In this episode of the Smile Reconstruction Podcast, Dr. Tanner Townsend and Dr. Josh Muir tackle a common misconception: "Am I too old for dental implants?" They discuss why age is not a barrier to regaining a strong, confident bite and how advancements in implant dentistry make it possible for patients of all ages to restore their smiles and improve their quality of life.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 0:06 Welcome back to the Smile Reconstruction Podcast. I’m your host. Dr. Tanner Townsend, and I’m here with

Dr. Josh Muir 0:11 Josh Muir, thanks, guys, glad you’re here.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 0:14 Dr Muir, I’ve got a question for you. If you could regain a strong confident by any age, would you do it? Would you go for it?

Dr. Josh Muir 0:22 A strong, confident bite at any age? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 0:27 So I love this question, because I think this really gets to the point of a couple of things that we kind of face in our practice all the time. Is sometimes we have patients come in and they say, Man, I’m just too old for implants. And I think that is one of the statements that we are going to try to debunk today. So tell us a little bit why that statement might be misleading or false.

Dr. Josh Muir 0:51 Yeah. So you know, it’s it makes sense to think, Well, I’m too old for this. If I was, if I was in my 30s, maybe it’s something I’d consider doing implants, doing more treatment, because dentistry is expensive, and so investing in yourself is it worth it? But what’s interesting is, I have patients that are in their 30s that say, Well, I’m already in my 30s. If I was in my 20s, maybe I do it. Then someone that’s 55 says, Well, if I was in my 40s. And then we have people that are in their 70s, 80s and even 90s, that are moving forward with treatment. And the reason why is because they’ve lived through the difficulties of not being able to chew and eat, and they realize at that point, okay, this, this actually does affect the quality of life, and they’re ready to do something.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 1:47 I actually had another dentist that does a lot of implants on elderly people. He, he talked to me once. I was like, he, he mentioned how it’s not really a barrier for him, and he said some interesting verbiage. He was like, Well, I tell them, well, guess what? If you are in a regular denture and don’t put as much time and effort and money into your teeth, the quality of life and your life expectancy goes down. You’ll die sooner. But with implants, you’re going to be able to eat healthier foods. You’re going to be able to eat vegetables and fruits and all the things that you want to be able to eat, and your quality of life is going to be higher, which means you’re going to be able to live longer because your nutrition is going to be better. I was like, that’s a morbid way to look at it, but it was true.

Dr. Josh Muir 2:36 Yeah, you live longer. I mean, my my experience with it’s been the older we get, the less we can do anyway, in some ways, the great illustration for me with that is I had a patient. It was oh, probably 2012 and this patient came and someone else had done the implant. I was just doing the crown part. And he said, Doc, let me tell you something about myself before you say anything about my age. Now I wasn’t going to say anything about his age. Anyway, he’s already got the implant. Yeah, so of course, I’ll help you finish it. He said, Everybody tells him I’m too old to do this, but listen to this. I’m 91 years old. I’m old. All of my children are old. Their children are getting old. Their children are spread all throughout the country. No one really has time to come and visit me. My wife has passed away. All of my siblings have passed away. My friends have passed away. I can’t drive, I can’t run, I can’t do any of the things that I’ve always enjoyed doing, but I can eat, and if you take that from me, I’ve got nothing. So before you comment on my age, now you know where I’m coming from. I love that. So I said, have a seat, and we’ll get started, you know, but that was that really connected some dots for me about it doesn’t matter your age. If you’re healthy and you’re a candidate for implants, based on that health, you can benefit from the implants. And like he said, Without it, in some cases you’ve got nothing.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 4:22 Yeah, I think that’s some amazing words that he used in order to describe how much that meant to him, to be able to chew and to eat and to be able to enjoy his food. And like you said, if you’re a candidate for it, you’re a candidate for it. Age doesn’t really determine if you’re a candidate for it. It’s more of the bone, quality, your health, things like that that determine if you’re a candidate for it. I have patients that are in their 20s and 30s that we’ve done implants on, that weren’t as healthy, that implants haven’t gone as well. And then I have old patients. I had a patient that was 98 years old that we did an implant on, and it was great. I mean, his, yeah, he was super healthy, and so his implant turned out great. And so, yeah,

Dr. Josh Muir 5:05 That’s, that’s wonderful. That’s amazing.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 5:08 And hopefully he’s able to use that for whatever time he has left, and he’s able to enjoy his smile and enjoy his food.

Dr. Josh Muir 5:16 So why do you think that misconception exists? Why do a lot of patients think I’m too old for this treatment, or any treatment?

Dr. Tanner Townsend 5:29 I think a lot of it’s culture. I think a lot of times cultural influence of saying you’re old, you’re gonna die soon, kind of influences their thoughts on that. And that sounds terrible, but I think that’s part of it. And I think the other part of it is that’s cultural, is that they kind of just expect things to break down in their body as they get older. And this is just part part of it, yeah, and I think that’s one place where the implants really can revitalize a person just like your patient that you had says, the one thing I can do still is eat, and might as well get that back, because that is something we can give back to the elderly patient. What’s your thought on that?

