Living with Full Arch

The First Weeks

If you're on Same-Day or Premium you'll usually leave surgery wearing fixed temporary teeth, while Healed Foundation and Staged Treatment patients heal under a denture. Either way, for the first couple of weeks the priority is letting everything settle. Expect swelling and bruising that peaks around day two or three and fades over a week, managed with the painkillers we give you. You'll eat soft food, chew gently and clean carefully around the bridge rather than scrubbing at it. Speech sounds odd for a few days because the shape of your mouth has changed; your tongue adjusts within a few weeks, and reading aloud speeds it up.

Eating

While the implants heal, about three months, you'll stay on a soft diet: fish, eggs, pasta, well-cooked vegetables, soft bread, that sort of thing. Nothing you need to tear or crunch. It's temporary, and it's what lets the bone bond to the implants undisturbed.

Once your final bridge is fitted, most people eat whatever they like, including the apples, steak and crusty bread that dentures ruled out. It's still sensible to avoid cracking very hard things like ice, nutshells, olive stones and bones with your front teeth, which can chip any bridge, natural teeth included.

Cleaning at Home

• Brush twice a day, including where the bridge meets the gum, with a soft or electric brush
• Use a water flosser under the bridge every day; it's the one tool that reaches where a brush can't
• Interdental brushes and floss with a stiff threader reach the gaps around each implant
• Rinse after meals if food gets trapped under the bridge; it's common in the first months while the gum settles
• A night guard if you grind, to protect the bridge and the implants

We show you all of this at the fitting, and again at your first hygiene visit.

Professional Maintenance

Hygiene visits every three months keep the gum around the implants healthy, and they're a condition of the guarantee. At your reviews we check the bite, the screws and the bone around each implant on an X-ray, and at each hygiene visit the dental therapist cleans around and under the bridge without taking it off. Plan B dental membership includes four hygiene visits a year with Airflow, which suits most full-arch patients. Our guide to how long implants last explains what the visits protect against.

Protecting Your Investment

• Don't smoke. It's the biggest single risk to implants, and it's why the guarantee is for non-smokers
• Keep diabetes well controlled
• Wear your night guard if you've been given one
• Tell us early about any looseness, soreness, bleeding or change in your bite; small problems are quick to fix
• Keep every review and hygiene visit, even when everything feels fine

If Something Goes Wrong

A screw can loosen over years of chewing; we tighten or replace it. An acrylic tooth can chip; it's repaired, often at the chair. The gum can become inflamed if cleaning slips; caught early it settles with a professional clean. Far less often an implant can fail; if it does, the bridge is usually supported by the others while it's replaced. None of these are reasons to worry, just reasons to keep the appointments.

Questions

This guide is general information, not a diagnosis. A dentist needs to examine you to say what is right for your teeth.