To refuse to pay for his dental implants?

[whatisgoingonandwhy]

DH had to have dental implants about 8 years ago and I think they cost around £7000 and a denture. Fast forward to now one of the implants failed after he had sat on the denture, bent it and hadn’t been wearing it so the pressure was all on the implant.
He has now had a quote for dental work at £18,000 and I told him to try and get a second opinion. Now had a quote from his own dentist who is still training until September for £9,000 but no option to spread the cost.
My AIBU is that he has always had crap teeth and part of this is because he doesn’t look after them. We have a private dentist for which are a family we pay £100 per month and last year they were chasing him for months to book a check up. I also understand that implants are more likely to fail if you have gum disease, smoke and drink to excess, all of which he does and doesn’t look after himself but that’s another story. He has been making more of an effort to take care of his teeth but that’s only recently after the issues started up again, before that he refused an electric toothbrush and didn’t floss ever.
We could afford the £9,000 at a push but it feels like throwing good money after bad. Would I be unreasonable to veto the implants and say he should go for dentures? He is 58 if that makes a difference.

With your husbands lifestyle, implants are not a good use of family finances.
many dentists will refuse to treat smokers with implants so it’d be a waste of time

In which case he gives up the fags and alcohol and saves up the money he needs.

There is no point paying that much money for dental work when he can't even be bothered to look after himself.

You could go on a fab family holiday for that!

Since he won't take proper care and follow guidelines about his implants, they've failed. Why throw good money after bad?

I wouldnt pay that for him. If he continues drinking to excess and smoking it would be a waste of time because hes staring liver disease in the face

Tell him to quit the fags and booze and he will have the money for his dental work in no time.

Just a thought, as he is 58 has he got a small work pension pot he can withdraw to pay for it?

Mr Monkey is doing that with a small pot he has from a job he had for a couple of years to pay for some expensive dental.treatment. That said he does also have a pretty decent final salary pension due when he is 67 so this little pot is not needed for retirement.

DH has always had terrible teeth but he had the worst breath imaginable for about a year before a dental check up, and he had such a bad infection that had gone into the roof of his mouth that he had a hole in the palate. He had to have a bone graft which needed months to embed, then 4 implants at the front and it cost nearly £15k at a private specialist. He still only cleans his teeth once a day, and goes far less than he should to the dentist. Luckily we have separate finances because I wouldn't contribute a penny towards it.

You're well within your rights to say No to this, OP.

Perhaps you could remind him that poor dental hygiene is one of the causes leading to dementia

Are you on the Smile plan?

Look up kreativ dental budapest
Ive just booked to go in April as it's about a third of the cost of having it done here. It's totally not like going to Turkeym. Many top dentist's have trained in Budapest

Pack of 20 cigarettes at say £20 x 365 days = £7300 which he could to put towards his implant treatment cost - if he chooses to stop smoking?

Smoking cessation means he could choose to pay for his implants with his savings over say 16 months - if he wants to?

Otherwise dentures…

My dentist confirms the difficulties he has treating smokers due to vascular changes and compromise.

He should definitely have the dentures OP, the implants don't stand a chance.
My late mother had the same dilemma years ago and couldn't give up smoking so she went for the dentures with no regrets.

No £7000 is quite enough, if he wants to not look after his teeth and sit on his denture l think he should be on his own paying for more work.
if he doesn't look after them it would be far cheaper and more sensible for him to have them all out and have a decent set of dentures made- at his expense, why should the family suffer because of his bad personal decisions?

I had implants because of antibiotics as a child so they crumbled. I paid for them myself. Ditto my private healthcare.

He pays for his own teeth.

He is taking the piss. He needs to take responsibility and sort this out himself. Stop being an ATM.

I think her husband sounds like an idiot but smoking is hardly unforgivable 😂😂😂😂

It really is especially if it is affecting his implants. Even if it wasn't it is a stupid thing to do.

He has a choice. He can spend £££ of family money per month on booze & fags OR on implants. But not both.

I'd only agree to paying for the implants if he agrees to stop smoking and to look after his teeth. I had an implant about 5 years ago aged 57, I'm extremely happy with it, had a temporary denture after the tooth was extracted and while the implant surgery was healing. I loathed the denture so would do anything to avoid having one permanently.

Before my implant I had to sign a form in which it was pointed out that smoking and not cleaning properly would likely lead to implant failure. I don't smoke and when I had had the implant my dentist made it very clear that cleaning, flossing right under the gum, interdental brushes etc were extremely important. I don't think drinking a lot of alcohol makes any difference to implant failure as that was never mentioned, but smoking and poor dental hygiene certainly do.

Your not his mother..Let him.pay for them. out of his own money.

Bummer! Link failed.
https://poetryarchive.org/poem/oh-i-wish-id-looked-after-me-teeth/

@whatisgoingonandwhy
My oral surgeon let me know that implants placed in smokers present a 140% higher risk of failure than implants placed in non-smokers.

If he's smoking, I'm not sure it makes sense to try another set of implants. He's already failed one set (probably related to his smoking), and if he's still smoking, it is more than likely to fail again. It really is a waste of money.

My ex DH was exactly the same.we spent £££ on periodontal and bridges.never a candidate for implants as continued smoking and lack of oral care. He now has dentures. Best thing for him.

If the shoe was on the other foot and a man was controlling the family finances and denying funds for dental treatment, he'd rightly be accused of financial abuse.

I can't imagine many posters taking kindly to being told suck it up and wear false teeth!

No I disagree. Someone who abuses their health is not a candidate for implants. We're talking about £thousands here. Why should a dentist do something he know will fail. Why should a partner pay for surgery. It's not financial abuse it's common sense.

Surgeons can refuse hip, knee surgery on obese people until they lose weight. Is that abuse?