anything into there and then pulled, it would come right back out. In order for an implant to stay in place, it needs the surrounding bone to integrate with it. This is a process known as osseointegration. For this to happen, there needs to be enough bone to bond to the implant as well as support your jaw. Without that, you will have dental implant failure.

Should you have to pay for the additional surgery? I don’t think so. In fact, I don’t think you should have to pay for either. If he realized there was not enough bone, then why did he place it? That was deliberately setting you up for a second surgery. The right thing to do would have been to just close you up and let you know there is not enough bone.

Can you still have a dental implant? Yes, but you will need some bone grafting done first. This will build up bone in the area you need for the dental implant. In fact, had your dentist done adequate diagnostics, then he would have known before even doing the implant surgery that you didn’t have inadequate bone support. Then you could have had the bone grafting and gotten your dental implant with no problem.

My suggestion is that you get a refund from him on both surgeries. What he did was unethical. Then, find an experienced implant dentist to do the work.

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