Accidents Happen – Dental Implants to the Rescue – Podcast Interview with Dr. Darren McKeever

Listen or Read Dr. McKeever’s Monthly Podcast Interview!

Topic – Accidents Happen – Dental Implants to the Rescue

Below you will find an easy to read transcript of Dr. Darren McKeever’s interview on the razorcast™ monthly Podcast.  You can either watch the video to listen to the podcast or simply read the easy to follow transcripts below.  Enjoy!

Podcast Interview:

RC: Hello everyone, this is Liz Harvey coming to you from our razorcast™ studios in New York City where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the United States.

In today’s episode, we are speaking with Dr. Darren McKeever of McKeever Dental Care in Pompton Plains, New Jersey. Dr. McKeever has been in private practice since 1988 and he is uniquely experienced in Oral Surgery, Implantology, Prosthodontics, Periodontics, Endodontics and Laser Dentistry. New technology has now allowed bone grafting to be part of his many services.

Dr. McKeever has been awarded the status of Diplomate in the International Congress Of Implantologists and he has also been awarded the most prestigious title for General Dentists – The Academy of General Dentistry’s coveted Mastership Award (fewer than 1% of all dentists can claim this distinction). Dr. McKeever has been named a “Top Dentist” by the New Jersey Monthly Magazine as well as other publications.

Dr. McKeever is widely considered to be one of the top dentists in the New Jersey/New York metro area and he is also a contributing member of our national network of industry professionals.

Today we are going to talk about a very important topic: Accidents Happen – Dental Implants to the Rescue

RC: Hi Dr. McKeever, how are you today?

Dr. Darren McKeever: I’m good Liz how are you?

RC: I’m doing great. Thanks so much for joining us.

Question 1: Could you please give an overview of what dental implants are and what types are available?

RC: So for the first topic, could you please give an overview of what dental implants are and what types are available?

Dr. Darren McKeever: Well that’s a really really big topic actually. Implants have exploded in the almost thirty years that I’ve been in practice. People have to think of an implant as a man-made tooth root. It’s not a complete replacement for just a tooth. The implant itself goes into the bone and it replaces what God designed originally as the root of the tooth. What goes on the implant is much more like a Swiss army knife. You can put a crown on an implant, you can use an implant for a bridge in the mouth, you can use multitudes of implants to support an entire mouth of new teeth and you can use an implant as an attachment for a denture. So implants really have to be thought of as a beautiful replacement for what often for people is a regrettable decision – years previously or recently – that has led to having a missing tooth.

Question 2: How do you determine if dental implants are the best choice for a patient? Are they recommended for any age?

RC: How do you determine if dental implants are the best choice for a patient? Are they recommended for any age?

Dr. Darren McKeever: Well in my opinion, implants really should be limited to once the bone of the patient has stopped growing completely. I wouldn’t do an implant on someone who is less than around eighteen years old, when they’ve stopped growing. Although I have to admit we’re seeing changes in dentistry where we’re pushing the envelope further and further. Sometimes with success, sometimes not so. But in my opinion, implants really need to be restricted to adults unless they’re going to be utilized to augment some type of orthodontic scenario. But in determining whether or not an implant is the right choice for a patient, I think it really boils down to a few things. It really depends on the condition of the neighboring teeth, what situation they bring to the party so to speak. It really depends also based on how much bone is present. If you don’t have bone you have to add bone, which can be done very predictably nowadays but some people don’t want to go through that process.

So the implant as the choice can be a good thing for almost anyone but I think you really have to take into account what the neighbor teeth are and what their situation is. And also implants don’t put a tooth back immediately, they take some time. So people have to be a little bit patient if they choose the implant alternative.

Question 3: If a patient has an emergency where a tooth has been knocked out, what should they do right away? If they choose to get a dental implant, how long do they have to wait to get it?

RC: Okay and if a patient has an emergency where a tooth has been knocked out, what should they do right away? If they choose to get a dental implant, how long do they have to wait to get it?

Dr. Darren McKeever: Well first and foremost, if you really do have a tooth knocked out and it’s all in one piece, you want to try and save the tooth. So get to the dentist as quickly as you can. Put the tooth in a cup of cold milk and bring it. But more often than not, those teeth are not going to survive so an implant tends to be the route to go in a situation like that.

An implant in many situations can be put in literally at the time that a tooth has been removed from the mouth. Whether it be extracted or if there’s been a missing tooth in an area for a long period of time. It all depends on the condition of the bone in the area where you want to put the implant. If there isn’t enough bone, you have to grow the bone which like I said is doable. If there’s enough bone and there’s no infection, you can sometimes put the implant in right then and there and that way you’ve cut the time down on how long you have to wait for the implant to be put into use.

Question 4: How long do dental implants last?

RC:  Okay and how long do dental implants last?

Dr. Darren McKeever: Well that’s actually a great question. Implants are really coming into their own in I’m going to say within the last fifteen to twenty years. I’ve had implants in my career looking at people their implants have been in for thirty years. We don’t actually know how long implants last but the track record is they last very very long. Not just a few years. Not like a lot of people who may have had a root canal, sometimes they’re like, “Oh my tooth broke and I lost it.” You know implants can last for many many years but because the track record on them really becoming predictable is less than I’m going to say two decades old, we really can’t say. They may be fifty years, you know some of them do fail, it happens. But the track record on them is that they’re becoming more and more and more highly successful for people. So when I tell people if they’re going to consider the implant alternative, if they take good care of it like they should of all their teeth, they should expect them to be in there for many years.

Question 5: What are some modern advancements in dental implants that have helped you and your patients?

RC: And what are some modern advancements in dental implants that have helped you and your patients?

Dr. Darren McKeever: Well I think the two biggest things that have impacted implant dentistry for the positive have been bone grafting and the digital age. In regards to bone grafting, we can now predictably prepare what would have been a non-favorable site for an implant and turn it into a favorable site just by using bone grafting. That has been in my opinion one of the biggest reasons why all of a sudden people are starting to accept dental implants a lot more readily as an alternative.

The other issue, the digital age has made it so that implants are more predictable, they’re easier to have. In my office, we actually use what is dentistry’s sort of answer to a CAT scan. It’s called a 3D Cone Beam Scan, it gives us a three dimensional view of the bone where the implant is going to go and we can do a virtual surgery right then and there on the computer, predict where the implant is going to be (favorably), put the crown on the implant on the computer and then mill a targeting device that allows us to put the implant in without having to do more than a punch biopsy hole in the gum. And if you treat the gum nice, people don’t complain so much about having an implant put in. They always remember the extraction usually but putting the implant in they always give us a call later and they say, “I’m amazed at how much easier that was than getting the tooth out!”

RC: Wow that’s great thank you so much Dr. McKeever.  We know you are really busy, so I just want to thank you for all of your time and help today.

Dr. Darren McKeever: Oh that was my pleasure. It’s a lot of fun to talk about dentistry.

RC: Well thanks so much and for our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with Dr. Darren McKeever, you can either go online to www.mckeeverdentalcare.com or call (973) 839-8180 to schedule an appointment.

On behalf of our entire team at razorcast™, we want to thank you for listening and we look forward to bringing you more top quality content from our industry’s leading professionals.

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