Hi Bailey,

You're welcome and thanks for the kind words :-)

I'm curious, why did the dentist place temporary implants and not permanent ones?

About the bone grafting.......... your dentist may have been making reference to the sites where he placed the bone graft in that they had not intergrated with your own bone just yet. Could that be what he meant by soft bone? Bone graft material takes about 6 months to integrate with healthy jawbone thus allowing a dental implant to be placed. If the jawbone is not very healthy to begin with, then the graft may or may not integrate properly which could cause the dental implant to fail. So it is imperative for the graft material and the jawbone to become one before an implant is placed in that area.

You should ask your dentist before using a waterpik in the area of the implants. It may not be wise to do that just yet, but he could answer that better than I could because he is aware of the condition of the bone in that area and I am not.

Good luck on quitting the nicorette...... you'll be successful with it when you are ready to give it up. A few glasses of wine a week is not going to hurt your gums, teeth or implants. Drinking more than that on a routine basis will increase the risk of dental problems in the future. Sorry...... :-((

Bailey, please let us know how things are going!

Bryanna ~'.'~


QUOTE=Bailey11;521630]Hi Bryanna and thank you so much for your very informative reply.
I still have the upper three front teeth which will be removed once he does the permanent implants for a full upper removable denture in about 5 months.But for now he just did 4 temporary mini implants 2 on each side kinda like where the canines used to be and they work well for the partial.I think maybe he was talking about the bone where he did the extractions was soft but I'm sure he did bone grafting there as well.2 extractions were done to allow him insert the mini implants.

I will definetly get another bone density test done and thanks for letting me know about the Vitimin D testing,will also have that done.Yes I was referring to bisphosphonates,I had remembered reading that they could be the cause of implant failure but will now research osteonecrosis of the jaw bone.I do not want to take any meds so I'll have to find a way around that if I can.

OK,so I will quit the nicorette once I finish what I have for certain but I think a few glasses of wine at the week ends should be ok.

Also do you think it is OK to use the water pik now almost 3 weeks after surgery?Would it help to massage those gums or maybe it would unsettle everything and I should only use it on the bottom teeth.

Again I would like to thank you sooo much for taken the time and giving me all the information.
bailey[/QUOTE]