Restorative · Implants
A replacement root,
then a tooth on top.
A titanium post goes into the jaw where the root used to be, the bone grows onto it over a few months, and a crown is screwed on at the end. It is the closest thing to the tooth you lost, and it is the slowest and most expensive way to replace it. Both of those are worth knowing before you start.
One tooth, start to finish
3–5 months
Four appointments, most of the calendar spent waiting on bone rather than sitting in a chair.
What an implant is, and who it suits
An implant is three separate parts that get talked about as one. The post is a titanium screw about the size of a small nail, placed in the jawbone. The abutment is the connector that sits on top of it and pokes through the gum. The crown is the tooth you can see. They are made and paid for at different stages, which is why a single quoted number can look strange next to what you were told by somebody else.
The part that takes time is not surgery. It is osseointegration, the three or four months where bone grows directly onto the surface of the post. Nothing speeds that up. You leave the placement appointment with a temporary tooth in the gap if it is anywhere visible, so nobody spends the winter with a hole in the front of their mouth.
An implant replaces a root. If the root was the only thing wrong, it is the right answer. If the bone around it is going too, we are having a different conversation.
Who it works well for
- One missing tooth with healthy teeth either side, where a bridge would mean cutting down two teeth that are currently fine.
- A back molar that has already been crowned twice and cracked below the gum line.
- A lower denture that will not stay put. Two implants and a clip mechanism turn it from something you chase around your mouth into something you have to unclip on purpose.
- Anyone who has kept their gum health steady and does not smoke, or is willing to stop for the healing period.
What the appointment actually feels like
Placement is done under local anaesthetic, the same injection you have had for a filling, and takes forty to sixty minutes for a single post. Most people describe pressure rather than pain, and the noise is closer to a slow drill than the high whine of a filling. We book them for the first slot of the morning so that you are not sitting in the waiting room thinking about it.
Afterwards: ibuprofen, soft food for two or three days, a bit of swelling on day two that looks worse than it is. Dr. Raghunathan calls the evening of the placement, from her own phone, to ask how it went. Most people are back at work the next day.
Keeping it
Implants do not decay, which sounds like the end of the story and is not. The gum and bone around them can still get infected, and that condition, peri-implantitis, is the main reason implants are lost after year five. It is managed the same way gum disease is: cleanings on schedule, a proper measurement of the pockets around the implant each year, and giving up smoking. We chart the implant like any other tooth, by number, at every recall.
The practical facts
If you do nothing
The jawbone under a missing tooth shrinks, fastest in the first year. The teeth either side lean into the gap and the one above it drifts down, which changes the bite and makes a later implant harder and more expensive. That is a real cost of waiting, not a sales line, and waiting is still sometimes the right call while you save up.
Most dental insurance treats implants as a major service and covers a share up to an annual maximum. We check yours before we quote, and Marisol will tell you whether splitting the stages across two plan years is worth it.
The sequence
Four stages, in this order.
This one really is numbered, because each stage depends on the one before it and none of them can be swapped around.
Scan and plan
A 3D cone-beam scan shows the height and width of bone and where the nerve runs. Dr. Raghunathan plans the exact angle on screen with you sitting there, and a surgical guide is printed from that plan. Sixty minutes, and you get the written estimate at the end of it.
Place the post
Local anaesthetic, the printed guide over your teeth, forty to sixty minutes for a single post. A temporary tooth goes in the same day if the gap shows when you smile. Stitches, if there are any, come out at a five-minute visit the following week.
Heal
Three months in the lower jaw, four to five in the upper, where the bone is softer. Add two to four months on top if you needed a graft. You eat normally on the other side and come in once for a check. Nothing about this stage can be shortened.
Fit the crown
We scan the healed post, the lab makes the crown, and it is screwed on two weeks later. Forty minutes, no injection needed, and you chew on it that afternoon. A no-charge bite check follows two weeks after, because a new tooth almost always needs a small adjustment.
When we say no
Plenty of people should not have one.
An implant is the best replacement for a single tooth and it is not the right answer for everybody who wants one. We place around forty a year. We talk roughly the same number of people out of them, and nobody here loses anything by doing that.
We recommend something else when
- The teeth either side already need crowns. Then a three-unit bridge does two jobs at once, costs less, and is finished in three weeks instead of four months.
- Gum disease is still active. Placing a post into bone that is currently being lost is buying an expensive problem. We treat the gums first and look again in six months.
- Several teeth are missing across the arch. Individual implants for each gap can cost more than a well-made partial denture and rarely feel four times better.
- Heavy smoking, or a jaw still growing. Failure rates climb sharply with smoking, and we do not place implants in teenagers whose jaw has not finished. Both are a "not yet", not a "no".
- The tooth can still be saved. A root canal and a crown on your own root beats a good implant. Dr. Raghunathan will look and give you real options either way.
Asked at the desk
Questions we get every week.
If yours is not here, call and ask Marisol. She will get an answer from Dr. Raghunathan rather than guessing at one.
Does it hurt?
During, no more than a filling, because the same anaesthetic is doing the same job. Afterwards, most people take ibuprofen for two days and describe it as an ache rather than pain. The ones who find it worse are usually the ones who also needed a graft at the same appointment, and we tell you in advance if that is you.
Will I have a gap while it heals?
Not if the tooth shows. Anything from the second premolar forward gets a temporary tooth the day the post is placed. Back molars we usually leave open, because a temporary there gets in the way of healing and nobody can see it anyway. It is your call either way.
How long does an implant last?
The published survival figures sit around ninety to ninety-five percent at ten years, and the posts we placed in 2012 are still in service. The crown on top is the part that wears: expect to replace it once in fifteen to twenty years, at crown prices rather than implant prices. We will not promise you a number for your own mouth.
Can it be done in one day?
Same-day loading exists and it works in specific conditions: dense bone, good stability the moment the post goes in, a bite that will not hammer it. That is a minority of cases. When yours qualifies we will offer it. When it does not, the honest version is that waiting three months is what makes it last.
What if it fails?
A post that does not integrate usually declares itself in the first three months and comes out easily. We wait for the site to heal, graft if it needs it, and place again at no charge for the post or the surgery. That has happened twice here since 2019, and both were placed again successfully.
Book a visit
New patients, this week.
Call the desk and Marisol will find you a slot, or send the form and we will call you back the same working day.
Opening hours
Where we are
12 Halstead Row
Fenmore, Minnesota 55418
Two blocks off the Halstead strip. Free surface parking behind the building; Route 14 stops at the door.