I recently had a dental implant placed, but things did not go very well at all. After about six months, the bone was still not doing what it should and the dentist decided to remove the implant. He’d perforated the sinus cavity by just a few millimeters but said that is common. However, it is the treatment after that I am worried about. He stitched the area and told me to take Flonase. He also said not to blow my nose. I asked about antibiotics and he said there was no sign of infection so I didn’t need them. About a week later, I ended up having trouble including fever, congestion, and crackling in my nose. I returned and he said everything looked absolutely fine. I disagreed and this time insisted on antibiotics. He didn’t argue and prescribed them. Since then, I’ve been fine. Do you think he did any damage to my healing by not prescribing me antibiotics? He’s planning on us trying again on the dental implant so I want to make sure the healing was not compromised.
Lenny
Dear Lenny,
Not prescribing the antibiotic initially will not have damaged the healing process, especially if there was no sign of infection at the time. The Flonase was appropriate as well. Everything since removing the implant was fine. However, I do have some real concerns here. First, the fact that not only did he perforate your sinus cavity, but he did it by a few millimeters. In life, a few millimeters is nothing. In dentistry, it is huge. Despite his saying this is fairly common, it most definitely is not. I wonder if he did the correct diagnostics on you before starting this surgery.
The proper standard of care for dental implant surgery is to do whatever x-rays are necessary, this should include three dimensional ones, to ensure both proper placement of the implant, which would include NOT perforating the sinus cavity, as well as making certain there is enough bone structure available to integrate with bone and retain the implant. It does not sound like these were done in your case.
I would want answers on this before letting him perform this surgery on you again. If he can’t give you the proper answers, I would look for another dentist to do your dental implants. This is an advanced procedure. There are countless horror stories where people lost part of their jaw due to infection and other mistakes during the surgery. You want to make sure your dentist or oral surgeon has the proper training.
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