Single Implant

This is the real decision, and it is worth understanding properly rather than taking a recommendation on trust. A bridge replaces the missing tooth by crowning the two healthy teeth either side and suspending a false tooth between them. It is faster, cheaper up front, and needs no surgery. The cost is that two healthy teeth are filed down to take crowns — permanently, and for the sake of a third tooth's problem. It also does nothing for the bone underneath the gap, which continues to shrink. A single dental implant replaces the root as well as the crown. The neighbouring teeth are not touched. The bone is loaded and therefore maintained. It takes longer and costs more at the outset, but it typically lasts far longer and leaves your other teeth intact. There are cases where a bridge is the better answer — insufficient bone with no appetite for grafting, or neighbouring teeth that already need crowns anyway. We will say so when that is true. But if the teeth either side are healthy, filing them down is a real price to pay.

Sometimes, but not usually, and we would rather explain why than promise it. Immediate loading — fitting a crown at the same appointment as the implant — is possible in specific circumstances: good bone density, excellent primary stability at placement, and a bite that does not load the tooth heavily. Those conditions are more common at the front than the back. What is fitted on the day, when it is fitted, is a temporary crown rather than the final one. The definitive crown still waits for integration. In most cases the honest sequence is implant first, healing, then crown. It is three to six months of biology that cannot be shortened by technique or by paying more. If the gap is visible when you smile, we will discuss a temporary option so you are not walking around with a space in the meantime.

The implant and the crown age differently. The implant is a titanium post integrated into living bone. With healthy gums and consistent hygiene it commonly lasts decades and frequently for life. What threatens it is not wear but peri-implantitis — inflammation around the implant driven by plaque, the same process as gum disease — which is largely preventable. The crown is a restoration and wears like one. Expect somewhere in the region of 10 to 15 years before it may need replacing, depending on bite force and grinding. Replacing a crown is straightforward because the implant underneath stays where it is. The expensive, surgical part is done once. That is the main reason an implant works out well over a long horizon even though it costs more than a bridge at the start.

Less than most people expect, and generally less than the extraction that created the gap. The site is numbed with local anaesthetic. You feel pressure and movement but not pain. For a single tooth the placement itself is often under an hour, and a good deal of that is preparation rather than surgery. Afterwards, expect some swelling and tenderness for a few days, manageable with ordinary painkillers. Most patients are back to normal activity the next day and describe it as a smaller event than they had braced for. If you are anxious about dental treatment, say so when you book rather than on the day. It is easier to plan around than to manage in the chair.

It matters, but it rarely rules anything out. Bone is maintained by load. Once a tooth is gone, the bone that held it stops being stimulated and begins to resorb — fastest in the first year, then more slowly. A gap that has been there for a decade will usually have less bone than one from last year. What that changes is planning, not possibility. The 3D scan shows exactly how much bone is there and in what shape. In many long-standing gaps there is still ample bone for a standard implant. In some, a graft is needed first, which adds a stage and some healing time. The teeth either side will also have drifted and tilted towards the space over the years, which can narrow the gap. Occasionally that needs addressing before an implant will fit properly. The scan tells us, and we tell you before you book anything.

That is the main technical challenge of a single front implant, and it is harder than matching a full set. When every tooth is being replaced, they only need to match each other. A single crown has to disappear between two natural teeth that have their own shade, translucency, surface texture and small imperfections. The shade is taken against your actual neighbouring teeth and sent to the lab with the measurements. Zirconia handles this well — it transmits light in a way that reads as tooth rather than as a flat block of colour. One honest note: if you are also planning whitening, do it before the crown is made. Crowns do not respond to whitening agents, so a crown matched to unwhitened teeth will be left behind if you brighten the rest afterwards.

Mainly MegaGen, the South Korean manufacturer used widely across Europe and well documented for performance in softer or reduced bone. We also place Straumann, the Swiss system with one of the longest clinical research records in implantology. Which one suits your case is decided from your scan and discussed with you, not chosen quietly on your behalf. The system going into your jaw is written on your quotation before you travel, so you can look it up and hold us to it. A great deal of implant marketing refers to premium implants without naming one. Nobody can tell the difference by looking in their own mouth, which is exactly why naming it matters.

For the standard protocol, yes. The implant needs three to six months to fuse with bone before a final crown can be loaded onto it, and that timeline is set by healing rather than by scheduling. The upside for a single tooth is that both visits are short. The placement is often one appointment; the crown visit is measurements, then fitting. Neither requires the kind of stay a full-arch case does. This is why most patients combine the first visit with something else — a cleaning, whitening, a crown on another tooth — rather than flying out for a single appointment. We will help sequence it so the trip is worth making.

Yes, and arguably more than for a front tooth. The front tooth is the one you notice. The back tooth is the one doing the work. Molars generate most of your chewing force, and when one goes the load redistributes onto teeth that were not designed to carry it — which over years contributes to cracks, wear and further failures. The tooth above or below the gap also has nothing to bite against and will gradually over-erupt, drifting down or up into the space. The teeth either side tilt towards it. What started as one missing tooth becomes a bite problem involving three or four. And the bone underneath keeps shrinking whether or not anyone can see the gap.

It raises the risk of failure, and it is worth being straightforward about why. Smoking restricts blood supply to the gums, which slows healing during the critical integration period, and raises the long-term risk of peri-implantitis. It is not an automatic disqualification and we will not refuse to treat you over it. Plenty of smokers have entirely successful implants. But the risk is real and measurable, and you deserve to know it before you spend the money. Cutting down in the weeks around the surgery makes a genuine difference to integration. Whether or not you change anything, being a smoker makes the cleaning routine and regular check-ups more important, not less.

It is uncommon for a single dental implant, but it happens, and it is better to know in advance. Most failures occur early, in the first months, when the implant does not integrate as expected. You would usually notice discomfort or looseness. Contact us — the implant can generally be removed, the site left to heal, and a replacement placed afterwards. Late failures, years later, are almost always peri-implantitis driven by plaque, which is why hygiene and annual check-ups carry the weight they do. We will tell you plainly what happens if something goes wrong, before you book rather than after. A direct contact number stays open to you throughout the healing period.