Ihaka from Gisborne — 2 Osstem dental implants

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.

Ihaka is in his mid-40s, a builder based in Gisborne who frames houses for a living. Two of his lower-left back teeth were gone — one cracked on a worksite years earlier, the second pulled not long after — and he’d spent a couple of years chewing on the right side without really noticing he’d started favouring it. His bite was shifting and the gap was widening.

A Gisborne private clinic had quoted him around NZD 13,000 to replace both teeth with implants. That was most of a ute deposit, parked into his jaw, and the figure sat in a drawer while the building jobs kept rolling. What finally moved him was a sparkie on his crew who’d flown to Da Nang the winter before and come back with his own mouth sorted. Ihaka sent us a panoramic X-ray and four photos. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 2 Osstem implants at NZD 1,667 per implant = NZD 3,334.

Bone, load, and brand tier

A builder reads a job before he prices it, and Ihaka treated his teeth the same way. His first question wasn’t cost — it was whether implants done overseas would hold under the load his molars take through long shifts. We sent him the Osstem documentation, the 5-year warranty terms, and the name of the clinician placing them.

His ridge had thinned slightly from years of one-sided chewing. We flagged from the X-ray that a small bone assessment would be needed on arrival; a CBCT scan on day two confirmed there was enough bone to place both fixtures without grafting. He also asked why Osstem rather than a premium European brand. We explained the tiers honestly: Osstem is a widely-used Korean system we place daily, sitting at a lower price point than Nobel Biocare or Straumann, with its own clinical warranty. For two posterior teeth on his budget, it was a sensible fit, and the choice was his to make.

The two trips

Trip 1 — placement (6 days)

Healing window at home

He returned to Gisborne and was back on the tools within a few days, chewing carefully on the right while the bone integrated. We sent a remote check-in at six weeks and again at three months. His local dentist eyed the healing at a routine visit.

Trip 2 — crowns (4 days)

What it cost end-to-end

Against the Gisborne quote of around NZD 13,000 — which covered the clinical work alone — Ihaka’s all-in total including two sets of flights came to NZD 8,234. That left him roughly NZD 4,800 better off, even after travelling twice, with money still protecting the ute deposit he’d been guarding.

The thing he didn’t expect

From his survey: “I’d braced for the surgery to be the bad bit — drilling you feel through your whole head. It wasn’t. The strange part was how much the gaps had been shaping me. My wife pointed out I’d stopped laughing with my whole face, and I hadn’t even clocked it. The teeth I expected; getting that back I didn’t.”

Aftercare back in Gisborne

Ihaka had a routine check at his Gisborne dentist about eight weeks after the crowns went in. We sent a written aftercare summary and the implant passport — Osstem lot numbers, batch, and fixture type — which his Kiwi dentist added to the file. His 12-month review came back clean. A 24-month check is booked.

Ihaka’s three pieces of advice

1. “The two-trip split is a feature, not a hassle. I dreaded taking long leave; instead the healing slotted into normal life and I never lost more than a few work days each trip.”
2. “Tell them about your bite up front. I clench through long shifts, and saying so early meant the crowns were built tougher from the start, not adjusted after the fact.”
3. “Sort it before you adapt to it. Two years of chewing on one side had quietly changed how I ate. The dentistry was the easy part — unlearning the habit took longer.”

See also

• Dental implants pillar — the protocol, brands, and NZD pricing.
• Implant aftercare — what Ihaka was told for home maintenance.
• Gisborne (regional) to Vietnam dental implants 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.