All-on-4 Dental Implants:
Your Questions Answered

All-on-4 at ConfiDental Clinic is £9,950 for one arch, or £18,950 if both arches are treated. Those are fixed figures, not starting points: what we quote is what you pay, and the price does not climb as treatment goes on. The fee covers the consultation and full implant assessment, the 3D CT scan and digital treatment planning, any extractions needed on the arch being treated, bone grafting or a sinus lift if the scan shows you need one, four implants placed under local anaesthetic, the fixed temporary arch fitted on the day of surgery, the final fixed arch once healing is complete, and every review appointment in between. Grafting is the item on that list worth pausing on, because it is the unexpected bill patients most often brace for, and here it does not arrive. Three things sit outside the fee and are quoted separately: intravenous sedation if you choose it, treatment on the opposing arch, and routine hygienist appointments once your treatment is finished. You receive a written quote before you commit.

Yes. Choose a term of 12 months or less and the credit is interest-free, so you repay exactly what the treatment costs — £9,950 for one arch over 12 months is £829.17 a month, and £18,950 for both arches is £1,579.17. Choose a longer term, up to a maximum of 60 months, and interest is charged on the whole balance, so you repay more than the treatment price. The interest-free rate applies to the shorter terms only; it is not a free introductory period on a longer plan. Our finance calculator shows the exact figures for any term before you apply. Every application is subject to status and an affordability check, and nothing is agreed until you have a written quote to take away.

Yes, and many people do. If your lower teeth are sound and only the upper arch is failing, there is no reason to treat both — All-on-4 on one arch is a complete treatment in itself at £9,950. Where both arches are involved, treating them together at £18,950 costs less than two separate courses. What matters clinically is that the two arches bite together properly, so we plan the whole mouth even when we are only treating half of it.

All-on-4 dental implants cleaning takes about five minutes a day and is not difficult once it is a habit. Brush the arch morning and night with a soft brush, exactly as you would natural teeth. The part that matters most is underneath: there is a small space between the arch and your gum where plaque collects, and it has to be cleaned every day with a water flosser, superfloss or interdental brushes, whichever you get on with best. We will show you the technique before you leave and check it at every review. Neglecting that space is the most common reason implants get into trouble years later.

All-on-4 implants eating comes in three stages. For the first week or two you stay on soft food — soup, eggs, fish, pasta, mashed vegetables, yoghurt — and avoid anything that needs a hard bite. From then until the final arch is fitted you can widen the range considerably, but you keep away from crusty bread, nuts, hard fruit and anything you would have to tear at, because the temporary arch is not built for those forces. Once the permanent arch is in place, most people eat normally again, including things dentures had made impossible. Even then, it is sensible to treat very hard items with respect: teeth on implants can chip just as natural teeth can.

No — and for most people that is the point of having them. The arch is screwed to the implants and is removed only by your dentist, with instruments, at a maintenance visit. There is nothing to soak overnight and nothing to lose. The trade-off is that cleaning has to be done in the mouth, around and underneath a fixed arch, which takes a little more skill than dropping a denture in a glass. If the ability to take your teeth out matters to you, an implant-retained overdenture may suit you better, and we are happy to discuss it.

They should look like teeth, not like dentures. The shape, shade and position are chosen with you rather than for you, and the temporary arch you wear for several months acts as a working trial: if something about the length, the shade or the way the teeth show when you smile is not right, we change it before the final arch is made. We will also be realistic with you — a full arch has to be built to a shape that works for your bite and your lip support, so it is not simply a copy of the teeth you had at twenty.

It should improve it if you have been wearing a full upper denture. A conventional upper denture covers the palate to hold by suction, and that covering blunts both taste and the feeling of hot and cold. A fixed upper arch on implants is supported by the implants, so the roof of the mouth stays uncovered and food tastes and feels much more like it used to. Lower arches were never palate-covered, so there is no change there beyond the improvement in chewing.

Almost certainly not. There is no upper age limit on implant treatment, and losing most of your teeth is more common later in life, so older patients are a large part of who this treatment was designed for. What we assess is your general health rather than your age: whether long-term conditions are well controlled, what medicines you take — bone medicines and blood thinners in particular need discussing — and whether you can manage a surgical appointment of several hours. If any of that raises a question, we will talk to your GP before going ahead rather than pressing on regardless.

Frequently, yes, and this is one of the main reasons the technique exists. When teeth have been missing for a while, the bone at the back of the jaw resorbs first, which is what makes conventional implants there need grafting or a sinus lift. Tilting the back implants forwards lets them anchor in the more solid bone nearer the front, so the graft is often unnecessary. Where it is necessary, it is covered by the All-on-4 fee rather than billed on top, so being told you need a graft does not mean being told you need to find more money. It is not a universal answer: where very little bone remains anywhere, zygomatic implants may still be the right route. Your CT scan gives a definite answer rather than a guess.

You can, but you should go in knowing the risk is higher. Smoking constricts blood vessels and reduces the blood supply that healing tissue depends on, so implants in smokers are more likely to fail to integrate and more likely to develop bone loss around them later. We will not turn you away, and we will not lecture you, but we will ask you to stop before surgery and to stay off cigarettes through the healing period at the very least. If you have been thinking about stopping anyway, this is the moment when it pays off most.