Dr Craig Mallorie has travelled the world transforming people's lives with dental implants

If you thought that plastic dentures were your only answer if you have missing or broken teeth, think again.

If you have lost teeth over the years you may have thought the days of having a beautiful, confident smile or biting in to a nice crunchy apple were long gone.

Not at all, says multi-award winning dental surgeon Dr Craig Mallorie, who reveals that more and more people these days are looking to dental implants to help them turn back the years and rehabilitate their lost smile. Working in multiple locations across South Wales under the umbrella of South Wales Oral Surgery, here he gives the lowdown on the benefits dental implants can offer people.

You would probably be surprised to know that ancient civilisations 3,000 years ago used fragments of shells, gold and stones hammered into place to replace teeth they had lost. The modern version, the titanium dental implant, was discovered by accident by a Swedish orthopaedic surgeon, Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark, in 1952 whilst performing an experiment involving rabbits.

He found that titanium screws he had placed into the rabbit's leg bone to anchor a microscope he was using to assess the healing of their knee joints became fused to the bone. By 1967 he had designed and fitted the first dental implant into a human jaw.

A dental implant is basically a medical-grade titanium raw-plug that is placed into the bone of the jaw which has a specially treated surface that the bone then heals on to via a process called osseointegration.

You can then attach a new crown to the implant to replace a single tooth, or if you have placed multiple implants then a fixed bridge of multiple teeth can be attached.

Yes, absolutely. They can be a cost-effective way to anchor dentures so the wearer no longer has to use that nasty denture glue. In the lower jaw only two implants are needed to enable a denture to clip on to and in the upper jaw four implants are needed as the bone is generally a poorer quality.

With these clip-on dentures patients can then bite into apples and chew steak without fear of their teeth coming loose. Plus they can throw the denture glue away, which makes them very happy!

Not at all. Providing they are well in themselves, age is not a limiting factor. The oldest patient I have placed dental implants in was 92 years young.

Rightly so, people these days seem to have greater expectations of the quality of life they should be living as they age. This includes the range of foods they want to continue to enjoy eating and the appearance of their teeth as their body matures.

Sure, this can be done very predictably with dental implants. It is not necessary to have one implant per tooth when replacing a full set of missing teeth with a fixed bridge. Usually four to six implants are all that is needed to support a full fixed bridge of 10 to 12 teeth.

The new teeth can be made of ceramic or high-impact acrylic and fully restore the patients smile and ability to eat any foods they like.

Well, yes, and no. When I am replacing a full set of teeth with dental implants the patient usually goes from their current situation of no teeth (or multiple failing/broken/decayed teeth) to a fixed temporary bridge placed on top of four to six dental implants in one day. Prior to this day they are seen a couple of times to carefully assess them for surgery and take moulds in preparation for the surgery day.

The bridge fitted on the day of surgery is a metal-reinforced high-impact acrylic temporary bridge, which is then replaced with a permanent bridge four to six months after surgery once everything has healed fully. It is really exciting for me and the team to see the transformation in these patients as they regain their lost smile and confidence.

Over the years I have seen so many failed/botched dental implant cases that have been done using cheap dental implants placed by inexperienced surgeons and restored with cheap poorly fitting crowns and bridgework.

When these cases fail it costs much more money to fix than it would have done had it been done right in the first place. I feel so sorry for these patients when they are sat in my chair with painful/infected implants and I tell them we have to remove everything and start again. A number of my patients utilise our dental financing options to help spread the cost of their treatment so they can get it done right first time to try and avoid these issues.

There are a lot of people wearing dentures out there and a lot of people obviously hate having to wear them. The opportunity to no longer have to sleep with their teeth in a glass is a large motivating factor for these patients seeking out dental implant treatment.

Considering teeth are something you use every day in every social interaction and every time you eat, plus the fact that implants can be utilised with very high success rates, if placed carefully, then they are certainly a worthwhile investment in your quality of life.

For example, for just under £5,000 you can have your lower jaw rehabilitated by using two dental implants to retain a metal-reinforced denture. And for a fixed bridge of 10 to 12 replacement teeth attached to four dental implants it costs from £9,800. It is an investment in quality of life with positive psychological, social and functional effects. Some patients are motivated by wanting to chew crusty bread or bite into an apple again. Some are mainly motivated by wanting to feel confident about the look of their teeth and not feeling they have to hide their smile for photos.

Over the past 18 years Dr Craig Mallorie has travelled the world studying, working and lecturing within his field. Whilst training at UCLA in California he finished as top student in the Master Implant Clinician programme class out of 150 implant surgeons. Just before returning to settle back in South Wales, he worked for three years on Harley Street in London, as well as teaching at King’s College Hospital. Since returning he has been appointed the Wales representative for the British Association of Oral Surgeons.

Dr Mallorie's visiting South Wales Oral Surgery service works out of the following four dental practices across South Wales, providing comprehensive dental implant and oral surgery care (including wisdom teeth removal and sedation services for nervous patients):

Glenhaven Dental Care, 129 Cardiff Road, Taff's Well, Cardiff, CF15 7PP.

Bamboo Dental, 28 Cowbridge Rd West, Cardiff, CF5 5BS.

Woods Dental, 65 Walter Road, Swansea, SA1 4PT.

Bridge Dental Care, Llanover Buildings, Victoria Terrace, Newbridge, NP11 4EX.

Call 03300 945878 to book a consultation or visit www.southwalesoralsurgery.com for more information. Dr Mallorie can also be found on Instagram.