Freehand Overdenture Surgery
How to line up your angles without a guide
In this week's tip, I’d like to share with you how I approximate my angles for overdentures. In this case, I happened to be placing 3 implants in the anterior segment. I chose 3 because it provides more stability than 2 implants does. Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you place 2 implants the denture still rocks?
This is what I typically do:
- Prepare the implant sites only to the 2mm twist drill size
- Place paralleling pins in the sites
- Take a Pano
- Confirm that you love those angles
- Remove one pin at a time and prep until your second to last drill
- Choose my final implant size and prep with the final drill
- Insert implants and take a new Pano
By keeping the pins in place while you drill the adjacent sites, you are able to maintain the angulation you chose in the beginning.
You can also have the patient bite down GENTLY over the pins so that you can see how it lines up against the opposing dentition.
That’s it for now! I hope you’re having a great week!
We’re about to make some changes over here at Implant Ninja. One of which is that we’re looking for a bigger workspace. Too many ninjas in one little office! It’s time to expand! Exciting things ahead!
Cheers!
Ivan