The Cost of Dental Implants: What You Get For Your Money, PART 3

This four-part article series explains what benefits and lifestyle improvements patients can expect from choosing dental implants as their tooth replacement solution.

Welcome to the third installment of this four-part article series on the cost of dental implants and why getting new teeth this way is actually more cost-effective than it is using traditional technologies, such as removable dentures. In our previous article post, a cosmetic dentist in Houston discussed the key differences between the implant methods used to give patients new teeth and removable dentures. Now, we shall explain why dental implants can actually cost patients less in the long run, contrary to popular thinking.

The Cost of Dental Implants Versus the Cost of Dentures

As we explained in Part 1 of this article series, getting new teeth with dental implants does initially cost more than it would to simply get a set of dentures custom fitted. And while there’s good reason for this, Houston residents tend to forget all the benefits and advantages they will be able to enjoy moving forward. Instead, they focus solely upon the immediate costs of the procedures. Ironically, if you zoom your perspective out just a little, you will see that the cost of dental implants can actually work out to be less in the long run than the cost of wearing and maintaining dentures!

Here’s why...

“Removable dentures are not a one-time expense,” explains a cosmetic dentist in Houston. “Because they don’t replace the roots of the teeth, the jawbone atrophies and wastes away from a lack of functional stimulation. The changing shape of the jawbone will eventually require dentures to be refitted, even if they fit snugly to begin with. Refittings are initially necessary every few years or so, but as bone loss progresses; the need for them can become more frequent. And of course, this costs money each and every time.”

Since dental implants replace the roots and the crowns of the teeth, the health of the underlying jawbone is preserved, which helps to prevent atrophy. If cared for properly by patients, the new teeth provided by the “All-On-4” can last several decades without the need for replacement or restoration, making the cost of dental implants far more desirable. So, on the one hand, you have dentures, which require periodic replacement and on the other you have dental implants, which typically don’t. Already we see the cost of dental implants constituting the smarter investment.

“The greatest irony is that eventually, denture wearers will have lost so much jawbone volume that they will no longer be able to wear their false teeth,” says the cosmetic dentist in Houston. “At this juncture, the only options available to them will be a life without teeth or a long, painful and costly road to oral rehabilitation with bone grafting. Instead of making an initial investment in the cost of dental implants, patients spend thousands and thousands of dollars on getting dentures refitted and ultimately, replaced with dental implants anyway, unless they decide to just resign to a life without any teeth at all.”

Add to these costs repeat denture expenses such as soaking solutions, adhesive strips, cleaning agents and anesthetic ointments and you’ve got a technology that is far from the cheapest and most cost effective option.

Stay Tuned for Part 4

Stay tuned for Part 4 of this four-part article series in which we will move on to comparing the differences between the cost of dental implants and the cost of dental bridges: the conventional approach to replacing single missing teeth.