Replacing Missing Teeth is Critical to Health and Appearance
A missing tooth may seem like a minor issue that can be looked past, but in fact, they negatively impact your life in many different ways.
Here are five effects of missing teeth that EK Dental Surgery thinks are good arguments for immediately replacing them:
- Reduced health and life quality
- Difficulty eating and nutritional deficits
- Dramatically increased likelihood of other dental issues
- Adversely affected appearance
- Decreased self-confidence
Let’s take a look at some of the problems with missing teeth.
Your teeth support each other. A missing tooth undermines the integrity of the mouth, causing cascading problems. When a tooth is absent, remaining teeth move in and fill the jawline.
This change in tooth alignment can harm the jaw, make plaque and tartar buildup easier, lead to cavities, and make future dental work far more complicated and expensive. Maintaining the alignment of teeth with a replacement helps protect the integrity of the entire mouth. Replacement also helps to avoid a related problem; bone resorption.
Bone resorption. The health of your lower and upper jaws relies on the presence of tooth roots. Tooth roots provide stimulation to the jawbone, which maintains bone mass.
If a tooth goes missing, the jawbone lacks the stimulation needed to keep blood flow active, which leads to a decline in bone height and width.
The ‘shrinking’ process of bone due to missing tooth roots is called resorption. Resorption has several adverse effects, including on dental health and appearance. If resorption goes on untreated, it can cause the face to “cave in” and sag, creating an unattractive and older appearance.
Aesthetics. Replacing a missing tooth can give you a beautiful and functional smile that improves your overall health, attractiveness and self-confidence. Today there are effective and predictable methods for permanent tooth replacement.
Eating and speaking. Missing teeth can make eating more difficult, and speaking less understandable, leading to deficits in nutrition and communication.
Solutions to tooth loss
Dental Implants. Dental implants are an impressive modern innovation and a permanent solution to tooth loss. They can replace one or more missing teeth and even an entire upper or lower arch of teeth.
The most significant advantage of dental implants among other counterparts is the way they look, feel and function like your natural teeth.
Implants are constructed from titanium and are surgically placed into the jaw to fill the gap caused by missing teeth and replace the missing roots.
They address aesthetic issues, remove the threat of resorption, and give you the nearest possible functionality to the teeth they replace – even more functionality if those teeth were damaged!
More about dental implants at EK Dental Surgery
Bridges. Bridges are replacement teeth held in place by attachment to adjacent healthy teeth. While in the past bridges have been manufactured from gold, ceramic, or alloys, the preferred modern bridge is made entirely of ceramic to create an appliance that most closely resembles natural teeth.
Bridges can help prevent bone loss and also keep your remaining teeth from shifting into the gap, which can misalign your bite, harm your appearance, make chewing difficult, and lead to decay.
If you don’t wish to get implants or dentures for your missing teeth, a dental bridge is a good alternative.
Bridges at EK Dental Surgery
Dentures. Dentures replace multiple missing teeth. They are removable appliances attached to a supporting structure designed to fill in the gaps in your smile and restore the ability to eat. Dentures can be made of acrylic or cobalt chrome to which false teeth are attached.
Unfortunately, traditional dentures do not do much to lessen bone loss. Because dentures rest directly on your gums, the jawbone underneath can be gradually worn away due to pressure from biting, chewing, and eating. This can cause a constant shift in bone and gum structures, making denture adjustments necessary.
Denture types include:
Conventional Dentures –placed once the gums and bones have healed after removing the natural teeth.
Full Dentures – this type of denture is suitable for patients who have lost their entire natural teeth in the upper or lower jaw, or even both. Full dentures can allow you to speak and eat normally.
Partial Dentures – suitable for patients who lost some of their teeth but don’t want to get dental bridges or implants.
Immediate Dentures – they are placed right after the removal of natural teeth. With immediate dentures, you can return to natural eating more quickly.
Reasons To Smile At EK Dental Surgery!
EK Dental Surgery offers a wide variety of preventative and cosmetic dental procedures for children, seniors, and everyone in between! We are a team of dedicated Glen Waverley dentists and staff working to provide the best care possible. At EK Dental Surgery we can help you achieve tip-top dental health and a movie-star smile!
EK Dental Surgery is conveniently located on Springvale Road in Glen Waverley.
Our Promotion Include
Pay No Gap for Exam, Scale and Clean, and Fluoride Treatment for Medibank, Bupa and HCF.
* For new patients only
Call us on (03) 9887 8787 or visit us at 230 Springvale Road in Glen Waverley.
