Same day, six to eight weeks, or three to four months — all three are standard practice, and the socket walls on the scan decide which one applies to you.
An implant can go in on the same day as the extraction, six to eight weeks later, or after three to four months of full socket healing — and all three are standard practice for different situations. Immediate placement works when the socket walls are intact and there is no infection, typically a front tooth that fractured above the gum. Early placement at six to eight weeks lets soft tissue close over a previously infected site. Delayed placement is for sockets that lost a wall.
There is no upper limit on how late an implant can be placed, but the site changes with every year that passes. The ridge narrows, the opposing tooth drifts down into the gap, and the neighbouring teeth tip inwards — so the space for the crown shrinks while the bone for the fixture shrinks too. Patients who come to us ten years after losing a molar frequently need a graft, and sometimes orthodontic uprighting, before an implant is even sensible.
These two get confused constantly. Immediate placement means the fixture goes into the fresh socket; immediate loading means a temporary crown goes onto it the same day. You can have one without the other, and in a single back tooth we often place immediately but leave the implant unloaded for eight to twelve weeks while bone locks onto the surface. Loading a fixture that turns even slightly in soft socket bone is the fastest route to failure.
If you already know a tooth has to come out, tell us before you book anything. In a favourable case, extraction, graft material into the socket and implant placement all happen in one visit and you return three months later for the crown — two trips instead of three. Where a socket is actively infected we remove the tooth on this trip and place the implant on the next, which is slower but far safer than forcing the sequence to fit a flight.
Often yes, when the socket walls are intact and there is no active infection. The cone-beam scan and what the surgeon sees in the socket on the day make the final call, not the plan on paper.
No. Sites that lost a tooth decades ago are restored routinely, but many need bone grafting or a sinus lift first, which adds one surgical stage and three to six months of healing.