Mini-Implants

At Dr. Dipika Shah’s Holmdel, New Jersey practice, we perform dental implants on patients who require tooth restorations. For people who cannot receive full-size implants for medical conditions or lack of jaw bone to support regular implants, mini-implants can substitute some of the functions.

Mini-implants are titanium screws or ceramic rods used as mini implants to support missing tooth. Because of this, they can be placed without Dr. Shah needing to make incisions in the patient’s gums, reducing recovery time. Though stabilizing the jaw bone is one of the benefits of full-size implants, they also require a significant amount of jaw bone tissue to be present to fuse with. Mini-implants obviously require less, and can be placed in situations where full-size implants would be too cumbersome or lead to complications.

While full-size implants replace individual teeth, mini-implants are most commonly used to anchor dentures. People who have lost a lot of jaw bone tissue tend to have also lost a lot of teeth, and it makes more sense for all the teeth in a jaw to all be replaced at once with a less invasive procedure than to do it one-by-one in a multi-step process. Mini-implants used in this way provide a mild amount of reinforcement to the jaw bone, which could make it less likely to shift and warp the patient’s face around the dentures.

Dr. Dipika Shah, MAGD, operates at 723 North Beers Street, Suite 2F, Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733-1512. To schedule an appointment, call 732-264-8180 or visit DentistNJ.com and fill out a contact sheet.