Greg from New Plymouth — 2 Straumann dental implants to anchor a small bridge

Real patient story, shared with permission. This patient has consented to Picasso Dental Clinic publishing their experience to help other New Zealand patients. Treatment, material, NZD price, and timeline are accurate to the case archive. Reviewed by Dr. Tran Thanh Phong, Head of Implantology.

Greg is 58, an oil worker from New Plymouth who spends his life on offshore rotations. He had two failing teeth side by side on the lower jaw — one root long dead, the other a crown that had given way underneath — and he had been living around the gap for two years, chewing on one side and keeping his mouth half-closed in photos. He did not want a denture. He wanted something fixed, and the plan he settled on was two implants placed to anchor a small bridge across the space.

A New Plymouth private clinic quoted him NZD 12,000 to 14,000 for the implant work and the bridge it would carry. He never doubted the quality, but the number sat badly with a man who banks his pay carefully between rotations and could not square spending that much on two teeth when the rest of his mouth was sound. He sent us an OPG from his GP referral and four smile photographs from offshore. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 2 Straumann at NZD 2,667 per implant = NZD 5,334.

The brand-tier and bridge decision

Greg’s first question was whether two implants could really hold a bridge, or whether he would be sold a third fixture he did not need. Dr. Tran Thanh Phong reviewed the case and confirmed that two well-placed posts could anchor a short fixed bridge across the gap — a tidy solution that put implants only where the bone and spacing favoured them.

His second question was about the system. He had heard the name Straumann once before, from his own previous dentist, who had called it the one he would pick for himself. Seeing it on our quote at NZD 2,667 per fixture, the same Swiss system he had been told to trust, was what tipped a hard decision into an easy one. The Straumann implant crown carries a 10-year warranty, which matters to a man who likes to know a thing will outlast the trip it took to get it.

The two trips

Trip 1 — surgery (6 days)

Healing window

Greg flew home, finished a rotation, and let the bone knit around the two posts over several months before returning. We sent a 6-week and a 3-month remote check-in, and his New Plymouth dentist looked over the healing at the two-month mark.

Trip 2 — the bridge (5 days)

What it cost end-to-end

Against the New Plymouth quote of NZD 12,000 to 14,000 for the same implant-borne bridge, Greg’s all-in cost — including two return flights, hotels, food, and insurance — still came in below the bottom of the local range. Measured against the clinical work alone, NZD 5,334 versus a NZD 13,000 midpoint left him well ahead even before the holiday days he tacked onto trip two.

The thing he didn’t expect

From his survey: “I’d braced myself for the surgery day to flatten me. It didn’t — I was back at the hotel for a slow lunch by early afternoon. What caught me out was how strange the healing months felt at home. The gap was capped over and I kept forgetting anything had been done, then worrying I should be feeling more. The check-ins reassured me that quiet was exactly what was meant to be happening.”

What aftercare looked like back in New Plymouth

Greg saw his New Plymouth dentist for a routine check eight weeks after the bridge went in. We sent a written aftercare summary and the implant passport with the Straumann lot numbers, batch, and fixture type, which his Kiwi dentist added to the file and used to confirm the system. His 12-month review came back clean, with the next check scheduled at 24 months.

Greg’s three pieces of advice

1. “Pin your trips to your time off, not the other way around. Because the posts need months to fuse before the bridge, I slotted each visit between rotations and never burned a day of extra leave.”
2. “Ask outright what system they’re using. Hearing it was Straumann — the same brand my own dentist back home rated — was the single thing that settled it for me. Get that in writing before you book.”
3. “Don’t panic about the quiet middle stretch. Once the implants are in, months go by where nothing seems to happen. That’s the point. Use the check-ins instead of inventing problems.”

See also

• Dental implants pillar — the protocol, brands, and NZD pricing.
• Implant aftercare — what Greg was told for home maintenance.
• New Plymouth to Vietnam dental travel page — local benchmark and route logistics.

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About this page

Medically reviewed by

Dr. Tran Thanh Phong

Head of Implantology, Picasso Dental Clinic

DDS · 25+ years in practice · 15,000+ implants placed · 1,000+ All-on-4 cases

Clinical focus: Implantology · All-on-4 · Zygomatic implants

Dr. Tran Thanh Phong has practised since 2001 and leads implantology across the Picasso group. He was the first Vietnamese dentist to perform All-on-4 immediate loading (2010), placed over 15,000 implants across his career at roughly 600 per year, and has completed 400+ zygomatic implant cases since 2017. Loma Linda University-trained (2010). Clinical representative for Nobel Biocare in Vietnam since 2007.

Last clinically reviewed

28 May 2026

Published by

Picasso Dental Clinic

Review policy

Every medical procedure page on this site is reviewed by a named Picasso clinician before publication and re-checked when pricing, materials, or protocols change. Source documents are linked at the bottom of each page.