Most Dentists Tell Patients Over 70 They Can't Get Implants. They're Wrong.

📌 Learn more: https://dentalimplantsgps.com/

If you are over 80 and someone told you that you cannot get dental implants, listen closely. That is not a medical verdict. It is often just a sign that a particular office did not have the training or tools to make it work for you.

In this episode, I'm going to explain why older patients get turned away so often, what a complete implant evaluation actually looks like, and how you can tell whether the no you received was a real answer or an incomplete one.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Most Dentists Tell Patients Over 70 They Can't Get Implants. They're Wrong.
0:58 What "not a candidate" really means
2:04 Why specialists exist for complex cases
3:39 The real variable is bone, not age
4:56 The jaw has more bone than you think
5:29 Was your evaluation actually complete
7:24 5 questions to ask about your last "no"
8:23 What changes with the right evaluation
9:30 My grandmother's story
10:24 What to do this week

❓ QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Can someone over 80 get dental implants? Yes, in most cases. Being told you are not a candidate usually reflects the tools and training of that specific office, not a true limit of your body.

Why do older patients get told they don't have enough bone? Many providers only evaluate the visible ridge bone, but structures like the cheekbone, palate, and back of the upper jaw can also anchor implants when a specialist knows how to use them.

How do I know if my "no" was a complete answer? Ask if a 3D cone beam CT scan was taken, if a specific bone deficiency was named, and if you were referred to a surgeon trained in advanced techniques like zygomatic or pterygoid implants. If not, your evaluation was likely incomplete.

📱 RESOURCES
Website: https://dentalimplantsgps.com/
Practice: https://www.niguelcoastoralsurgery.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dentalimplantsgps/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dentalimplantsgps
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dentalimplantsgps

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ABOUT DR. TIM BETITA: Dr. Tim Betita is a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon, licensed dentist, and physician. He holds a DDS from the University of the Pacific and an MD from UT Health San Antonio. After treating thousands of full arch implant and TMJ patients across Southern California, he now trains other surgeons in the minimally invasive techniques he has pioneered. His approach: find strong bone, build around it, and protect what doesn't need to go.

