I recently finished up the dental implant process and finally had the crowns placed. Within a couple weeks, something didn’t seem right. My first thought was that one of the crowns was loose, so I went back to the dentist for an x-ray, and he said it was definitely just a loose crown and the implant was completely fine. When he tried to remove the crown to re-cement it, he struggled to get it off and eventually got out a special tool. When he tried to remove it with that, the entire implant came out! Would this tool have applied that much force to pull out the implant? Or did my dentist do something wrong and the implant failed? I’m so frustrated and need to get this fixed right away! — Martin
Martin,
Sorry for your frustration – it is certainly warranted after going through such a long process. You dentist should have absolutely been able to tell that it was the implant that was loose. A loose crown is very easy to remove and they often fall off by themselves. He shouldn’t have, under any circumstances, needed a special tool to remove it. It’s certainly unclear why he would have gone through the process of trying to re-cement the crown unless he was in some way trying to cover up that the implant was loose – which is very serious.
Implants can become loose for several reasons:
- The crown is placed too early – before osseointegration was complete
- The crown placed too much stress on the implant because it was not substantial enough
- There was not enough jawbone structure to support the implant
- The implant became infected (although you would have probably experienced some pain if this was the case)
Unfortunately, this is not a quick fix. The jawbone where the implant was placed has been compromised and will likely need to be built up again with bone grafting (especially if there wasn’t adequate bone structure in the first place). You also need to find an implant dentist who can get this done right for you. Do not go back to the original dentist other than to pursue getting a reimbursement for the botched work. He should be responsible for paying whatever it costs to get this fixed. Good luck!
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