Solutions to the Edentulous Dilemma

Episode #307 with Dr. Pat Lillis

More and more patients are losing their teeth. And according to Dr. Pat Lillis, this trend will continue to grow. Today, Kirk Behrendt and Dr. Lillis talk about how you can educate yourself so you can be equipped to help edentulous patients. Don't think this doesn't apply to your practice — people are outliving their teeth! To be better prepared with solutions, listen to Episode 307 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

More and more people are losing their teeth, so dentists need to be ready with solutions.

Be equipped — patients are educating themselves about these topics.

Document your cases and build a library to show patients. Visuals are important!

Many patients may opt for zirconia. Give them that option.

Practice long enough, and failure will happen. Teeth will fracture or debond.

Use the “power of threes.” Too many options can confuse patients.

You'll need this in your practice, even if your current population is younger.

Quotes:

“It’s becoming a bigger and bigger issue. When I started practicing, I would see some [edentulous] patients just trickle in through the door. And then, over time, it’s just becoming so rampant. And you kind of scratch your head thinking, ‘Why are so many people losing their teeth?’ and demographics of patients, etc. But I don't know. It seems like every week we get more and more of these patients that come in through the door.” (05:24—05:54)

“[Edentulous] patients are coming into my practice. And they're definitely coming into your practice. And so, if you don't have the tools in the toolbelt, so to speak, then it’s going to be very, very difficult to treat these patients. And I just think it’s something that we have got to learn how to do, whether you like it or not.” (05:59—06:15)

“[Early] on in my career, the options were a little bit limited in the porcelain world. But nowadays, with all the materials that we have, the zirconia, all the bars, and all this really amazing technology, we can do zirconia and we can do ceramics very, very routinely. And it’s a thinner restoration. It’s smaller. It’s more challenging to do it clinically, but it’s an amazing thing. And I see that getting left out of treatment plans. And the reason I say that is because on several occasions, people will come into our office for a second opinion. And we’ll give them the same, but then we give the zirconia option. And I can't tell you how many patients have elected to do that type of procedure.” (11:09—11:53)

“I agree with Bill [Robbins]. It’s never been a better time to practice dentistry than right now. We have so many things at our disposal to really help these patients, to give them solutions that they never had before. If you were to lose your teeth 30, 40 years ago, what were your options? Wearing dentures. That was just the way it was. But now, 2021, what're your options? You can have teeth that are fixed in your mouth. You don't have to wear a denture anymore.” (13:30—14:05)

“Nowadays, you can meet with your surgeon before you're doing the cases, and they can merge CBCT scans and intraoral scans. And you can start digitally planning these cases out with your surgeons. And you can get down to quality, how much bone to take away, where exactly the implants are going to go before you place them, how many you're going to place, where they're going to go, what's the prosthesis going to be. Those are all things that you can do now in the digital world. But the diagnosis and treatment planning stage hasn't changed. How we capture and how we plan has changed.” (17:16—17:53)

“The number-one thing I see that goes wrong is material selection. Are you doing plastic teeth or doing zirconia teeth? And then, how much bone you have to reduce to do...