Numb Tooth After Chin Implant?

The good news is your mental nerve is most likely intact, as it is highly unusual to sever it during placement of a chin implant. Your surgeon also confirmed that the nerve was intact during surgery. Unfortunately, the fact that you required a large chin implant means that your mental nerve probably sits close to the lower edge of the bone and the implant may be brushing up against the nerve. In that case the numbness probably will not improve without repositioning of the implant. Let's hope that is not the case and your sensation returns over a period of time. If your chin is very deficient and you cannot tolerate a chin implant, you may consider a sliding genioplasty, in which the bone itself is moved forward.

Sensation to your teeth is not provided by the mental nerve; it is provided by the inferior alveolar nerve. This nerve runs inside the bone, and is generally not at risk with chin implant placement, unlike the mental nerve what exits the bone and could be injured.

A numb tooth suggests injury to the inferior alveolar nerve or one of its branches. While temporary irritation of the nerve may occur from scraping the external surface of the bone during implant placement, true direct injury could occur most commonly in a situation where a screw was placed into the bone to secure the implant. With high placement of the implant, it is possible that the screw has penetrated a tooth root or branch of the nerve. Find out if a screw was utilized. If so, an x-ray can settle the question of tooth root injury. If not, probably the best course is to wait for recovery with no further surgery.

Mike Nayak