Difference Between Implant Retained Overdentures And Teeth In A Day

Lately, in my conversations with my new patients who come for full mouth restoration with dental implants, I realized that there is a misunderstanding between the Implant Retained Overdentures and Teeth in a Day/All-on-4. In this blog I will explain the similarities and differences between the two of them.
Implant Retained Overdentures are also known as “permanent dentures”, “dentures on implants”,”dentures with implant locators”. As the names say, they are Dentures. The difference from the regular or classic dentures is that these dentures are retained(kept in place) by locators situated on top of the dental implants. But they are still dentures. They have a set of teeth that are situated on top of synthetic gums. From a cosmetic standpoint they look and feel like regular dentures, just they are smaller and they do not come out upon eating, chewing, etc… and the pressure of the bite is not transmitted to the gums( as the regular dentures do). They are also REMOVABLE, meaning they can be taken out and put back in by the patient. They need to be removed and washed after each meal, because the food gets under them(as the regular dentures). For people who had regular dentures for a while and those dentures moved in the mouth or came out upon chewing, eating, talking, etc…, the implant retained overdentures are a big improvement. But for people who never had dentures before and just had the teeth removed, implant retained overdentures might not meet their expectations. People who recently had teeth expect that any new restoration(dentures or implant retained overdentures) to completely replace the natural teeth regarding estetics, feeling, chewing ability,etc…When the restoration of choice was dentures(regular or implant retained), those expectations might not be met. People have hard time with the fact that they need to take them out, need to clean them after each meal, speech impediment, some people feel them as too big, after a while the attachments wear off and they need to be replaced, chipping the the dentures,etc…
Teeth in a Day are different than dentures because they are fixed(not removable), the food does not get under them upon each meal, they just have the teeth(very rarely have to have synthetic gums), the patients have no issues with the speech, they do not feel big, the patient does not have the feeling of having fake teeth.
If you have any questions regarding dental implants, implant retained overdentures, teeth-in-a day, all-on-4, etc…, please shedule a free consultation with me at my dental implant office in South Jersey, Sewell Dental Arts. I will be happy to meet you and help you.
Septimiu Pastiu, DMD