Hi, I'm new here & came mainly to find answers to the possibility of long-term use of opioid pain medications leading to tooth loss. That's how I found this forum. I have had implants on top for several years now as well as a few on the bottom. However, on the bottom teeth weren't placed, but the implants were to assist in holding a partial denture in place.

Now I have lost the rest of my bottom teeth and had more implants to have teeth placed on the bottom as well. Until now my dentist has done all the work on the dentures and implant teeth/bridges, while an oral surgeon has done the extractions and placed the implants. I lost faith in my dentist. Finally. It's not that I don't like her. In fact, it's because I like her so much that I continued going even though bad things kept happening.

Now I've finally consulted with a prosthedontist to get the teeth placed on the bottom implants. I simply am not happy with the top teeth and cannot trust my dentist to do it any longer. It upset the oral surgeon to find this out, because he has taken my dentist under his wing, so to speak, and if really defensive of her. But, enough is enough. The bottom denture she made never did fit right. I never was able to chew with it well, and that was a denture held on with implants and several teeth still in place.

Has anyone else here had experience with implants? I understand there are 2 varieties for the bottom: 1 that is made of basically the same material as a denture and another (twice as expensive) made of ceramic, but still with fake "gums". Until now I had thought the bottom teeth would be like the top ones ~ just like real teeth with bridges.

It's not that we have so much money we can afford all this implant baloney, believe me. We've had to scrimp and save, but I've been so miserable with that denture, we decided we had to find a way to do the implants. I am also hoping that somehow my workers' comp will pitch in, if it's true that the opioid use caused the tooth loss. They literally rotted from the inside out.

Thanks to anyone with info, or I'd love to share experiences with anyone else going through the same thing.