All-on-4® is a treatment for patients who have lost all or most of their natural teeth. If you’ve been living with missing or badly damaged teeth, it provides you with a new smile in only 24 hours. Not only that, but it’s a smile that looks genuine and doesn’t involve the use of awkward dentures that you have to remove to clean. While All-on-4® is certainly beneficial for patients who don’t have a single tooth left, some potential candidates will have a few remaining teeth and sometimes tooth extraction before All-on-4® is required.
All-on-4® is a form of full-mouth dental restoration, which involves replacing every tooth in a patient’s mouth to bring back the smile they once had or construct the one they’ve always wanted. Removing badly damaged teeth is nothing new in the field of dental restoration, but All-on-4® takes a unique approach to restoring your smile that’s different from traditional dental implants. While traditional dental implants use a titanium screw to attach an artificial tooth in place of the roots of a missing one, All-on-4® rests an entire set of teeth on just four implants: two at the front and two at the back in either the upper or lower jaw. So how does tooth extraction before All-on-4® work?
A procedure created by Dr Paulo Malo in 1998 in partnership with Nobel Biocare, All-on-4® has a 98% success rate and has provided tens of thousands of patients with positive results. Because All-on-4® involves supporting an entire arch of teeth with only four implants, any remaining teeth will be extracted at the same time as the All-on-4® surgery.
At Next Smile Australia, we focus on making every stage of your treatment process as easy and comfortable as possible for you. This includes the process of tooth removal during your All-on-4® dental implant surgery.
Tooth Extraction Process
Tooth extraction is the most common kind of procedure that dentists perform. Wisdom tooth removal is very common in Australia, and dentists also use extraction to deal with issues like advanced tooth decay, deep infections and overcrowding. Your dentist is likely to treat you with either local or general anaesthetic, depending on your medical history and the dental issue you’re experiencing. So how does that apply to tooth extraction before getting All-on-4® implants?
Tooth extraction during your All-on-4® dental implant surgery follows the same principle. Once you are put into a deep sleep with a general anaesthetic, your dental surgeon will loosen your tooth and use forceps to remove it.
After your tooth extraction, your dentist will make sure the socket of your gum is clean before inserting your All-on-4® dental implants. Teeth are removed at the time of your All-on-4® implant surgery; there is no need for another visit.
All-on-4® Treatment Process
All-on-4® is different to other forms of dental restoration, but what does that mean in a specific sense? Commonly, dental restoration includes a range of treatment types, from filling and veneers to traditional dental implants and crowns to bring back the look and functionality of your teeth. Traditional dental implants, which involve screws inserted one by one, have longer recovery periods, may require bone grafting and may not be possible for patients with severely weakened jawbones from missing teeth. Because All-on-4® teeth are supported by just four implants in either the upper or lower jawbone, the treatment has a shorter recovery time. The way the implants are positioned makes them suitable even for patients suffering from jawbone loss and avoids the need for dental bone grafting.
If you have any remaining teeth, Next Smile Australia removes them all on the same day and in the same procedure as your All-on-4® treatment.
Next Smile Australia uses ‘the Malo Protocol’, a two-bridge treatment process devised by Dr Malo himself and proven to be consistently effective. First, a Next Smile Australia team member assesses your suitability for All-on-4®. If the procedure is right for you, we take digital scans and impressions of your jawbone and send them to our technicians in our labs. There’s no need to worry about booking tooth extraction before All-on-4® separately. If you have any remaining teeth, we’ll extract them during your All-on-4® surgery when we insert the four dental implants.
In most cases, on the day of your surgery, you’ll receive your first set of teeth, known as your provisional bridge. You’ll wear this set for three to six months to give the implants the chance to fuse with your jawbone (osseointegration). Once this process is complete, you’ll be ready to receive your final bridge.
Who Is Suitable For All-on-4®?
As useful as All-on-4® is, it isn’t the right kind of treatment for everyone. If you only have one or two missing teeth, traditional dental implants are a better option for you. All-on-4® is designed to replace an entire arch of teeth, not to correct minor imperfections with your smile.
While the best way to know for sure if All-on-4® is right for you is to book a personal consultation with a member of the Next Smile Australia team, here are some indicators that All-on-4® may be a helpful type of treatment for your situation:
- You’ve lost all of your teeth due to illness, injury, trauma etc.
- You’ve lost most of your teeth for any of the same reasons (you’ll undergo teeth removal before All-on-4® for those few teeth that remain).
- You have gum disease to an advanced degree.
- You can’t have your teeth restored by traditional means or won’t see any benefits from doing so.
- You are looking for a denture alternative.
Book a Consultation with Next Smile Australia
Next Smile Australia will make sure your treatment process is as peaceful and comfortable as it can possibly be. No matter your story or your dental history, the experienced team at Next Smile Australia approaches your treatment plan with the same values of excellence, dedication, honesty, integrity and without judgment. We take your concerns onboard, tailor our treatment to your dental and medical history and provide personalised solutions.
The processes of teeth removal and All-on-4® treatment will take place at one of our Super Clinics, which are equipped with state-of-the-art technology and offer the highest levels of safety and hygiene. These Super Clinics include in-house surgical rooms and dental laboratories in which our technicians construct your new set of teeth to meet your requirements.
If you have any questions about the All-on-4® treatment, or you’d like to book a personal consultation with a member of the Next Smile Australia team, get in touch.