Byranna,

I wanted to follow-up now that I have had my appts and give you a status of where I stand.

I went to see the implant dentist 2.5 weeks ago. And boy was he impressed with my list of questions. He actually asked if he could copy them and give them to all his patients.

And he is the first dentist that agreed with you on root canals and that they are not perfect and there is bacteria and continued infection in there.

He said tell your friend she is super smart so

So we talked about the upper right teeth 2, 3 and 4 where I had the old bridge and a temp sits now. Tooth 3 is gone. And tooth 4 had the reroot canal and tooth 2 had a root canal.

First he checked over my whole mouth, every tooth. Said for the mount of crowns and root canals (old soccer accident were 8-10 front teeth broken in half) that my mouth was actually in pretty good shape.

He said he thought tooth 4 was good, that I likely could do an implant at tooth 3 and that even though tooth 2 had the root canal that it was on the fence in terms of lasting long. We talked about the cost benefit of doing an implant in that one now or 5 years from now if it fails.

I also have a space on the lower left jaw where some teeth were taken out 6 plus years ago.

So he sent me for a CT scan for both the uppper right and the lower left. For the upper right he wanted to see if there was a need for a sinus lift since it looked like my sinus dipped down between teeth 2 and 4 because of the lack of tooth 3. That explains some of the sinus infections since it is so close to that tooth.


So he called last night (what a nice guy) to go over all the results and he is sending my main and cosmetic dentist a note.

Here is his take...

The upper jaw implant is possible. He would have to do a sinus lift surgery at the same time. He still felt that tooth 2 is on the fence and I need to weight the cost benefit of having to retreat that tooth later. Is it better ot have him do a sinus lift or my ENT?

My inclination is to do an implant in teeth 2 and 3 and a crown on tooth 4. And then in a couple months do the crowns on 2 and 3.

ON the bottom left he says I have drastic bone reabsorption. And this guy will not touch that, its beyond his expertise. He is comfotable doing the upper right and the sinus surgery but not a surgery for I guess bone grafting?

So I would have to go to a oral surgeon that is a specialist that can take a piece of bone from my chin or hip or back jaw and graft it and then see if they can do the implant.

This doc did say that the specialist could also do the lower left and the upper right at the same time.

He also said that my main dentist would be able to make some prostetchic device with teeth that would fit like a retainer and that might be a better option.

So Thoughts?

Thanks
Shelley