Dental Implant Procedure

Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Sasan Khodabakhsh with Summit Point Dental Implant Center. So lots of my patients are coming into the office and asking the same questions over and over again because they're nervous. And that question is, "Do dental implants hurt when they're being placed?" So, of course, everyone is different, but the general consensus is between my patients, who do receive the dental implant procedure, are that a lot of them have very minor to almost no discomfort after the procedure is done. I'll explain this. Before the procedure is done the patient comes to our office for a dental consultation. We take dental X-rays to see if even they're a candidate for the dental implant to be placed. We do check to make sure that they're healthy, that there's enough bone available for us to place a dental implant. So everything up to now does not hurt at all because it was just an exam. And then after the patient comes in for their procedure, they sometimes like to be sedated and we offer laughing gas, we do offer oral sedation, and then we also do IV sedation as well. But in some cases, our patients just like to get the local anesthesia, which we make sure they're very numb during the procedure. And we make a small incision, we place a few drills into the site where we're going to be placing the dental implant, which is basically a tooth root in the form of a titanium implant, and then we suture the area. The patient leaves. That evening, we usually hear back from the patient that they only have minor discomfort. We do offer ibuprofen and also, in some cases, antibiotics as well. Most patients do recover pretty quickly. They're able to go to work the following day. Again, everyone is different, but most patients do very well soon after the procedure is done. So the short answer to that is that they do really well after the procedure in most cases. Sometimes patients like to get this procedure done on a Friday because they want to have the weekend to recover, and that is totally fine. So by the time they go back to work on Monday, they're feeling just fine and not have any pain. There are some restrictions as far as, you know, what to eat, what not to eat. Kind of taking it easy and resting a lot after the procedure, so your body has time to recover. And once the implant is placed, we let it sleep for four months on average. And then we go back in and do what's called "second surgery," which is an uncovery. We replace the area where there's a cover screw over the implant with a larger screw, that is called a "healing abutment" that usually stays in about two weeks. Then you come back in, and for that procedure, we don't have to numb afterwards. We take the healing abutment off. We take some impressions and then you get your dental implant crown afterwards. And that typically takes another couple of weeks. So in most cases, for most patients, from A to Z, you're looking at from the time you get the dental implant placed to the time you get your restoration put over it takes about four to six months. And again, it's not something to be afraid of. This is a proven technique. Our patients do very well, nothing to be nervous about, and we do welcome you to come into our office for us to sit down and talk about what your options are, if you're a good candidate, making sure that you're not going to be nervous for the procedure. Thank you for watching this video. This is Dr. Sasan Khodabakhsh with Summit Point Dental Implant Center.