Case Studies

New Sets of Teeth , New Perspectives in Life

Dr Firdaus Hanapiah
BDS(Otago) MSc(Lon.) FDSRCS(Eng.)

Introduction

As we reach middle age, a lot of things we take for granted before is now a lot harder to achieve . We pause to reflect when the doctor says, "at your age……" and we accept and we succumb to society's stereotypical perception of "our age".

This of course, shouldn't be the way. The same scenario can be said when talking about teeth. People have a misconception that one of the things that will succumb to age are our sets of teeth. However, with improvements of overall health of the society, it is now possible to see that many "seventy something" still have their full sets of teeth!

Case Scenario

This is unfortunately not the case for many of us. One such case is Edward. He is a teacher who lives south of Perth, in western Australia. He always had trouble with teeth. Since he was young he had many fillings and many in that generation, had a less than pleasant encounter with the dentist.

Finally, a few years ago, he was told that he had to sacrifice all his teeth and made to become edentulous. For the first time in his life , he had to wear uncomfortable dentures.

One of the options was the insertion of dental implants, which was a good alternative but as he discovered, was frighteningly expensive. Through a good friend he got in touch with us and he came to Kuala Lumpur.

We set about a treatment plan and proceeded with five implants for the upper jaw and another five implants for the lower jaw. These were done in two sessions. He stayed in Kuala Lumpur for about 10 days for the first stage.

Four months later he came back for the second stage, where we prepared the fix bridges for him.

Fig 1. The edentulous mouth with no teeth but five healed implants

Impressions were taken and the teeth were ready for insertions after ten days. Fittings were done to make sure that the occlusion was correct and the final milling shows a pleasing result that is not only life-like but also fully functional.

Fig 2. A life like recreation of an implant bridge created by our skilled master dental technician

The prosthesis is a screw-retained type so that most implant dentists can easily remove it for professional cleaning. This prosthesis is made using high tensile metal and German pink and white porcelain.

Fig 3. The teeth are inserted and secured into place using titanium screws to the implants.

Conclusion

The loss of all teeth is no longer a barrier to physical as well as psychological health as advances in dental technology has made it possible for us to replace all the teeth with dental implants. The patient can now speak, eat and socialize as he used to and is no longer handicapped by his missing teeth.