Are You a Candidate for a Mini Dental Implant?

You’re anxious to join the millions of Americans who are benefiting from dental implants — about three million each year and growing — but challenges stand in the way. Perhaps you don’t have enough bone to support a traditional implant, or maybe you’re looking for a less involved tooth replacement option. This is where a mini dental implant might prove very useful. 

As dental implant specialists, our team at Baton Rouge Perio, including Dr. Kenneth Markle, Dr. Jenny Herman and, Dr. Barry Biner, has extensive experience in meeting the unique challenges of replacing missing teeth. One of the ways we can address these challenges is with mini dental implants.

Mini dental implant versus a regular implant

As the name suggests, the main difference between a mini dental implant and regular one is size. A traditional dental implant ranges in diameter from 3.25 millimeters (mm) to 7mm while mini dental implants are under 3mm in diameter.

Mini dental implants are also shorter in length and the implant is just one piece — a thin metal post with a ball on top to receive the crown. Conversely, traditional implants are made up of two pieces — the post and the abutment.

The many uses of a mini dental implant

There are several roles that mini dental implants can play when it comes to replacing missing teeth, such as:

Avoiding bone grafting

Once you lose a tooth, your jaw starts to lose bone rapidly — about half of the width of the alveolar ridge is lost within the first year after the tooth extraction (or loss). If you’ve been delayed in getting a replacement tooth and this loss has already occurred, there may not be enough bone to support a traditional dental implant, in which case we need to perform a bone graft or sinus lift.

With a mini dental implant, we can avoid these extra steps since the post is much smaller and doesn’t require the same amount of bone to anchor it into place.

Avoiding surgery

Another reason why people turn to mini dental implants is that they’re unable or unwilling to go through surgical procedures for implantation and bone grafting. 

The process to get a mini dental implant is much simpler since we’re placing the post above (or below) your gum line. In most cases, we use only local anesthesia, and we can often place the mini implant during the same procedure as we extract the tooth. Not to mention, we can place the crown at the same time, too, giving you a replacement tooth in just one visit. 

Replacement teeth for small jaws and tight space

Another situation in which mini dental implants are useful are for people with naturally small jaws or for a small tooth in a tight location.

Outside of addressing these challenges, people also turn to mini dental implants for economical reasons as they're less expensive than traditional implants.

Drawbacks of mini dental implants

The reason why dental implants excel is that they’re firmly rooted and integrated into your jawbone. With mini dental implants, you don’t enjoy this same stability. In fact, some people view mini dental implants as temporary solutions that they use for a few months or years.

We also don't recommend mini dental implants for anything other than single tooth replacement. If you want implant-supported dentures or bridges, we need regular implants that are up the task.

If you want to explore whether mini dental implants can meet any of your tooth-replacement needs, it’s a good idea to come in and sit down with one of your team members at our office in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. To set that up, we invite you to schedule an appointment.