Dr. Josh Muir 6:12 I think, I think all of those things are absolutely accurate. Sometimes I also hear from patients that another dentist I went to told me I wasn’t a candidate, and so I just thought I wasn’t a candidate. But as we know, there are some advanced techniques that we can utilize to help patients that maybe used to not be a candidate be a candidate now, and that’s one of the things we do in our office, is we get to look at it from many different perspectives, and there are a lot of options now that there weren’t before. And there are a lot of these procedures that are more difficult procedures for the surgeon, but in our office, we can do many of those, and so rarely do we tell a patient they’re not a candidate.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 7:02 Yeah,

Dr. Josh Muir 7:03 Which has been great.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 7:04 How have you have you seen some of these advancing techniques help you do that? Does that make sense?

Dr. Josh Muir 7:10 Sure, yeah, sure.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 7:11 What are some of those techniques?

Dr. Josh Muir 7:13 And you know, again, this is all tied to a patient’s health. Health would also be mental health. You know they have to, it’s going to be many appointments. They need to mentally be able to understand why they keep coming back. So there’s a number of those things, but assuming all of those are good bone grafting techniques, it used to be much more difficult or risky to regrow bone in certain areas of the mouth, but we know now that following certain protocols and using certain graft materials that it’s much more predictable. Another one is, you know, the things like All-on-4 implants, zygomatic implants, sinus grafting, block grafting, and those sorts of things that increase the thickness of the bone. But all of those things are, are such amazing tools to help patients that maybe weren’t a candidate be a candidate.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 8:19 Yeah, I think it’s gotten so predictable that, like you said, the only really limiting factor is the health. The techniques continue to be perfected, and new techniques come out to help us around certain obstacles. And that’s really what, what changes things for us that makes it predictable for any age, barring health.

Dr. Josh Muir 8:42 Yeah. And I’d also say again, just because one office says you’re not a candidate, get a second opinion. I’m grateful and proud that in our office we offer second opinions. We don’t charge for them. Just bring your treatment plan and we’ll take a look at it with you, and we’ll, we’ll show you, hey, this is, this is what we can do. We’ll include a CT scan in that so we can show you your bone and show you the steps that would be necessary. I mean, what a wonderful blessing. We have so many patients that have been in dentures, and it just wasn’t cutting it for them. And so we were able to come up with a plan, and it’s a very personal plan. It’s different for every person, but come up with a plan that works for them.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 9:28 Yeah. Now we’ve already talked about a couple examples of patients that we both have had, but do you have an example of a patient that you’ve had that was older, that some may have said, Oh, they’re too old to get implants, sure that you have seen that change their life by going that route.

Dr. Josh Muir 9:45 Yeah, I have a patient now I’m going to say not ideal health, because she has some dementia and can only say about two or three words, depends on the day, but I’ve never heard her use a sentence, but she came, she had had a bridge that broke. The teeth were loose. She needed to lose all of her teeth, yeah, but she’s someone that’s been in the public a lot her whole life. She enjoys music, she enjoys singing, and she enjoys people, and especially her family. So in this particular case, even though she wouldn’t normally be a patient that could understand all of the steps, she has a very supportive family, and they have been to every single appointment, and have really gone above and beyond for their mother and grandmother. And so in that situation, we were able to take her teeth out, put some implants in, and get new teeth in that day. And she didn’t have to go through trying to figure out why she didn’t have any teeth. We were able to do it all at once. There were still steps, and we made some final ones later, but it was an amazing experience for her. And when they come in for their appointments to check things and we help them with cleanings and things like that, oftentimes they’ll say, Okay, now let’s go take you to lunch. And it’s just a big thing for her that’s that’s what she can still do. She uses a walker. She can’t get around as well, she can’t communicate as well, but she can eat, and she really enjoys that.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 11:33 And I think that’s kind of a key takeaway from today, is that regardless of the age, eating is still one of the most important things, and being able to enjoy your food and enjoy the life that you do have left. How do you want to spend those last few years? Do you want to enjoy your food? Or do you want to be able to mush up your food?

Dr. Josh Muir 11:54 Yeah, that’s it. A lot of times when someone gets to a point that they can’t eat, well, that’s when we start seeing a lot of loss of muscle mass. We start diminishing, not as social that has mental and self image difficulties, and so it’s just important. The nice thing too, is, for some patients, a denture may be the answer, but if it’s not fitting, if it’s not working, well, then come and get an opinion about that. You know, I don’t want to say that everyone that has dentures is doomed, but there are options to get help. Yeah, and so again, we would invite anyone to come for a free consult, will evaluate your situation. We’ll give you some options, we’ll tell you the pros and cons of those options. And our job isn’t to convince you to do something, it’s to educate you on what your options are and give you the tools you need to make a decision.

Dr. Tanner Townsend 12:59 Yeah, couldn’t agree more. So if you’re struggling with a denture, we invite you to schedule that free consult and come in and and see what your options are. And we’d love to help you out in any way we can. So that is it for today’s episode of the smile reconstruction podcast. We’ve enjoyed our talk today, and we hope that we are able to hear from you and hear your guys’ experiences at console in the future.

Dr. Josh Muir 13:26 Thanks, everyone. Hope to see you soon.