I won’t lie to you – the dental implant journey has been a trying one.
I wish I could sit here and tell you that everything has gone according to plan. That all of the steps have gone seamlessly. Unfortunately that’s just not the case. I began the dental implant journey for two teeth back in May of 2019. It’s wild to think that in the YouTube video debut, I was actually planning to go to a baseball game that night with friends. Times were much simpler back then.
Dental implants can fail and it’s important to remember that during the process.
If you’re considering getting dental implants – I’ll tell you this: remain realistic with the expectations. Both my dentist and periodontist told me that dental implants could fail for a number of reasons. I took the information at face value and kept an open mind. As a dreamer paired optimist, I thought the process would move along ever so smoothly. How could a failed implant ever happen to me?
Boy, was I wrong.
I don’t regret staying open minded and optimistic about the situation at all, but the “that’ll never happen to me” mindset definitely didn’t bode well when one of my implants inevitably failed.
In the last update, one of my dental implants failed and I was recovering from an unexpected root canal.
You can read all about that road bump here. Long story short, following my surgery there was an infection from a different tooth that led me straight to getting my first root canal. Love that for me 🙄. The good news is that the infection was likely why the implant failed. This meant that pending a successful root canal and proper healing of the area – we would try the implant placement again.
Late last year (shoutout to COVID) is when I was able to get back to my periodontist for another round of dental surgery. This time to receive a bone graft in the area that originally hosted the failed implant. For those that don’t know – a bone graft is used to help build bone in a specific area, at least that’s my simplest understanding of it. That way there’s more bone for the implant to grab onto when placed.
After the bone graft procedure, healing, and multiple appointments – my periodontist dubbed the progress he witnessed as successful. There was no sign of infection (no more root canals lol). He seemed happy with how the bone was shaping up. It was truly the good news I was in desperate need of.
Not long after that I got the green light for another round of dental surgery. This time to retry the placement of the dental implant that had failed.
I am now a few weeks out post-op from that procedure. So far, so good you guys – but don’t think for a second I’m not obsessively checking it every day. Having an implant previously pop through your gum line will do that to a person 😅. This time all signs are pointing to a successful turnout so cross your fingers for me.
My other dental implant has remained in tact this entire time – and it’s a dang miracle. I don’t know what I would have done if both implants had failed on me.
Here’s to hoping we’re in the final phase of this process. I’m honestly so over wearing a mouth piece with two fake teeth in it. 🥴