JEROME — For 12 years Frances Berg endured problems with her lower denture.

“It used to be when I’d take a bite, it would pop up on one side,” she said.

Recently, Berg had three mini implants put in her lower jaw to hold her denture, and she’s enjoying the stability they provide.

“I feel like a kid with a new toy now,” she said.

Jerome dentist Dr. Scott Chandler said that although mini implants have been used in other parts of the country since 2001, they are relatively new for this area. He has been doing them for about three months.

Traditional implants work in many situations, he said, but the minis can be used in extreme cases — where the patient doesn’t have enough bone left to facilitate a regular full-size implant. They are not as strong as the full-size implants but work well. When there is plenty of bone, he said, traditional implants are a better long-term option because they are more stable.

“We’ve done (mini implants) on 85- and 87-year-olds and they’re very non-invasive and very simple to do,” Chandler said. “When people are in very poor health and on lots of medications, we can do these.”

For a typical lower-jaw implant, if he can use the existing denture, the total cost is a little under $2,800, whether he uses three implants or five. If one should fail, and he decides to put in another later, it is included.

The mini implants, Chandler said, are simple to put in. The surgical-grade titanium implants are only 1.8 millimeters in diameter and come in different lengths. It is not necessary to lay the gums back, but just to open a little hole and screw them right into the bone.

Little cups with O rings are set into a new hardliner, usually in the existing denture. The mini-implants have little round heads on top that pop inside the cups with O rings.

Chandler puts a soft liner in the denture after the procedure, so there is some retention from the implants right away. The patient is told not to put a lot of pressure on them until he is sure they have taken. On a subsequent visit a hard liner is added.

“But there are some cases where things look great right off and we can go ahead and reline their dentures right on the first day,” he said. “We usually use the existing old denture; most of the time I can modify it.”

Because the mini implants are non-invasive, if one should fail it can be pulled out. In six weeks the spot is healed enough for another implant to be put in.

Chandler usually doesn’t put the permanent attachments in the dentures on the day of surgery (although this is occasionally done); he waits three to four weeks until things have healed up well. In the meantime the patient wears his current denture.

But that early step — when Chandler hollows out the denture underneath, so it’s not pushing on the implants, and puts in a soft cushion liner — fools some folks.

“We had some patients who thought that was it, that they were done — they were very happy with the soft liner in there,” he said. “So when we put the permanent ones in there, they thought they were in heaven.”

Twin Falls dentists Dr. Kevin Hall and Dr. John Roberts have had a mini implant system for a little over two years and use it occasionally. Hall said it works well, but in many cases he prefers the regular, wider implant type.

“It’s a little bit stronger and you can actually upgrade it, and you get a little better fit with a denture,” he said. “But for a more economical way, certainly the mini implants are really nice.”

Hall said a denture can also be attached to the traditional, larger implant on the day of surgery.

The advantage of the mini ones is mainly economic, according to Hall. He said they run from $500 to $700 each to place, not counting restoring the denture. Surgery to place permanent ones runs from $1,200 to $1,500 each.

He said the mini types are a pretty nice, quick and easy option, and more affordable. Mini implants can also be used to act as temporaries when it is necessary to allow regular implants to heal before putting dentures on.

“In between where we put the regular ones we can actually put the mini ones in there,” Hall said. “And then we can, as the other ones heal, take the mini ones out and then restore the regular, larger body implants.”

Times-News correspondent Joan Bean can be reached at 733-0830.