putting dental implants when you have osteoporosis

you have found the right dr i wish i had only known that before getting the prolia shot i had 1 shot and it changed my life forever

Sadly my implants failed - lost too much bone from the osteo after insertion - beyond what grafting or replacing could fix. A lot of money and time wasted.

But I wasn't formally diagnosed w/osteo or on meds at the time. Just losing a lot of menapausal related bone - and I had no idea it was due to osteo. My dentists blamed it on me - assuming it was poor dental hygiene at home - all I got was lectures about regular better brushing/flossing even though I did brush and floss.

I wish dentists were more educated to suggest DXAs when they see older women losing bone and screen older women for Osteo before pushing implants as the "gold standard". Continued bone loss after implant insertion rarely ends well.

Osteoporosis is one of the contraindications in Implants. Advance periodontal disease is another contraindication. Suggest, go for second opinion to oral surgeon, periodontist, see what will suggest as best treatment for you. Then , make a decision.

I was just dx’ed w/mild OP in spine & hip. I’ve had implants w/bone graft for years. They did a X-ray of my dental bone this summer & it was “great”. So I know you can have OP w/healthy implants but not sure about the timing after you already have a OP dx. After spending so much money on my teeth, there is no chance I will try bisphosphonates. Hope you can get the right advice!

This is good news, thank you.

I have osteoporosis and had a front tooth removed, bone graft and then implant. It takes a while for everything to heal but all went well for me. This was about 3 years ago.

I am in the midst of $12,000 of work on the #4, 3, and 2 teeth, one of which (#4) was removed after it split post a routine cleaning and is now going to be a dental implant. I have been doctoring with an endocrinologist since 2017 (Type II diabetes) and am a b.c. survivor whose A.I. therapy pills has taken her from osteopaenia to osteoporosis. My endocrinologist gave me pills to take, but I read about them and never took a one. I go back at the end of this month to see how the implant post, inserted in December, is doing. The oral surgeon felt I was a good candidate and I DID tell him about the Anastrozole and my -2.2T bone density (as of May, 2022). Whoever suggested getting "all dental work done a year in advance" is giving strange advice, since I had NO plans to lose the #4 tooth, but this is the second time that a routine cleaning has caused one of my teeth to give up the ghost (first time was in 2020). I'm not doing this for fun; I'm doing it because (a) I hate bridges and (b) one of my teeth gave up the ghost, a probable victim of my old amalgam fillings and being someone born in 1945. How can we "have all your dental work done a year in advance?" It's not like I'm looking to run up a bill the size of the national debt simply to look good. I'm addressing dental problems that are arising because of my age and routine cleanings and, probably, because the old-style pre-fluoride dentistry was a far cry for us than for my son, age 55, who just had another "you don't have any cavities" appointments. I'm fighting to KEEP my teeth, if possible, and I debated long and hard about this dental implant, insisting on the best oral surgeon in the area, I think. He said I was okay to have one and agreed that a bridge (I have one and hate it) was NOT going to be a good alternative (although much cheaper) because the 2 teeth on either side of what is now a hole, since they dug the #4 (upper right) tooth out in pieces, is flanked by a tooth that needs to be crowned. (It has a cavity under a filling). I floss routinely and brush daily, but I am borderline for osteoporosis, am old, and we didn't have fluoride (etc.) in my youth.

I haven't had any "bone grafts" for the #4 tooth.

I had a similar "they cleaned my tooth (routine dental check-up) and killed it in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic and it became a medical emergency when the abcess grew to be 3x as large as the biggest molar in my head. I had to climb 8 flights of stairs to an endodontist's office here and have a root canal. He said it was the worst abcess he had seen in 30 years and explained how the dental work had managed to kill it. I am paranoid about this sort of thing as my husband's best friend in Illinois had a similar event and had to be airlifted to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and be pumped full of steroid for weeks when the infection from his routine dental work traveled to the center of his brain and there was no way they could perform surgery without great injury. If anybody has any good advice on how an old person (almost 79) with a lot of metal amalgam fillings can have a routine cleaning without them killing the actual tooth, let me know. I mentioned (to the dentist who was doing the crown after the root canal) what the endodontist had told me). I was not litigious, but merely sharing this information with the dentist, who left me IN THE DENTAL CHAIR novocained to the gills and marched off to call the endodontist (office within earshot) and read him out for telling me the truth. That woman is no longer my dentist, needless to say. I ended up saying, "Please, people. Can't we all just get along." (Rodney King)

Added bone( graft) but apparently didn’t take

I had an implant in June. The oral surgeon knew I’d been on steroids. The jaw X-ray was good, but they said they’d be prepared during the procedure in case I needed extra bone made from a cadaver. I did not need any graft and the implant took perfectly. After my implant, I was diagnosed with osteoporosis in spine and hips. Glad I didn’t know anything about contraindications with OP. No one asked. I was worried enough that the implant was going to cause a flare up of my neuropathy (several times it started after tooth extraction).

I have a good friend who has multiple implants. She also is starting OP drugs. I need to talk to her to see if she’s been fully informed about side effects.