Call Dr.Ellis 303-422-2502
Denver's Leading Dentist for Gum Disease, Root Canals & Implants
"I was terrified.
I'm 73.
Best decision
I ever made."
"Dr. Ellis walked me through every step of my implant.
Six years later, zero issues.
I still come back just for maintenance.
At 73,
I didn't think this was possible."
— Chris
Football left me with cracked teeth, headaches, and daily pain. Dr. Ellis changed that—no more headaches, no more pain, just a healthier smile and better life.
5 Clinical Signs You Need an Implant
No. 1 Your Tooth Is Cracked Down Into the Root
A crack in the visible part of your tooth can often be repaired. A crack that runs vertically down into the root cannot. Once that crack exists, bacteria travel the full length of it. Infection follows. No crown, no root canal, and no amount of treatment can seal a split root.
The tooth must come out.
This type of crack is frequently invisible on a standard X-ray. It requires cone beam CT imaging and careful clinical examination to confirm. If your dentist told you the tooth needs to be extracted but never explained exactly why — this is the first thing to check.
No.2 The Bone Around Your Tooth Root Is Gone
Your jawbone holds your teeth in place. Gum disease destroys that bone — slowly, quietly, and often without pain until the loss is already severe. When the bone loss reaches the very bottom of the root, the tooth has no foundation left. It cannot be stabilized. It cannot be rescued.
At that point, keeping the tooth means keeping something your jaw can no longer support.
A periodontist measures bone levels with precision — pocket depths, imaging, root furcation involvement. That measurement tells the real story that a routine dental X-ray often misses.
No.3 Your Root Canal Has Failed More Than Once
A failed root canal can often be retreated successfully. But when a tooth has had multiple failures, an infection that keeps returning, a canal that cannot be accessed, or a root tip that does not heal after surgery — that tooth has reached the limit of what endodontic treatment can do.
Keeping it means keeping a chronic infection in your jawbone. That infection does not stay contained. It slowly destroys the surrounding bone — the same bone you will need later for an implant.
The longer you wait, the less bone remains.
No.4 Your Tooth Is Loose — and the Bone Will Not Come Back
A loose tooth in an adult always means bone has been lost. Sometimes enough bone remains to stabilize the tooth with periodontal treatment. Sometimes the loss is too far advanced and no treatment above or below the gum line will change the outcome.
The question is not how much the tooth moves. The question is how much bone is left — and whether what remains can support normal chewing forces long term. That answer requires imaging and a specialist's clinical judgment. It cannot be guessed from appearance alone.
No.5 Decay or Fracture Has Destroyed the Root Structure
Decay that stays in the visible crown of a tooth is treatable. Decay that travels below the gum line into the root — or a tooth that has broken off at or below the gum line — is a different situation entirely. If there is not enough healthy tooth structure remaining to hold a crown or a restoration, the tooth simply cannot be rebuilt.
Extraction is the correct answer. And implant planning should begin at the same appointment to prevent immediate bone loss at the site.
You Don't Have to Live With a Missing Tooth.
A missing tooth is never just a cosmetic problem. The moment a tooth is gone, your jawbone begins to shrink. Adjacent teeth start to shift. Bite forces change. The structure of your face — the bone and tissue that frame everything — quietly begins to collapse.
Most patients don't see it coming. That's what makes implants more than a replacement. They're a preservation strategy.
Dr. Dana Ellis has placed implants for nearly four decades. Not as a procedure added to a general dentistry menu — but as the natural extension of her training in periodontics, the bone and gum science that determines whether an implant will succeed or fail before the first incision is made.
"I don't place implants to fill a space. I place them to protect the bone that's still there."
That's a different standard. And Denver patients — including those who have come to her after implant failures elsewhere — feel it the moment they sit down.
"Nobody told me implants could fail. Nobody told me you could lose one. Nobody told me it becomes a nightmare if the root, the bone, the gum — your entire foundation — isn't right from day one. Think of it like building a house. Skip the foundation, the whole thing collapses. Dr. Dana doesn't skip. Five years. Still standing."
DANA ELLIS DDS
🏆 Award-Winning Dental Care
• Complex & Reconstructive Dentistry
• LANAP® Gum Disease & Gum Health Specialist
• Advanced Root Canal Therapy
• Dental Implants & Tooth Replacement
• Orthodontics & Smile Alignment
• Cosmetic Dentistry & Smile Makeovers
• Children's Dentistry & Family Care
• Biological & Integrative Dentistry
• Whole-Body Wellness Approach
"Your Teeth Matter. Keep Every Single One."
5 Symptoms That Mean Your Tooth May Need an Implant
This is the sentence no one in dentistry wants to say out loud.
So Dr. Ellis will say it.
A dental implant is a surgical procedure. It requires reading bone. Understanding how gum tissue heals. Knowing what's underneath — nerves, sinuses, anatomy that doesn't forgive mistakes. It requires a doctor who has spent decades not just placing implants, but treating everything that goes wrong when implants are placed carelessly.
General dentists can legally place implants after a weekend course. Some do it well. Many do not. And the patients who find out the difference are the ones sitting across from a specialist trying to salvage what's left.
"I've spent 40 years learning what bone needs to accept an implant. That's not something you learn in a seminar."
The skill is not just in the placement. It's in everything before it — reading the CT scan correctly, recognizing when bone isn't ready, knowing when a sinus lift is required and when it isn't, identifying gum disease that will destroy the implant in two years if left untreated.
