Can someone tell me what to expect regarding implants. Will I have to do liquids while the post are healing? For how long? Do I get some sort of temp teeth immediately?

Thanks

Well I'm glad to see so many of you answered my questions above:-) Now an update. I have had my implants in place for two months now with very little problem. I have some bone spurs - chips coming to the surface but not much pain. I do have an issue with my dentures as they become uncomfortable after wearing them all day and while I can chew most things that are not hard, the dentures do move around a bit.

One problem I am constantly fighting is the amount of glue (Fixident) I need to use. Either its too much or too little, have not found the right amount yet and I suspect that when I do it will be time to to plug in the implant teeth and get rid of the denture. Can,t wait. Any help from you out there would be appreciated.

Update:....I have now had my six implants for three months and all seems to be healing well, I have no pain when I chew and while I am not eating nuts or other hard foods, I am having very little problem. One major problem is that I am using my tongue to push against the denture plate while sucking at the same time because of the space between my denture and my palate. This causes painful headaches at the end of the day and I don't know if it's because my dentures don't fit well or I am just resisting having it in my mouth. Met with my dentist yesterday and we decided not to try and do anything with the denture until Sept. when the sockets will be uncovered and he can cut the palate out of the denture and fit it to my mouth.

13 more days to go until I get the denture modified and or replaced. If I understand this correctly, the covers will be removed from the implant sockets and a full bridge with posts will be plugged in. What is very interesting is that now that I am use to the dentures they are going to disappear. The one major difference I am looking forward to is getting my taste back when the denture palate is removed. Oh by the way, I have lost 28 pounds! Not the best way to loose weight but a benefit. I have said this many times and still feel it's important to say again...Do everything you can to take care of your teeth and above all don't smoke or chew nicorette gum!!!!

Well, I was a bit premature in that my previous post - visit was only to see how well I had healed. My next visit on 9/28 is to open the gums up and uncover - place the abutments. Then two weeks after that I get the full implants and should be done. Yea----no more glue!

OK now the abutments have been in for a week, most of the palate has been removed from my denture and I can chew just about anything at this point. Next week my dentist will place the posts in my modified denture and fix the denture to my upper gums. Other than some minor adjustment this should finish the treatment on my upper teeth. Observations:

1. I still need to "feel the joy" of not having to wear the "Denture", hopefully this will come once my gums have fully healed and the posts - new teeth have been put into place.

2. This has been a major ordeal and at this point I have spent a lot of money and gone through a lot of pain. I am sure I will look back on this as a process that was worthwhile but for now I am tired of the whole thing.

3. While I hated the full denture, I was getting use to it and could probably have learned to live with it.

Finally, the uppers are 99% done. The denture has been cut down to a small horseshoe shape not much larger than a bridge and I only remove it to clean under it and then put it back in immediately. It is rock solid! I still need to have the two end implants caps tightened - torqued but I will need to wait another 6 weeks as the bone has not finished healing around them. In the meantime the other four are working just fine. Gums are still a little sore but I was told that this will go away as the denture/implants and gum adapt. After the first of the year I start this process all over again on the lowers however it should be a bit easier as I will only need 5 implants and no bone grafts.

It's just about done except that one of the implants won't torque, when the dentist tries to tighten it I feel some pain and he immediately backs off. Since it has been 8 months since they were placed I can only assume that this one did not osteo-intergrate. My question is "does this mean I will need to have it removed" or just ignore it and hope that it will at some point be ok? Other than that the other five torqued just fine and with the exception of a corn on the cob which I was attacking with a passion the implant bridge stays fixed in place.

As a followup to the above and give you a progress report, the implant that did not integrate was removed and a bone graft placed.

Another attempt at placing an implant will be done in June 2012. The other five implants are rock solid and along with a new denture/bridge it's almost like I have my own teeth back. Of course I had to have many adjustments - fittings etc to get them to this point but I now feel it was worth all the pain and effort. One suggestion I would make is to have this procedure done locally rather than in someplace that is cheap but you have to fly to because you will need to see your dentist dozens of times to get them perfect.

In June or July I am going to have the lower ones done but this time they will not be removable like the uppers. I am having a 4 on 1 procedure where they do a fixed lower denture on four implants. If this works well, I may convert the uppers to be fixed as well.