Is Bone Grafting Required for Mini Dental Implants?

In this video, Dr. Charles Pearson explains when bone grafting may or may not be necessary before mini dental implant treatment.

A subject has been brought up: “Doctor, do I need bone grafting first before I get my implants? There’s not enough bone. I was told that we could get enough bone if we did some bone grafting, which was actually quite expensive and required a long healing time. Do I need those with the minis?” The answer to that is: it depends. If the problem was gaining enough width, like trying to do an implant in the lower front teeth, for example, those are skinny little teeth. In order to put a conventional implant in that narrow part of the jaw, you would indeed have to have quite a bit of bone grafting to make it work. That is not so with the mini-implant; we are able to utilize the bone that you have and do a very nice job without any bone grafting.

Bone grafting in my practice is always done when we’re dealing with extractions. I consider it a must that we fill that hole where the tooth used to be with a modern bone grafting material. It’s made out of bovine collagen (collagen from cows) with bone-generating factors, and it results in a good grafting site with dense, healthy bone that improves the success of your case in general. I’m a stickler on that. Extracting a tooth and having the socket shrink, or not having good dense bone, which leads to failures, is a non-option. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right.

If you or someone you love is struggling with missing teeth or loose dentures, contact Dr. Charles Pearson at St. Apollonia Dental in Sterling Heights, MI, for a free consultation to learn how our dental implant treatments can enhance your smile, improve your function, and restore your self-confidence.

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