How Karen Made Her Full Mouth Implants Affordable

Last updated on April 2nd, 2025 at 12:22 am

Marcus Hines: Author

This is Karen’s dental implant story – a woman who led a troubled life before committing to turn her life around. After first considering dentures, she found a way to make her full mouth dental implant procedure affordable. In this article you will learn why Karen pivoted from nearly choosing the far less expensive denture option over the superior dental implants option. Doing so would require trusting her dentist’s recommendation. She would also have to figure out how to pay for her dental implant treatment. Karen’s determination to eat healthy, have a confident smile and to lead a better life was fierce. Be inspired!

How Karen’s poor life choices led to failing teeth

Karen is a 50-year-old recovering addict from substance abuse. Methamphetamine was her drug of choice. The effect that years of meth use had on her teeth was evident whenever she smiled.

Eventually Karen ended up serving time in jail for drug possession. “When you’re locked away, you have a lot of time to reflect on life,” Karen explained. “My grandmother did everything she could to support me and I’ve always wanted to make her feel like I have been worth the effort. Reestablishing my confident smile only the beginning!”

Considering her journey, Karen’s story of how she was able to make her full mouth dental implants affordable is a remarkable one. If you or a loved one is in the market for dental implants, you will appreciate this story.

You are likely to pick up a few helpful pointers that may set you on a path to making your needed dental implant procedure affordable.

Karen was ready for a new smile

When Karen emerged from her incarceration, she was determined to remain clean and sober and to putting her life in order. For six years straight she’s been free of drug and alcohol use, gainfully employed and ready to do something about her health and failing teeth.

As a manager of a busy pizza joint for the past five years, Karen was self-conscious about her smile. She had trained herself to show as little of her teeth as possible when smiling or laughing.

After finding a dentist and scheduling an examination, Karen began her journey to a new smile. In her mind, dentures would be the perfect fit. In as little as one day she could have her remaining teeth pulled and replaced with upper and lower dentures.

A new set of denture teeth, perfectly aligned, and her problem solved for a total of about $3,000! “What’s not to like?,” Karen thought to herself.

Karen’s dentist explained the disadvantages of long-term denture use

Karen expressed interest to her dentist for receiving dentures. After completing her examination, the dentist took the time to explain both the advantages and disadvantages of wearing dentures.

Note: Advantages of dentures, when compared to dental implants, include low cost, no surgery and fast delivery of the final prosthesis.

The dentist informed Karen that he only recommends dentures for short-term use based on common issues that people deal with when wearing dentures long-term.

The dentist disclosed the following list of denture disadvantages to consider:

Disadvantages of long-term denture use includes:

Feels unnatural
May take several months to get used to, if ever at all
May cause gums to be irritated
Should be removed while sleeping
May contribute to jawbone loss
Become increasingly loose over time
Difficult to chew coarse foods
Often requires messy denture adhesive
Food entrapment beneath denture
May require replacement after 5 years
Risk factor for oral cancer

Dentures should be removed while sleeping.

Karen’s dentist follows denture protocols as defined by the American College of Prosthodontics (ACP). The ACP advises that any denture worn for more than five years should be evaluated for replacement.

Karen was hoping for a solution that would last well beyond five years. She had no idea what wearing a denture long-term could mean before speaking with her dentist.

Why Karen chose dental implants in spite of their higher costs

Karen’s dentist suggested that she strongly consider a full mouth dental implant procedure instead of dentures. This led Karen down a path of asking several meaningful questions.

Dental implant supported teeth will allow for superior chewing of all types of foods including raw carrots, salad, steak, ribs, corn on the cob, and fruits like mango and apples.

Karen’s dentist explained that dental implants are more expensive than dentures. He said implant teeth feel very natural and are fixed in place like natural teeth, meaning that only a dental professional can remove them if necessary.

Therefore, different from dentures, with implants there would be no need to remove her teeth at night. There would also be no need for messy denture adhesives like Poligrip® or Fixodent®.

Her dental implants would also go a long ways to preserve her jawbone. The doctor explained, jawbone preservation helps to maintain the natural contours of an individual’s face and youthful appearance.

Once Karen was clear on the potential disadvantages of long-term denture use and benefits of implants, it was easy for her to take a serious look at the full mouth dental implant procedure.

But full mouth dental implants – for her upper and lower jaws – would cost her $49,000. This is obviously a huge difference from the $3,000 cost of upper and lower removable dentures.

Ideas presented for overcoming the cost of full mouth implants

Convinced that dental implants were the best option, Karen decided she’d go for it, in spite of the higher cost. She appreciated the advice of her dentist and now it was time to figure it out.

“With God’s grace, I was able to overcome my addiction to drugs for six years and counting,” explained Karen. “I’m not about to let money be an insurmountable obstacle to continuing down the path of getting my life in order.”

