What can I eat after full-arch implants? How long is the soft diet?

Why ninety days

For these ninety days your implants are bonding with your bone. Pressure doesn't help that, and too much can interrupt it.

This is the window where what you eat really affects your result. After it, the restriction lifts.

Of everything you control, this shows up most clearly in results. Along with smoking and uncontrolled blood sugar, skipping the soft diet is where we see problems cluster.

The rule

Softer than a hot dog. Or something you could cut with the edge of a plastic fork.

That lets in a lot.

Slow-cooked meat that falls apart. Stews, chili, shredded chicken. Eggs any way you like them. Fish. Pasta. Potatoes. Beans, lentils and soup if you want it. Cooked vegetables. Bananas, avocado, yogurt, oatmeal. Ice cream, too. Many people enjoy it for the first time in years, after avoiding it because their old teeth were sensitive to cold.

Most patients who dreaded this find it easier than they expected. Several tell us the best soft-diet meals are the ones that were already the good ones, the kind you put on the stove in the morning and forget about.

What to skip for now

Anything you'd have to tear or bite hard through, or that might hide something hard inside.

Raw crunchy vegetables. Crusty bread and pizza crust. Nuts, hard candy, ice, popcorn. Steak, or anything you'd have to saw at. Ribs, wings and anything eaten off the bone. Whole apples.

Take care with bones in particular. Early on you can't feel a small bone or fragment the way you used to, so leave bony fish and wings for later, even if they seem soft enough.

Please don't switch to liquids

This one surprises people, because it sounds like the careful thing to do.

We want you eating soft food, not drinking your meals, for two reasons.

First, your jaw has to relearn. If you've been without back teeth for a long time, your jaw has been moving freely for years and now has boundaries again. That relearning happens by chewing, and it's why you'll probably bite your cheek in the first week or two.

Second, chewing is how you find out what isn't right. Teeth that feel fine at rest can feel very different when you eat. Those first days are when your design can still be changed, so we'd much rather you had scrambled eggs the morning after surgery and came back with an opinion.

While you're traveling

If you're here for the week, the soft diet won't keep you stuck in the hotel.

Most seafood works, especially after the first few days. Restaurants are usually happy to help if you tell them you need something soft.

Ask your concierge for ideas. Where to eat well on a soft diet is a question our team answers most weeks.

After ninety days

The restriction lifts, and for most people nothing is off the menu.

Patients remember that first meal. Steak comes up more than anything, usually from people who hadn't been able to eat it in years.

Your full sense of feel, like noticing a fish bone, can take longer to come back, and it varies a lot from person to person. Some get it within weeks. Most say that within about a year, their teeth feel completely like their own.

Your instructions come first

This page tells you what the soft-diet period is like. Your written after-surgery instructions are made for your case, so follow those. Where they differ from anything here, they win.

Not sure about a food? Ask us. We hear that question all the time and we're glad to help.