Dentists are engineers. Of the mouth. But what happens when a dental implant isn’t placed properly? All sorts of problems occur. Take the following case as an example. After getting an implant and crown to replace a lost tooth by another doctor, the patient complained the crown kept falling off. The x-ray below reveals a very short abutment (the part that connects the dental implant to a crown).
Here’s what it looks like inside the mouth:
Look how little room exists between the upper and lower tooth – practically none!
I unscrewed the abutment, and here’s what it looks like:
The implant healed wonderfully – but the engineering of the case failed! No wonder the crown kept falling off… there’s zero retention to this abutment. Fortunately, I was able to help the general dentist fabricate a screw retained crown, which is the only option here. But problems like these can be easily avoided if a meticulous treatment plan is developed before any work is ever started!