That diagnostic judgment comes from training in the actual biology of bone and tissue. It comes from periodontics. It comes from years.
Dr. Ellis holds surgical expertise across three specialties — periodontics, endodontics, and implantology. When she places an implant, every variable has already been evaluated by the same doctor who will treat it if something needs to change.
No handoffs. No gaps. No version of "let's refer you out for that part."
The implant is only as good as the doctor who planned it.
Dr.Dana Ellis
Patient Stories
Mary 57 years old. From Los Angeles
I had given up. Three bone grafts. Two different offices. Four years of my life.
Every time, I was told it didn't take. The third time it failed, I sat in my car in the parking lot and cried for twenty minutes. I was 54 years old. I had a gap in my mouth where a tooth used to be. I had spent thousands of dollars. And I had nothing to show for it except a jaw that wouldn't cooperate and a confidence that had completely collapsed.
I want to be honest about how dark that period was. I was going crazy. I was depressed in a way I didn't expect — over teeth, which sounds ridiculous, but it wasn't about the teeth anymore. It was about feeling like my own body had rejected me. Like I was unfixable. I stopped smiling in photos. I started scanning menus for soft food before I even sat down. I canceled dinners with friends because I didn't want to explain why I wasn't eating certain things. I stopped feeling like myself.
Well, my daughter found Dr. Ellis. I almost didn't make the appointment. I had been disappointed so many times that hope felt dangerous.
The first thing Dr. Ellis said after reviewing my imaging stopped me completely. She said:
"I can see exactly why these failed. Your site was never properly prepared before grafting. This is not your body failing. This is a preparation problem."
I didn't know whether to feel relieved or furious. Honestly I felt both at the same time. Four years. Three failures. And the answer was that nobody had done the groundwork correctly before they started.
She walked me through everything — what went wrong each time, what she would do differently, what the real timeline looked like. No promises she couldn't keep. No pressure. No cheerful brochure language. Just a straight clinical explanation from someone who had clearly seen this before and knew exactly how to fix it.
I went home and cried again — but for a completely different reason.
Fourteen months later I have a permanent implant that feels like my own tooth. I smile in every single photo now. I am 57 years old and I just booked a trip to Italy because I want to sit at a long table and eat everything on the menu without thinking twice.
I lost four years, a lot of money, and more of my confidence than I care to admit before I found the right doctor. The depression I felt during those years was real. The hopelessness was real. And the recovery — both the physical one and the other kind — was real too.
If you have been told your body won't cooperate, please get a second opinion. From someone who actually knows what they're looking at.
62 years old Denver, Colorado
Head Football Coach
"My Teeth Were Cracking. The Headaches Were Constant. Nobody Connected the Two."
Twenty-eight years on the sideline. I didn't realize what I was doing to my teeth until the damage was already done. Jaw clenched on every third-and-long. Grinding through film sessions at midnight. By my late forties I had cracked three teeth and I was living on ibuprofen for headaches that I just assumed came with the job.
My dentist kept patching things. Crown here. Crown there. Nobody ever said the word bite. Nobody ever explained that the way my teeth were meeting was putting catastrophic force on the wrong places. I just kept breaking things and getting them fixed and breaking them again.
A colleague sent me to Dr. Ellis. She spent more time looking at how my jaw moved than any dentist ever had. She said: "Your teeth aren't failing because they're weak. They're failing because the forces on them have never been correct.
We need to fix the architecture, not just the individual teeth."
That was the first time any of this made sense to me.
She treated the underlying bite problem, placed two implants where the cracked teeth had been extracted, and built a treatment plan that addressed the whole system — not just the pieces that were visibly broken. The headaches I had accepted as part of my life for fifteen years are gone.
My jaw doesn't ache after games anymore. I sleep through the night.
I spent decades coaching players to fix their form, not just their stats. Dr. Ellis did exactly that for my mouth. I wish I had found him twenty years earlier.
The Honest Evaluation You Deserve
If you are experiencing any of these signs or symptoms, the answer is not another round of antibiotics or another temporary fix. The answer is a clear clinical picture from a doctor trained to read all of it.
Dr. Ellis evaluates every borderline tooth with cone beam CT imaging, full periodontal assessment, and endodontic review — often in a single appointment. You leave knowing exactly what the tooth's prognosis is, what saving it would realistically require, and what an implant would look like in your specific anatomy.
No pressure. No predetermined answer. Just the truth.
"I will always tell you when a tooth can be saved. I will also tell you clearly when holding on is costing you more than letting go."
→ Schedule Your Evaluation With Dr. Dana Ellis
"Infections I see every day"
Dental Infection Denver Dentist Dr.Ellis.
When Infection Is the Emergency
A Dental Infection Is Not Something You Wait On.
Tooth pain that comes and goes. Swelling that appears suddenly. A pimple on the gum that keeps returning. A bad taste that never quite goes away.
These are not minor inconveniences. They are signs that infection is active — and infection in the jaw does not stay contained. It spreads into bone. Into adjacent teeth. In serious cases, into spaces in the face and neck that have no tolerance for bacterial invasion.
Dental infections kill people. Not often. But when they do, it is almost always because someone waited too long.
About
Dr.Ellis
Patients Call him
Dr.Ellis is a Super Dentist
Trusted by Patients Worldwide
Patients travel from across the United States and around the world to see Dr. Ellis. Over the years, he has treated patients from:
• United States
• Japan
• Canada
• United Kingdom
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Germany
• France
• Italy
• Switzerland
• South Korea
• Singapore
• Mexico
