Long Term Maintenance For All-On-4 (Teeth In A Day)

Congratulations on finishing up with your All-On-4 Treatment! This life changing treatment is incredible and a significant investment in your well-being. With that being said, maintenance of your new teeth is critical to get the longest and healthiest result on these new teeth.

All On Four Home Care

Home care of the All-On-4 teeth is critical, just as it is with natural teeth. Proper cleaning and maintenance ensures a long lasting healthy result!

Our recommended protocol to clean the All-on-4 is to brush the teeth and the transition line from the teeth to your natural gums. We then recommend using a Waterpik along that same transition line. Lastly, complete a thorough rinse with a mouthwash.

A Waterpik can be picked up at many of your typical convenience stores, and we also recommend purchasing the accessory “implant tip”, which makes cleaning around the All-on-4 teeth much easier than the tips that come included.

All-On-4 Office Maintenance

Like any investment (such as a car or home), there is regular maintenance required to keep your teeth healthy and secure for as long as possible.
With natural teeth, cleaning is recommended twice a year, so if you have natural teeth remaining in addition to your All-on-4, we would clean your All-On-4 at that same time as your regular teeth cleaning. If no natural teeth remain, our “typical” recommendation is to come in once per year for maintenance and evaluation. Some people do require twice per year, however.
Each maintenance visit will have an evaluation with Dr. Hudson, where he will inspect the teeth, your bone/gum health, your bite, and also will determine if x-rays are needed and if the teeth need to be removed to be cleaned or not. If everything looks great, our hygienist will clean around the All-on-4 in the mouth. These visits are similar in cost and time to traditional teeth cleaning visits.

Why Remove All-On-4 During Maintenance

Dentistry’s consensus opinion is that we remove the All-On-4 teeth ONLY if there is a need or benefit to doing so. The following are some reasons why we would need to remove the teeth during a visit:
• there is too much stain/tartar present on the teeth to be able to clean it inside the mouth
• there is obvious irritation/inflammation underneath that needs addressed
• there is a suspected issue with an implant(s) that needs evaluated

If it is determined that we should remove the teeth for your maintenance, we would remove them and then re-insert them once done with the appointment.
This process takes more time, materials, equipment, and expertise, and so these visits also come with a higher maintenance charge. In addition, the more often we remove the All-On-4 teeth, the more often we will need to replace the very small screws that secure the teeth on the implants. When those need replaced, there is a small charge per screw in addition to the cleaning fees. The better your home care routine, the less often these types of visits will be needed.

Removal for Repairing or Replacing Porcelain

Because nothing in the mouth is indestructible, there could come a time that we need to remove the All-On-4teeth to repair/replace broken or worn down porcelain. This is specifically why we keep your temporary bridge son hand, so that we can have repairs done while you still have a set of teeth to wear while doing so. These costs are very custom/unique to each situation and thus are very challenging to predict an estimated cost.