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Home » What Is a Full Mouth Reconstruction, and Should You Have One?

What Is a Full Mouth Reconstruction, and Should You Have One?

Full mouth reconstruction involves a combination of dental treatments or therapies to restore your damaged teeth or replace your missing teeth. You may go a step further to add specific dental cosmetic services to enhance the result of the reconstruction.

Full mouth reconstruction has the following characteristics:

  • It is specifically designed to fulfill your unique oral needs
  • It needs careful and in-depth planning
  • You will undergo more than one dental treatment step by step
  • It provides dental treatments as part of a comprehensive plan
  • You have an end goal. You know its time frame and what to expect when the treatments are over.

The Top 7 Full Mouth Reconstruction Treatments You Need To Know About

Dental Implants

Dental implants replace your missing teeth. The process is permanent. You have to have enough bone mass in your jawbone for the implants. If you do not have enough bone mass, bone grafting can help.

Implants act as teeth roots for crowns. Crowns on implants are removable, but implants are not.

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Dentures

Dentures can be both implant-supported and all-on-4. They replace missing teeth and gums but are removable.

They can be of many different types, including the following:

  • Snap-in dentures
  • Full dentures
  • Partial dentures
  • Temporary dentures
  • Dentures fixed to implants

You have to wait about two weeks before receiving your permanent dentures. During that time, you may wear your immediate dentures or temporary dentures. Permanent dentures are custom-made, whereas immediate dentures are not.

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Dental Bridges

Dental bridges also replace missing teeth. You can cover a maximum of four missing teeth with bridges. But most people replace one or two teeth with their bridges.

You must have healthy teeth on both sides of the missing teeth to hold the crowns for the bridge.

Bridges can restore your bite and help you get your beautiful smile back.

Read More: Dental Bridges: Types, Costs, Benefits, and Risks

Dental Crowns

Dental crowns, or caps, are artificial teeth placed over your damaged teeth. They cannot replace missing teeth but can restore partially damaged teeth to restore your bite.

You need to have some tooth structure left in your mouth for them to be successfully installed.

They are a permanent solution and irreversible. They last over 15 years with good oral habits and can fix chipped, decayed and fractured teeth.

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Dental Fillings

Your dentist may use the filling treatment technique to treat your decayed teeth. The dentist will remove dead or decayed tissues from the teeth and fill the hollow with metal, composite, or plastic material.

Composite and porcelain fillings are most common these days and are expected to last over 15 years.

You can redo the filling if it fails, but if the hole in the tooth is bigger than the remaining tooth mass, the filling will continue to fail. In such a case, you have to consider other treatment procedures, for example, crowns, bridges, or implants.

Dental Bonding

Dental bonding can fix minor defects in your teeth. If you have chipped or broken teeth, your dentist may apply a tooth-colored composite resin to restore them.

You cannot replace missing teeth with bonding resin.

Bonding is reversible. It is a painless process. It takes only half an hour to treat a tooth.

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Root Canal

A root canal can restore an infected tooth to its normal biting capability. The dentist removes the infected pulp from the pulp chamber and fills the chamber with composite material. This prevents the infection from aggravating and attacking the jawbone or spreading to other teeth.

Most root canals last more than 10 years, but a small percentage may fail within a year or two.

You may be tempted to extract your tooth if you have a serious tooth infection. Consult a dental practitioner to see if the tooth can be saved. An extracted tooth is a missing tooth. It is one more complication in your mouth. Root canals are better than tooth extractions.

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How long does full mouth reconstruction take?

Full mouth reconstruction may take as long as one year. But it all depends on your unique situation.

If you need bone grafting for dental implants, you will need longer than if you need only dental bridges and crowns.

Veneers and bonding can be done in one or two appointments.

Permanent dentures need over two months to be fabricated. If you need tooth extractions, you cannot get dentures until your mouth has healed.

The duration of the treatment depends on what kind of treatment you need and how many treatments you need.

Your dentist will indicate the duration of the treatment in your total mouth reconstruction plan.

How To Choose The Best Dentist For Your Full Mouth Reconstruction Treatment

You need to understand the following four major points before choosing the best dentist for your full mouth restoration treatment:

The dentist has to be experienced and well-reputed

Your chosen dentist has to be experienced in the treatments you may need. They should be well-reputed as a dental practitioner within the community. See if they are recognized locally or nationally for their services to dentistry.

