Find Out How to Do More With Fewer Implants
The All-On-4 dental implant concept is a concept that was developed in Europe, and it’s become very, very common or popular, should I say, for multiple reasons. One of the reasons is that when teeth are removed, the implants are placed the same day, and the patient walks out the same day with teeth. And that is a drastic change to what was accomplished before. Before, we used to take teeth out, wait for things to heal, place implants, wait for things to heal, and 18 months later, the patient got permanent teeth.
With this particular treatment protocol, you get teeth the same day as the surgery, right? So, that’s quite amazing. Essentially what this is, this is a process whereby patients don’t have to go through bone grafting procedures. The implants are placed in a particular way to allow us to stabilize them in the patient’s bone so that teeth can be provided the same day.
So, this is one of the reasons that the All-On-4 concept has become quite popular. And the fact that only four implants are being used, the cost is reduced. In days gone by, we used to place 6, 8, sometimes even 10 implants per jaw. And the advantage of placing more implants is you can make, you know, bridges in smaller sections so that if there’s any problem, you only deal with a small bridge.
Now, do we do All-On-4 at Anacapa Dental? Yes, we do. This is something that we’re actually known globally for. We have written books on it. We’ve had, you know, over 20,000 dentists train in this particular procedure. And having done this for the last 15, 20 years, I will tell you we do things very differently today.
So, if you think about the All-On-4 concept and you place four implants, from a patient perspective, the question I will ask you is, what would happen if one of the implants doesn’t work? It becomes a huge problem, right? Because think of it like a table with four legs. If you lose one leg, that table is not gonna stand up anymore. And it’s exactly the same with the All-On-4 concept. If you lose one implant, those teeth are not gonna work anymore and you’re gonna have to go through this whole process of teeth fabrication again.
So what do we do differently at Anacapa Dental? We definitely place more than four implants when we can. And the reason for that is patients present with, you know, varying medical conditions. You know, we may have diabetics. We may have patients with bone disease. We may have certain compromising factors where the chance of failure might be higher. So, we place more than four implants for added security. Now, from a patient perspective, you may be thinking, “My goodness, if you place more than four implants, isn’t the cost gonna go up?”
You know, absolutely not. At Anacapa Dental, we’re looking at a full solution. Whether we place four, six, or even eight implants, the cost remains the same. So, you don’t have to worry about, you know, additional implants being placed. We try to do the best thing for you long-term. Our goal is to ensure over the next 15, 20, 30 years you have a comprehensive solution. So, we provide something called the All-On-4 Plus Smile Solution, the Plus meaning the additional implants that we place.
Now, the second thing we do differently is the All-On-4 concept was designed in a way whereby the dentist not only just places four implants, but they reduce, I would say, a significant amount of bone, and you get what we call artificial gum or artificial prosthetic, which is gum colored. Now, if I was to ask you, if you’re having implants placed, would you prefer your own gum or would you prefer prosthetic gum? Right?
And I’m sure most people would prefer their own gum because that’s what nature gave you. So, at Anacapa Dental, we try to preserve your bone. We try to preserve your gum. It is a much harder procedure to do, but a much more predictable and a much more life-looking result. And it’s much close to what your natural teeth used to be, rather than just removing bone and replacing it with pink prosthetic.
So, the third thing we do is we have impressionless technology. A lot of patients, they come to see us with gum disease, and unfortunately for them, they’re gonna lose all their teeth. And their teeth are very loose. Now, imagine conventionally, if we were to put an impression with all that goop in the patient’s mouth, we take the impression out, and you might lose a tooth.
And that’s the last thing we want, as a new patient, you come to see us, we make an impression, and you lose a tooth. We have something called intraoral scanners, which allow us to scan your mouth, no impressions, and we 3D print models on which we can make your teeth, right? So, it’s a much safer way to do that.
The fourth thing we have is we try to utilize technology to minimize time for our patients and to increase the accuracy for our patients. So, we do have CT scans on site. We do have face scanners on site. Now, how do CT scans help? They give us a three-dimensional reconstruction of your jaw bones. Why is that important? We know exactly where your nerves are, we know exactly where your blood vessels are, we know exactly where the bone is, so we can do things more efficiently, quicker, predictably, provide you with a result which is optimal.
