Will a dental implant weaken my jaw bone or cause it to fracture?

Doctor's Answer

An implant will not weaken your jaw bone. In fact, when it fuses to your jaw bone, it’s supposed to make it stronger.

However, when we place a dental implant, sometimes if your jaw bone is very fragile -- say, if you have osteoporosis or there’s something wrong with your bone, your jaw bone can fracture.

Not as in your whole jaw bone snaps like that, but talking about a fracture in the sense that let’s say your bone is really thin and you’re trying to squeeze an implant inside.

Sometimes we purposely fracture your bone, we purposely pop it so that we can squeeze a dental implant into your jaw bone.

So sometimes your bone can fracture, and we want it to because we want the bone to actually pull the implant in place. But putting an implant will not cause your jaw bone to snap or fracture. That’s highly unlikely.

Unless you have an existing medical condition that affects your bones, then you shouldn’t be putting dental implants in the first place.

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