Note: The average dental insurance annual maximum usually fall between $1,000 and $2,000 dental coverage.

The office explained that patients receiving this procedure will often pay using one or more of the following resources:

Personal savings
Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
Health Savings Account (HSA)
Credit cards (low interest)
Healthcare instalment loans
Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)
401(k) loan
401(k) withdrawal (penalty-free when 59 ½+ years old)
Side hustle/part-time job
Inheritance

For insights on using one or more of these financial options, visit the Making Dental Implant Treatment Affordable page.

A Health Savings Account (HSA) can be used to pay for dental implants.

Making Karen’s cost of full mouth implants affordable

For starters, Karen had $5,000 saved up in a personal savings account that she could use immediately.

While Karen does not have dental insurance, for the past five years she’s wisely contributed to a Health Savings Account (HSA) offered through her job.

An HSA is a form of medical insurance that allows for pre-tax contributions. In 2024, a maximum of $4,150 can be contributed to a single HSA plan or $8,300 to a family plan.

A major benefit of an HSA is that the funds may be used for virtually any medical or dental service. Additionally, unused funds can accumulate from year to year and even earn interest.

Visit our Using an HSA to Make Implants Affordable page to learn more about how HSAs work.

In Karen’s case, she had accumulated over $23,000 in her HSA plan. She decided to apply $20,000 of it toward her implant procedure.

This allowed Karen to keep $3,000 of her HSA funds available for other medical or dental needs in the near future. At this point Karen was still $6,000 short of her total amount due.

Resources Used to Pay for Karen’s Implants	Funding Amount
Personal Savings	$5,000
Health Savings Account (HSA)	$20,000
Healthcare Instalment Loan	$18,000
Uber Driver (side hustle)	$6,000
Total	$49,000

Karen’s determination led her to come up with this plan to pay for her dental implant procedure.

Karen establishes a payment plan with the dental implant office

Karen received an immediate but temporary set of implant supported teeth on the same day as the surgery. Her temporary teeth will remain in place during a standard three-to-five-month period while the dental implants heal completely.

It is standard not to deliver the final set of teeth until the implant healing period is complete. Therefore, Karen’s implant provider had no problem allowing her to break up the remaining $6,000 amount due over this four-month “healing period.”

This way, once the implants were fully healed and she was ready for her final set of teeth, her balance would be paid in full.

Karen’s dental office established a four-month payment plan for the remaining $6,000. She’d simply need to start her payments at the time of her implant surgery using one of the following payment schedules:

$375 per week, or
$750 per every two weeks, or
$1500 per month

Note: Implant practices, usually, will not deliver the final teeth before the balance is satisfied.

Once again, Karen didn’t have $375 in her weekly budget to spare. But given her determination, Karen decided to hustle as an Uber driver during her off hours.

Prior experience with Uber driving made it easy to get back into the flow. Soon enough, Karen was able to begin making weekly payments averaging about $330 over a 18-week period.

At the end of her four-month healing period, Karen received her final implant supported teeth. She has never been happier, more proud of her smile and this accomplishment.

“I can’t remember when I was able to enjoy eating such a wide variety of foods,” said Karen. “Pizza, barbeque ribs, corn on the cob and apples are no longer a challenge for me to eat. I even enjoy smiling again. It’s been worth every penny to reach this point!”

Karen’s friends and co-workers can’t stop complementing her new teeth. More importantly, Karen knows that little by little, her grandmother can only be proud of her sustained recovery and the person she continues to become.

Summary

Karen’s natural teeth became diseased and needed to be removed do to poor life choices. Fortunately, she is now six years sober and has a new lease on life. Her remaining natural teeth needed to be removed. Like many patients, she assumed removable dentures would be a cheaper alternative to dental implants. It wasn’t until the dental office explained common long-term issues of wearing dentures that Karen understood dentures were not what she was looking for. Once Karen understood the unmatched benefits of dental implants, she decided she wouldn’t settle for less. She figured out a way to make her full mouth dental implant procedure affordable. Now that Karen’s dental implant treatment is complete, she couldn’t be happier.

Sources

Alsaggaf A, Fenlon MR. A case control study to investigate the effects of denture wear on residual alveolar ridge resorption in edentulous patients. J Dent. 2020 Jul;98:103373. doi: 10.1016/j.jdent.2020.103373. Epub 2020 May 8. PMID: 32389732. ↩︎
Manoharan, Sangee, et al. “Ill-Fitting Dentures and Oral Cancer: A Meta-Analysis.” Oral Oncology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2 Aug. 2014, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25169920/. ↩︎
Tuminelli, Frank J, et al. “The Frequency of Denture Replacement.” American College of Prosthodontists, 20 Oct. 2015, www.prosthodontics.org/about-acp/position-statement-the-frequency-of-denture-replacement/. Accessed 23 May 2024. ↩︎