So, the fifth thing we have at our practice is accurate implant placement. We have navigation-guided implant surgery. Guided surgery allows us to place implants within tenths of a millimeter precision. And you want that implant placed in exactly the spot that it needs to be so that we can provide you with teeth that look good and feel good in your mouth.
Whenever patients come to see us, one of the biggest fears is that they leave the office without teeth. That would never happen. We pride ourselves in using technology to provide patients teeth the same day. What does that mean? We take teeth out, we put implants in, and we provide you permanent teeth the very same day. That is teeth that do not come out of your mouth.
And when I say that to patients, patients often ask me, “You know, how can you do that? That’s virtually impossible. You’re taking teeth out, you’ve got all these, you know, extraction sockets, these holes, how can you put implants in the same day?” And I say to the patients, “It’s technology. You know, we have technology to be able to place the implants in the right place.”
Now, how do we provide teeth the very same day? The way I describe it to patients, God forbid, if you broke your leg, you’d go to the emergency room. And in the emergency room, they’d put a cast on your leg. And the purpose of that cast is to prevent the bone moving so that the fracture heals.
The purpose of teeth the same day is to prevent the implants from moving so that the implants heal, right? Just like you can’t jump up and down on a broken leg, with your first set of teeth, you’re not supposed to bite on anything too hard, nothing crunchy, hard, or chewy. We always say to patients, “Anything the consistency of salmon, you can eat.”
Now, the first set of teeth are not your final teeth. There are many places that may say to you that you’re gonna get your final teeth in day one. Now, the reason we don’t provide final teeth on day one, one, after surgery, the gums are gonna shrink, right? And they’re gonna heal. And if the gums shrink and heal, there’s gonna be a space underneath the teeth.
So, if you got your final, final, final teeth in day one, you know, you’re gonna have a space underneath there. So, that’s why we provide you permanent-temporary teeth. I know that sounds a bit of a misnomer, permanent-temporary teeth. What I mean by that, they are temporary teeth which stay in your mouth.
The second reason we don’t provide you your final, final teeth on day one is we need to figure out how your mouth works. We need to figure out the function. We need to figure out how the cosmetic’s gonna be. We need to figure out if your significant other likes the teeth we made for you. And we have to figure all these things out. So, you are going to be wearing these, I would call them, cosmetic prototype implant teeth for about four to six months. And after four to six months, we have a rapid process by which we can fabricate your final teeth very, very quickly.
There are many places that you may go to. You may go to a surgeon’s office, and they’re gonna say to you, “We can do the surgery here. And you know what? We don’t really make teeth in our place. And we’re gonna send you to somebody else, a dentist, to fabricate your teeth.” So, imagine you’ve just had surgery done, you’re not feeling too great, and now you’ve gotta get into a car, drive to another office where they fabricate your teeth.
At Anacapa Dental, we have all specialists in one place. And this is huge. It’s huge from the perspective of expertise, meaning that as the surgeon is placing the implants, the prosthodontist or the tooth specialist is seeing how those implants are placed because we as prosthodontists need to know or need the implants placed in a precise position so that we can give you teeth.
At the end of 3, 6, 9 months, you are really not gonna care about the implants. You’re gonna care about how the teeth look, how the teeth feel, how you can chew, how you can smile, and that responsibility is of the prosthodontist. So, if you have two specialists working hand-in-hand, you can, you know, almost guarantee a much more optimal outcome.
Now, the other advantage of having all specialists in one site is cost. You know, if you go to a surgeon’s office and then you have to go to another dentist’s office, both of these offices have different overheads. They have different staff to pay, they have different things to do, so the cost of the procedure is gonna go up. We want to be able to give the patients teeth at a fair fee. And we try to optimize the fee that we offer our patients and make sure that it’s fair so that you can get the treatment that you deserve, you can get that life-changing treatment at a cost that is reasonable.
The next advantage we have at Anacapa Dental is that we have a world-class dental laboratory on site, which is housed by master technicians who are very well-trained in this craft. We have technicians with many years of experience in conventional laboratory techniques, but also in digital laboratory techniques so that we can give you teeth in a much more efficient way.
