Thelma-Louise

Are you sure you have gum disease - I mean do you see signs of it - loose or mobile teeth, infections or pus around the base of teeth, gums are white-ish or grey and not pink or are a reddish color, puffiness or inflamation of gums or around teeth, frequent bad taste in your mouth or halitosis, teeth never feel clean and sometimes have a film over them, etc.

Please get 2nd and 3rd opinions before you do anything in terms of both treating the gum disease and deciding on implants.

I was told I had a perio problem due to pockets around my molars and had the very invasive flap surgery to scrape the bone and now several years later a different dr exams me and said he can see I never had gum disease - no matter what they do to treat it, telltale signs remain and I did not have any. He said my pockets were probably due to braces and could have been treated differently. Even when I had the perio treatment for what I was told was gum or perio disease, the periodontist who did the treatment for it made sure I understood there was no guarantee it would work and that the disease would not continue to progress - so although they may be able to control it to a certain degree, if you do indeed have it, it will always be a factor in your dental health.

When I got upper and lower anterior (front) implants the dentist who did them told me they were resistant to gum disease - and I believed him - but then later found out that although the metal the implants are made of can not be destroyed by gum disease, if the bone they are embedded in recedes and is destroyed (due to advancing gum disease) the implant will fail since it does not have enough bones to attach to. I was actually told that removing diseased teeth and having implants would help save my other teeth and stop the progresion of the gum the disease - which is not necessarily true but a subject of debates among dentists themselves.

Implants though are not all bad - I had them for about 12- 13 years and only had them removed in an attempt to resolve my tmj issues - if you have sufficient healthy bones and take fastidious care of them they will last quite a long time if not forever.

So try and get add'l opinions - first see if you can get 2-3 drs to agree that you do have bone disease and that it is as advanced as the prostho thinks it is and what each recommends in terms of treatment and then see an oral surgeon or implantologist to make sure you have sufficient bone - most can tell based on their examination whether implants are right for you or not. My sister was being pressured by her dentist to do an implant for one missing molar and went to an OS for an evaluation and he said b/c she was on heart meds which can adversely affect gum tissue he wouldn't do it b/c she would eventually have to have them removed - he also told her that she will probably lose all her teeth one day due to the meds and would probably be happier in the long run just leaving things alone until that day comes.

Also I am not sure about where you are but in the US implants and the prosthetics (bridges, crwons, dentures) used with them can be very expensive for the patient and very lucrative for the dentist - to the point I feel many dentists have become implant happy and try to sell them to their patients and come across as used car salesmen with high pressure tactics and laying on the guilt (aren't you worth a pretty smile, do something for yourself for a change) - and i have found web sites that teach dentists how to "sell" implants to increase their practice and profits.

Also remember even if you do have to go to dentures - its never really too late to go to implants afterwards if you find that the dentures are not as secure as you would like them to be - as long as your bone density is sufficient.

I hope I didn't confuse you or make your decision any more difficult than it already is.