A quick Google search will indicate whether they have been recognized by a newspaper, magazine, or local body for providing top-notch dental services.

The dentist must provide all the services you need

Full mouth reconstruction requires a comprehensive plan. Your dental clinic has to provide all those services under one roof. They may work with outside experts and technicians, but the main plan has to progress through them. If that is not possible, you may run from clinic to clinic, wasting valuable time and money.

The dentist must provide cost-effective services

Dental treatments are expensive. Some treatments are more expensive than others. You may need thousands and thousands of dollars to complete your treatments. The cost may go out of control if you do not understand how you may be charged for your treatments.

Your chosen dentist:

  • Should have a transparent pricing policy for the services they offer
  • Should be able to explain to you which part of the treatment may be covered by your dental insurance and which part may not be
  • Do they have financing options? Financing helps pay for high-cost and high-end treatments in installments
  • They should respect your healthcare financing cards, including CareCredit, and Wells Fargo Health Advantage cards
  • At least they should work with external funding providers to help you fund your treatments

The dentist must have advanced technology in place to provide you with a state-of-the-art treatment experience

Let us be practical. Technology helps understand your needs better. It helps diagnose your condition more precisely than before.

Your dentist must have the latest equipment to help you with examination and treatment. An out-of-date examination will result in improper planning and unpredictable result.

How much does a full mouth reconstruction cost?

The cost of your full mouth reconstruction depends on your unique case. However, you may divide the costs into two parts:

  • Costs related to diagnosis. For example, X-rays, radiography, TMJ examination, and oral cancer screening costs.
  • Costs related to treatments. For example, costs for dentures, implants, and crowns.

Costs related to diagnosis

This cost is unavoidable. You need to undergo proper dental examination(s) to help your dentist make a treatment plan.

Your dentist may already have a price in place for various dental examinations. You may not be able to save any money in this area of your full mouth rehabilitation process.

However, some or most of these costs may be covered by your dental insurance or healthcare benefit plan.

Costs related to treatments

You have options here.

For example, you may choose composite resin instead of porcelain as your denture material to keep costs low. In addition, you may choose bridges instead of implants to replace your missing teeth.

However, cutting costs should not be your main goal. Composite resin dentures do not last as long as porcelain dentures do. In the same way, replacing implants with bridges may not be the best treatment solution in all cases.

Based on what an average dental patient might spend, an uncomplicated full-mouth reconstruction will cost you from $10,000 to $20,000, while a high-end and complicated full-mouth reconstruction may cost as much as $50,000.

Making full-mouth dental restoration affordable requires due diligence. It is advisable to seek several quotations from qualified dentists before committing to one that suits your wallet.

Where to find full mouth reconstruction cost?

We have written extensively on several dental treatment procedures. Follow the links below to go to the specific treatment pages.

Your dentist should be able to offer you a package for all the treatments you need as part of your full mouth reconstruction process. Based on your situation and the complexity of your teeth rehabilitation process, you should be ready to pay more or less the prices suggested on these pages.

These pages also show how you can save some dental treatment costs by choosing an alternative clinic or dentist.

How to pay for full mouth reconstruction

Full mouth reconstruction may cost you many thousands of dollars. It may be your biggest payment after purchasing your house or vehicle. You need to plan to meet that cost.

You can have one of the following or a combination of two or more:

1. Save money

If you have missing teeth or even loose teeth and are thinking about full mouth reconstruction one day, saving as much as possible might not be a bad idea.

We save for retirement and children’s education. We also save for vacations. Saving money for dental treatment is worthwhile. It is investing in yourself for your well-being.

Determined patients will sacrifice their vacations to save money for full mouth reconstruction.

2. Buy a relevant dental insurance

Indeed, many or most dental insurance usually does not cover cosmetic dental treatments. But they can still cover dental examinations and radiography for you, which will be a great help.

Then you can look for insurance that does cover a percentage of cosmetic dental procedures.

Find out what insurances are available in your state and what they cover. This can be done easily by contacting a dental clinic.

