Praise to God! That's a happy ending. Because of your article's title我两泪涟涟 and the first two parts, I thought it would be a sad result and you would end up losing the implant, which is not very common but happens. So I strongly suggest you change the title to "finally have new teeth!". It seems your implant osteointegration is successful, so you will expect to have brand new and functional teeth in a few wks.
Thanks to the advance of materials and technical skills, implant has raised dentistry to a new level in the past 15 yrs. Losing teeth is no longer a nightmare to most people. Despite its limitation and complications, implant has much higher success rate and lower discomfort level than other traditional remedies. And usually the sooner you have the implant placed after you lose you teeth, the less likely you would need bone grafting, which has much lower success rate, because you lose lots of bone in missing teeth area during the course of time.
Well written article! It also gives us dentists some feedback from patient's part. Just a few comments:
1. because of the nature of dentistry is usually painful post-op to pt.,costly and it may not work/have good result/ and make it even worse and painful, pt (it's human nature) often blames the dentist. As I observed in 10+ yrs, most dentists in USA are caring and honest. They try their best to help pt. on top of their financial interest. However, dentistry is really a life-time learning process (not necessarily the older the dentist is the better). Two classmates would end up with significant different clinical skills, because what we learn in dental school is just ABC. And because teeth are living organs in the body, there are too many factors that can affect the results, besides the dentist's work. We are constantly under huge pressure because pt usually has high expections and the complexity of the dental system. We do make lots of mistakes.
We encounter lawsuits often, large parts of which are because of patients' high expections and miscommunication between the dentist and patient. And the malpractice lawyers are experts at finding our faults under microscope. So we have to carry huge amount of insurance.
2. the dentist/dental office you don't like may acctually give you the right advice/treatment. The dentist/dental office you do like may not do so.
3. once the tooth has large decay, it has potiential doom destiny. Just like an old car. Can you save/repair you car forever? 20 yrs? So ext/losing teeth may not be such a dismay. Right now with good case selection, implant can give you a re-born tooth. Just like we as reborn human under Christ. And we will transform to the best once we see Him again.
