Teeth in a Day Delivers Temporary Teeth – Not Permanent Ones
Permanent teeth in a day – you walk in with a horrible mouth and you walk out that same day with a beautiful set of teeth. Is that a reality or is it just clever marketing? The answer is yes and also no.
Here’s what teeth in a day actually refers to. You actually do come in on the day of surgery, have the unhealthy teeth extracted, get the dental implants placed, and do receive a set of teeth that you leave with that day. But here’s the caveat – those are just temporary teeth that you’re going to wear for about 3 to 6 months while we’re letting the bone and tissue and everything underneath heal.
Because if we gave you a permanent set of teeth the day of surgery, it may look great for the first couple weeks or even months, but at some point that tissue and bone is going to shrink back and recontour. And all of a sudden, you’re going to have gaps and spaces in between the teeth and the gum tissue that are not only going to be unesthetic, but they’re also going to trap food and be hard to maintain.
You will leave the office with a set of beautiful teeth that look great. They’re screwed into the implants. They stay in your mouth. You can smile. You can chew. You can function. In fact, I like to tell patients with that set of teeth, if you can cut it with a fork, you can eat it with these teeth. It’s not the fake teeth where I can’t eat or function for the next couple months. It really is that next day, you can eat anything that you can cut with a fork. But keep in mind, it’s not your permanent teeth.
Osseointegration Determines When Patients Receive Permanent Implant Teeth
As a dentist, we really can’t rush your body’s processes. So when we place those implants, we have to wait and give the body time to go through a process called osseointegration, which is a really cool process where your bone actually grows new bone cells and it adheres onto the surface of those implants. So at that 8 to 12 week range, your body has actually integrated and grabbed onto that titanium implant and made it fused into your bone. And at that point, then we can start the process of building your permanent teeth.
Everybody’s body responds differently. Some people have healed and are ready to rock and roll at two months. Other people might need three or four or even six months to allow the body to really reach full strength of bone around the implants. The last thing we want to do is rush the process or try and put everybody on the same timeline. Because I’ve found that if you do not wait for that healing to occur, you’re going to run into issues of failed implants. And trying to cut the corner by a month or so and have an implant fail ends up adding on six to eight months to the whole process. So it’s better to give your body time to reach its natural healing phase. And we’ll really only know that healing phase for you specifically after we place the implants and kind of see how your body responds.
Temporary Teeth Serve Two Critical Roles in Full Arch Implant Treatment
The reason we give you those temporary teeth in a day is twofold. Number one, we want you to go with something that looks nice and allows you to function. But number two, they’re temporary because we have to wait to see how your bone heals and we have to give the tissue time to kind of fill in and close over so we can make your final set of teeth look like they’re naturally emerging from your tissue.
One other thing to keep in mind is while it’s teeth in a day, that’s a little misleading because there’s a significant amount of preparation and planning that goes in ahead of time that leads up to the day of surgery. So many times it’s multiple appointments, measurements, models, design, me working with the surgical and the lab team to make sure that everything is ready to go the day of surgery. In reality, that day of surgery is a great day. You get the bad teeth out. You get your new set of temporary teeth. But there is a lot of planning and work that goes in before that to make that appointment a success.
Primary Stability and Pre-Surgical Planning Determine Same-Day Teeth Eligibility
How do most patients walk out with teeth immediately the day of surgery? There’s really two factors that make this possible. The first factor is primary stability. When we place these implants, we have to have not only a certain number of implants successfully placed, but they also have to be strong enough to support those temporary teeth. If we don’t get that primary stability, a lot of times we have to close the tissue over and let the body heal kind of in the background. In that situation, you’ll leave with the removable set of teeth.
The second factor that allows you to leave with teeth attached to the implants that day is the planning that goes in ahead of time. As a surgical team, we have to make sure that the implants are being placed in healthy bone that’s strong enough to support immediate loading. If we feel that the bone is not strong enough or there’s not a great enough thickness of bone, we have to graft or do a lot of work at the time. Most times we won’t immediately load or put teeth on top of those implants – we’ll need to let that healing happen in the background. And again, you’ll leave with something removable. But if we place the implants exactly where we planned and they’re strong and they can support the prosthesis, we can give you the temporary teeth that day to leave.
These Red Flags in Teeth-in-a-Day Marketing Signal a Provider to Avoid
Let’s talk about when the teeth in a day process might be giving off red flags. As a dental practice that does a lot of these cases, the things that concern me are when there’s no three-dimensional scan involved in the planning. There’s no discussion with the patient of bone quality, bone quantity, where they want to place those implants. If there’s no conversation about healing time and the amount of downtime that we need between the day of surgery and the day of the final restorations, and if the final teeth are promised the day of surgery with no follow-up plan for changing or adjusting as the tissue changes – that’s a big red flag. Your biology and how you heal really matters in the success of these cases. And if your provider isn’t taking that into account, you definitely need to seek a second opinion.
Good Candidates for Teeth in a Day Share These Health and Bone Criteria
Let’s talk about who is a good candidate for teeth in a day. In my practice, you’re more likely to be a good candidate for a teeth in a day type procedure if you have a full arch of teeth that need to be replaced, you’re not a heavy smoker, you don’t have uncontrolled diabetes, and you have good quality bone without rampant decay or periodontal disease.
One key difference to remember is a lot of times when we place single implants, we want to give the implant time to heal before we put a single tooth on there. Whereas with the teeth in a day approach, because we have multiple implants, a lot of times we can attach a whole arch of teeth to those implants because the forces are distributed evenly amongst those implants.
Temporary Teeth Act as a Functional Blueprint for Your Final Implant Prosthesis
Here’s one thing patients don’t really expect in this process – the temporary teeth we give you on the day of surgery are very important to the process. It allows for gum shaping, bite adjustments, aesthetic considerations, and also acts as a functional blueprint for how we want to make the final set of teeth. By the time you get that final set of teeth, they’re fully customized based on how your body has healed and adapted to that temporary prosthesis. In many cases, this leads to better long-term results.
Teeth in a Day Is Real – and the Two-Phase Process Is a Feature, Not a Flaw
The real answer to the question – can you get permanent teeth in one day? Yes, you can get teeth in one day, but they’re temporary teeth. To get your permanent final final teeth, that takes time and healing. And that’s not a problem with the system. That’s actually a benefit to the way the process is done.
Teeth in a day is actually real and there is truth in that title. But keep in mind, it’s not the permanent final final teeth. It’s teeth that look great, function well, but they’re temporary.
I’m Dr. Brett Langston, owner and prosthodontist at Dental Implant Aesthetic Specialist here in Brookhaven, Georgia. I’m here to help you watch your mouth.
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