After wearing dentures for a number of years, your jawbone shrinks. Within ten or twenty years, it can become impossible to securely retain a complete denture. It slips, hurts, and some people find it impossible to chew. (For more information, please read our page about facial collapse.)

To avoid becoming a dental cripple, you can have dental implants. But dental implants are expensive, and they require complex surgery and months of healing time.

About twenty years ago, mini implants were developed to try to make the dental implant process simpler and less expensive. Now, after twenty years of testing, we can confidently recommend them. We're excited about providing this service, because it makes implant-retained dentures affordable for many patients, and can dramatically improve their quality of life.

Pros and Cons of Mini Implants

Because of their smaller diameter, the surgery becomes much simpler, which makes them much less expensive.

There is no surgical flap required in placing them. This makes the surgery less traumatic. There is much less swelling and less surgical risk, and a shorter healing time. Sometimes the dentures can be placed right away.

However, they are not as strong as the more traditional implants, pictured below. For example, they could not support crown and bridge work. They aren't as sturdy. But they will help retain a complete denture and will prevent it from falling out or slipping around.

They will prevent bone loss, the same as conventional, full-sized fixtures.

To save even more money, sometimes your existing denture can be simply relined to fit them.

Here is a photograph of a mini dental implant next to a standard fixture. With its smaller diameter, it can be placed without complex flap surgery, with dramatically shorter healing times, and it has less risk of interfering with anatomical structures.