Allergy to titanium implants: thoughts?

This is a tough one, a titanium allergy is extremely, extremely rare and usually manifests itself with bone loss. If you check the osseo news archives I believe there was a posting. Anyway with these vague subjective symptoms even with the weight loss there are many reasons for a metallic taste not implants! However this patient already feels that the implants are the cause so this will be an uphill battle. I would consult with a trusted, trusted physician or an implantologists to reinforce this. You could also send her for allergy testing which probably should hav been done prior to placement but you are rolling the dice. There could be a "supra-tentorial"reason for this also. I wish you the best, this will be a patient management issue to get her buy in. The metallic taste and weight loss should be medically worked up but the MD has to know at the get go that this is not related to the implants.Could be an eating disorder or malabsorption. Good luck thanks for reading

Just saw an article in the paper as to Dick Van Dyk and his" headaches from his Implants" , which stated they will be removed an dreplaced with zirconia ones . Peter

I would also look at what medications she is taking. Also see if there is a past substance abuse/ eating abuse disorder.

The orthopaedic literature documented allergic reactions to titanium dioxyde and trioxyde. I think not to be wrong with a reported incidence of 8 per 1000 cases. I had a couple of patients allergic to titanium. The first one developped a severe rash on his arm after wearing a titanium watch... The second was an implant failure in a straight forward case. One of the fixtures exfoliated, the other one did not but did not integrate after more than 6 months. It happenned that this same patient underwent a coronary stent dilation with a relapse at the same time the implant was lost. Another type of stent was placed and lymphocyte proliferation test was carried out and showed to be positive for titanium oxydes and medical grade stainless steel.

Crystal Type implants have been shown with photoelastic studies, to transmit a high level of stress distribution to the surrounding bone. These stress levels are greater than Ti root forms, blades transmit less stress and 3D or disk transmit the least.

You give no information about any implants placed or the condition that they are in. If there are no concerns about the implants or other dental work (periimplantitis, inflammation, bone loss, suppuration, etc...), you need to consider this systemic in nature and look for signs and symptoms of systemic disorders that manifest with those that you have described. I am not a proponent of the Melisa test, but it may be of use in ruling out titanium allergy. The patient needs to be referred to a good internal medicine/rheumatology physician, and hopefully work together to determine the cause of the problem. Please consider posting the details once you obtain resolution to the problem so others may learn from such an interesting case. Good luck!