Now, why does having an on-site laboratory help? You get to meet the laboratory technician. You get to meet the person who’s gonna fabricate the teeth. How many times as a patient have you had the experience where you’ve gone to the dentist’s office and, say, for example, you’ve had dentures made and the dentist puts the denture in your mouth and you look at it and you say, “Hey, you know, I don’t like it?”
And the dentist says, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Jones. I’m gonna send this back to the dental laboratory and then you’re gonna need to come back.” We don’t need to do that over here. We’re gonna have our dental laboratory technician chairside with you so if you need something changed, they’re gonna change it there and then so that we can waste less of your time and make treatment much more efficient.
The next thing we have is a warranty. And that may sound quite odd from a patient perspective, it may sound, from a medical perspective, how can you provide a warranty? We provide warranties because we don’t cut any corners. We do everything in a way that it lasts. And if you have a significant investment in your health, if you have a significant investment in your teeth, we want you to have that peace of mind should something happen, we’re gonna take care of it.
Now, our warranty is a minimum of five years on the implants. Now, why five years? All the research shows that should the implants last five years, the implants, the parts that are in your jawbone should last you the rest of your days if you look after them. What does that mean by, “If you look after them?” We still have a requirement that you come to see the hygienist, you know, every three to six months so that we can help you clean your teeth. We want these teeth to last just as long as you do.
The second thing we require to provide that warranty is that you wear a night guard at night. So, when you’re having implants done, or if you’re having a full mouth of teeth done, you have the implant part, and then you have the tooth part on top. Now, the tooth part on top, if patients grind their teeth, you can exert up to 600 pounds to 800 pounds of force on your teeth.
You can imagine that is enough to break, you know, a lot of things, let alone teeth. So, we want to help you protect your teeth. So, at the end of treatment, we do provide you a night guard as part of our treatment process so that it helps you protect your teeth. And we provide a minimum warranty from 7 to 10 years on the teeth.
You know, we had an incident just before Thanksgiving. We had just put the teeth in our patient’s mouth, and our patient was absolutely ecstatic. And unfortunately, the night before Thanksgiving, she fell down the stairs, and she broke her nose, she broke her cheek, and she broke her teeth. And the first person she called was our office. She said, “Oh, my God. I just finished, you know, paying for these teeth and I’ve broken them. Am I gonna have to pay for them again?”
And she was pleasantly surprised when we told her, said, “Listen, you know, you don’t have to pay for them again. We have digital technology. We’re gonna make these teeth again for you very, very quickly, and there’ll be no cost to you because, you know, we made a commitment to you about a warranty and we’re gonna stand by our commitment.”
Now, the last thing, and I’m gonna say is the most important thing as far as the All-On-4 Plus Smile Solution at Anacapa Dental is concerned, this, in my humble opinion, is the most important part of the whole process, and it’s our amazing team. From our front office to our back office, every single staff member, team member in our office is very highly trained, very highly experienced.
You’ll see our front office the way you are treated, the way they help you navigate through the financial implications of treatment, the way they help you break treatment up into a number of phases to allow you to have the dentistry that you deserve. And when you meet our back office, our back office assistants are absolutely amazing. They really will go that extra mile to make you feel comfortable. We know that you don’t want to be in that chair, and we try to have protocols in our office that help you get that treatment in an efficient way and for you to spend as least time in the office as possible.
Now, most of our patients are very, very happy to talk to you about their experience. And our patient concierges will often give you their number so that you can call our patients that have had treatment done. We have a combined experience of over 50 to 60 years in treating patients that require full mouth implant rehabilitation. So, the All-On-4 process in our practice is very different to what you may experience in other offices.
Often, patients come to see us and they go down the street for another consultation and they see something which is half the price of what we may offer patients. I can promise you what you’re getting is definitely not the same. I’m proud to say that we provide a service, we provide a product which is very different to what you may receive from many other establishments.
And I’m proud to say at Anacapa Dental, our team involved in this whole process, we understand the importance of getting your teeth. We understand the importance of the impact it makes in your life, and we do our best to be able to provide treatment for you and teeth for you that help you smile again, help you chew again, help you live life on your own terms.
