Dental Implant Healing Time

Watch this video to learn more about the timeframe for recovery you can expect after receiving a dental implant.

How long it would take for a dental implant to heal? One thing, depending on the site on the upper jaw. Generally speaking, about six months. And because bone is more spongy and softer and the lower jaw is about two or three months because bone is more dense. But assuming the bone is intact, if a patient needs bone grafting, for example, to create that adequate length or adequate width.

So it may take longer before the you can use the implant for the bridge or crown or what have you. So one thing is there are some limiting factors. For example, in the upper jaw, the proximity of this sinus location of a sinus is an issue. Many people have had have lost the teeth in the back area, molar area.

So as a result, the bone has been resolved and this sinus has been kind of coming down. So because of a proximity, we do not have adequate bone to place the implant in that side. In those cases, we do what we call a sinus lift or sinus augmentation. Keep in mind, sinus is like a hollow a space like an egg.

And you cannot just put an implant in the empty space. So what we do, we push the floor of a sinus up. We put the bone there, the bone grafting, and then that would provide adequate bone to place the implant. This is what called sinus lift or sinus augmentation. And sometimes the option is using a short implant instead of touching the sinus.

As long as we have adequate, maybe eight millimeter, even in some cases six millimeters of bone, we can put the shorter implant without need for sinus augmentation. The important thing is if you put a shorter implant, then you have to increase the number of implant because the amount of load and pressure which is applied, you are distributing on, for example, three implants, three short implants rather than one or two short implants.

So when the implants are shorter, you have to increase the number to distribute the load and the pressure.