#OralSurgeon #DentalImplants #TMJ #FullArchImplants #JawPain

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you are over 80 and someone has told you that you cannot get dental implants, I want you to hear this very clearly. That is not a clinical verdict. It's just that a particular clinic didn't have the needed support to make it possible and accomplish the task. I am Dr. Tim Batita. I am a dentist, a physician, and an oral and facial surgeon. Being trained as both a dentist and a physician, a significant part of my practice has been treating implant patients well into their 80s and 90s. I started keeping track of a specific pattern that I saw. Patients who came to me after being told they were not candidates and who went through a proper evaluation with the right imaging were candidates at a rate that would surprise most people who work in this field. I'm going to show you exactly why older patients get turned away, what a proper evaluation actually looks like, and how to know whether the no you were given was a real answer or an incomplete one. The first point that I want to make is what not a candidate actually means and where it comes from. When the practitioner tells a patient they are not a candidate for dental implants, the patient hears a medical verdict. They hear, my body cannot do this, my age has caught up with me. There is something physically wrong with me that makes this impossible. That interpretation makes complete sense. When a doctor says no, most people assume the no was earned through a thorough evaluation of all the relevant facts. There are patients who genuinely are not candidates. These cases are very rare. They are few and far between. There are cases that are more difficult to manage due to complexities of uncontrolled and severe systemic diseases, certain medications, radiation history, cancer, active infections, etc. These are all situations that change a pathway, but do not really change candidacy. But somewhere along the way, those legitimate complicated cases got lumped together with I don't have the proper support to make this work for this patient, so it cannot be done. They are not a candidate. Specialists exist for a very specific reason, and that reason is to treat the most complicated cases, to give the highest level of care to those in the most dire of circumstances. They are trained to read a CT scan, identify where stable, workable bone exists in a jaw that has had significant resorption over the years. Specialists are equipped to perform specialized implant procedures with unique implant placements that reach bone the standard approach cannot access. So when they look at a case that falls outside the simple, straightforward placement, they can still offer treatment because they gained that experience and knowledge from years of extra training in specialized techniques. A good generalist knows when to partner with specialists to make patients with complex cases a good candidate for life-changing treatment. So instead of saying you're not a candidate, they can say, I work with a team of specialists to help you along this journey. If you have been told you're not a candidate, it is accurate from the standpoint of their specific capability. The problem is that it gets delivered or understood as if it is a statement about the patient's body rather than a statement about that provider's tools and support system. Not a candidate and not a candidate here are two entirely different statements. Most patients never find out which one they actually received. So if not a candidate verdict is not always about the patient, what is it actually based on? And more specifically, what is the variable that actually determines whether implants are possible? The second point I want to make is the real variable is bone. The bone is almost always findable. The standard explanation why older patients are not implant candidates centers on bone loss. The reasoning sounds airtight. The teeth are gone, bone shrinks over time through a process called resorption, and without enough bone, there is nowhere to put an implant. Older patients are statistically more likely to have missing teeth and missing bone. Therefore, older patients who have less bone means fewer options. But the jaw has multiple bony structures, the zygomatic arch, which is the cheekbone, the palatal bone, the roof of the mouth, the pterygoid plates way in the back of the upper jaw, the basal bone that lies beneath the ridge of the lower jaw. All of these can provide anchorage when the ridge itself is insufficient. A specialist trained in advanced techniques and reading full 3D imaging does not look at a jaw and only see empty space where the ridge has shrunk. They look at the whole structure and find where the density still exists. Bone loss in the ridge does not mean bone loss everywhere. It means the bone moves somewhere that a standard approach cannot reach. If you were told there was not enough bone, they were looking at one part of the structure. Come see a specialist who looks at all of it. This does not guarantee that every older patient is a candidate for dental implants. What I am saying is that they are far less common than the number of people currently living with a no answer would suggest. The difference between a genuine contraindication and a single opinion is not always obvious to the patient. That is exactly why the evaluation process really matters. Which brings us to what a proper evaluation actually looks at and how you can tell whether the one you received covered all of it. Before we get to the diagnostic part, if you have been told no and you are watching this trying to figure out whether it was the real answer, drop a comment below. I want to know how the conversation went. And if you want to keep getting the straight version of these decisions, hit subscribe. This channel is built for people who want the real picture, not the simplified one. The third point I want to make is how to know whether the no you were given was a real answer. If you were told you were not a candidate and the appointment did not last very long, you may not have had the three-dimensional x-ray taken and been shown the three-dimensional picture of your jaw and walked you through where the bone was present and where it was not. The conversation may have moved fairly quickly from the question to the no answer, and you left with the no answer, but without a complete understanding of what produced that answer. Ask yourself these questions. Was a three-dimensional cone beam CT scan taken before you were told no? A standard dental x-ray shows a two-dimensional image of the jaw. A cone beam CT scan shows the full three-dimensional structure, bone density, bone volume, and the relationship between all the anatomical structures involved. If the no came without the three-dimensional scan, the evaluation was not complete. Were you told specifically which bone was insufficient, or were you told generally that you did not have enough bone? A specific answer means the provider looked at the anatomy in detail. A general answer means the evaluation may not have gone that far. Were you offered a referral to see an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, specifically one who performs complex implant cases? General dentists and even some oral surgeons work within a specific range of complexity. If no referral was offered, the provider may have resolved the case at their own capability ceiling rather than at the actual limit of what is possible for your case specifically. Were any advanced placement options discussed, such as zygomatic implants, tilted implants, pterygoid implants, or bone graphing as a preparatory step? If none of these were mentioned, the evaluation was limited to a standard placement only. And how long ago was that evaluation that you had? Implant techniques and imaging technology and surgical approaches have advanced quite significantly over the years. A no from five or ten years ago may not reflect what is possible today. If the answer to most of those questions were no, you may have received an evaluation that was limited by the capabilities of that specific office who delivered it. That does not mean implants are definitely possible for you. It means you do not yet have a complete answer. And a complete answer is available from someone with the right training and the right imaging. So I want to tell you what actually happens when an older patient comes to me after being told no elsewhere, because this is where it gets specific. Which brings me to point number four that I want to make. What actually changes when the right evaluation happens? When you replace the question, Am I too old, with what does my bone actually look like in three dimensions? And who has the training to work with what is there? The conversation changes completely. Patients who believed a door was permanently closed find out it was never about them personally. It was about who was looking at their case and what tools they were working with. My own grandmother was told at 90 that she was not a candidate for dental implants because she was too old. Because of that, she had her teeth extracted and was given a denture, a denture that she could not wear comfortably. She stopped eating real food. Her nutrition plummeted. She lost muscle mass, she lost energy, and stopped moving the way that she had before. She spent the last decade of her life in a chair, and a significant part of that was connected to what her teeth no longer allowed her to do. She never found out that there was a real option out there. Nobody gave her a complete evaluation. Nobody referred her to someone who could look at what she actually had and tell her what was actually possible. I became a surgeon partly because of her. I'm not going to hand my patients to that version of the story if the real answer is available. I have treated patients in their 90s who came to me having been told no by multiple providers. After a proper CT scan and a fully evaluation by a surgeon trained in advanced techniques, a significant number of them were candidates. The ones who preceded did not just get their teeth back, they got their food back, they got their nutrition back, their muscle mass stabilized, their quality of life changed in ways that are not cosmetic at all. Please don't accept a no from someone who did not show you a three-dimensional image of your jaw and walk you through exactly what they saw. Ask for a consultation with an oral and maxillofacial surgeon who specializes in complex implant cases, who is trained in advanced placement techniques. That conversation may produce a different answer than the one you have been living with. The last thing I want to leave you with is what to do in the next week, which is the fifth point. Getting your teeth back at 75 or older is not a cosmetic decision. It is a nutrition decision. It is a muscle decision. It is a mobility decision. It is a longevity with a high quality of life decision. The research on tooth loss and systemic health is not subtle. People who cannot chew real food stop eating it. People stop eating real protein, they lose muscle mass. People who lose muscle mass stop moving the way they used to. That is the actual cost of the wrong no. This week, make one phone call. Find an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in your area who performs full-arch implant cases. Find a surgeon who handles the complicated work with a team of specialists, including a fantastic restorative dentist and a fantastic lab partner. When you call, ask one question. Does your doctor work on complex patients who have previously been told they are not full mouth implant candidates due to bone loss? If the answer is yes, book the appointment. That is it. That one appointment is the difference between living with an incomplete answer and finding out what is actually possible for your specific jaw, your specific bone, your specific situation. Then ask what team they work with to complete the case. They should have a good restorative dentist and a lab partner for these complex cases. You do not need to challenge the provider who told you no. You just need to get the question answered by someone with better tools. If you were told no, that no deserves a second look from someone with the right tools and the right training. Age almost never closes this door. The evaluation that produced the no may simply have not been complete enough to tell you what is actually available. The only way to know for sure is to get a proper evaluation from a specialist who has seen the complicated cases and knows where bone hides when the obvious places are gone. That appointment exists. The question is whether you go and get it. I am Dr. Tim Batita. If you want to understand exactly how the implant evaluation process should work and what questions to ask before you trust any surgeon with this decision, the previous video on this channel walks you through all of it. It is on the end screen now and the link is in the description. Stay healthy, share your smile with others, and I'll see you in the next video.