Implant retained dentures or simply called implant over-denture are dentures that retained by a number of dental implants.

Patients sometime ask how many implants are needed to retain their denture in place. This varies greatly by the region of the jaw (upper or lower) and whether we are making a full denture or partial.

For the sake of assumption, let us assume a patient has a complete full denture on both the top and bottom jaws.  A lower denture requires two to four implants to stabilize it.  The minimum is two but it works alot better with four.

For an upper jaw, we usually like to use anywhere between four to six implants to retain the denture.   This is because the upper jaw is softer in density and we need to compensate for this with extra implants.

Below is an example of an upper denture with 5 implants to stabilize it.  If finances permit, often with 6 implants we can transition entirely away from a denture and have permanent teeth (Implant Bridge) placed instead.  This is non removable.