3. Arrange a payment plan with your dental service provider

Chain dental clinics with strong client bases have their own payment plans to help their patients to pay for their dental treatment procedures. See if your target dental clinic has something like that.

Such a plan may allow you to pay the entire cost within 48 months without paying interest.

4. Take services from third-party dental financing companies

If your dental clinic does not have its own payment plan, it may be working with a third-party financier to help you with your payment. They will tell you how to apply for the fund and how much money you may be approved for.

You may need to be in good standing with credit agencies to get approved. Besides, you may have to pay some interest for the money you borrow from them.

Understand all terms and conditions of the fund. Understand your responsibilities as a borrower before putting pen to paper.

5. Use your line of credit from your financial institution

This may not be a solution if you have maxed your cards and are already burdened with mortgage and vehicle payments. However, depending on the situation, you may still go for this if you think it will improve your life.

Understand that borrowing money from any source is not ok if you are unsure about paying them back. There are consequences for financial defaults – some more serious than others. You cannot put yourself in danger to save your tooth.

5 Super Important Benefits of Full Mouth Reconstruction

1. Your dentist will create a fully functional mouth for you

That is the obvious purpose of any full mouth reconstruction treatment.

If you have missing teeth, those spaces will be filled with implants and artificial teeth. If you have a tooth infection in the pulp chamber, the pulp will be removed and the chamber sealed. Do you have a hole in your tooth because of a cavity? That hole will be filled with biocompatible compounds.

Your crooked, chipped, misshapen, damaged, and traumatized teeth will be taken care of so that they all look and feel normal and are functional.

2. Your dentist will design a new smile for you

After functionality comes aesthetics. The full mouth reconstruction process aims to bring back your smile so you can live a complete and unhesitant life.

Your dentist will take your facial features into consideration to design your new smile. They will use the latest technology to create 3D images of your smile to show you how you might look after your treatments.

Talk to your dentist. It is important for you to know what to expect from your treatments.

3. Full mouth reconstruction will reduce or eliminate the risk your aggravated oral condition poses to your health

That is true. If you have gum inflammation and leave it untreated, you may do yourself a disservice. Gum inflammations may seem uncomplicated, but you don’t know what is behind it. There may be some serious oral conditions active behind that inflammation, which may spread from your gum to the jawbone and your ears and neck.

Gum disease has caused tooth loss and bone loss in many people.

Besides, losing one tooth may be connected to losing the second tooth and bone resorption. The latter can be related to deteriorating facial features and your overall mental health.

Understand that if a tooth requires a root canal, you can save it. If you leave it untreated, you will lose the tooth, and the neighboring teeth will slide into the vacant space. Thus a ripple effect will start within your mouth.

Full mouth reconstruction can save you from lots of trouble. It can save you lots of money as well.

4. If you cannot chew your food properly because your teeth hurt with every bite, your life may be complicated

Having plaque or tartar, or irregular toothache may sound like something small and negligible, but they are big enough to harm the quality of your life.

If you cannot eat your meal properly because of toothache, your entire life may collapse.

First, your body will not receive the nutrition it needs for normal functioning. That will impact your growth and immune system, to speak the least. The situation will soon begin to affect your performance. Not very long after that, it will affect your behavior.

We have seen toothache disappear in a day or two. But a missing tooth does not disappear. A chipped tooth does not correct itself. You need an active intervention to correct it.

Research shows that someone with missing visible teeth is more negatively perceived on all social traits than someone with no missing teeth.

5. Your unhealthy mouth is more important to your overall health than you think

Poor oral health may be connected to severe health risks such as the following:

  • Heart infections
  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Birth complications

According to Dental Hygiene Facts published by Ontario Dental Hygienists’ Association, a mouth infection can worsen the following existing conditions in patients:

  • Pneumonia
  • Diabetes
  • Bronchitis
  • Emphysema
  • Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

References:

Mary S Willis, et al. (2008). Social perceptions of individuals missing upper front teeth. Perceptual and Motor Skills.

Dr. Muzaffer ASLAN, DDS, PhD. (2022). Psychological And Social Effects Of Tooth Loss. Journal of Positive School Psychology

Oral Health and Overall Health. Ontario Dental Hygienists’ Association.