What Happens if You Don’t Replace Missing Teeth?
If you are missing one tooth or just a few teeth, you may not feel the need for a dental restoration. Especially if your missing tooth is in the back of your mouth, where no one can see it, you might think you don’t need to replace it, but this isn’t the case. Leaving a missing tooth unaddressed for too long is more than likely to have adverse effects on your oral health and could also adversely affect your overall health. If there is a space between your teeth because one or more teeth is missing, the teeth surrounding the gap are likely to shift, weakening their roots as they migrate and damaging the bone that supports them. The misalignment caused by this shift will also affect the bite, causing you to overuse certain areas of the mouth at the expense of other areas. This disproportionate muscle use can cause chronic headaches, and unequal stimulation of the bone will cause you to lose bone in the area where there is no tooth root to stimulate and support it. Missing one or more teeth can also make it challenging to eat certain foods, and the lack of diversity in a person’s diet can lead to significant nutritional imbalances. If you have missing teeth, or teeth that are significantly and irreparably broken, replacing these teeth can be an investment into your long-term health that is indispensable.
If you’re missing all of your teeth, you may have conventional dentures, or you may remember an older relative’s removable dentures, but these full arches of teeth aren’t the only kind of dental restoration available for people who are missing one or more natural teeth. If you’re only missing a few teeth, partial dentures can replace the missing teeth with a row of teeth that are supported by the adjacent teeth or by an appliance that snaps into the mouth. Dental implants can be a good option for people who are missing single teeth, as they are permanent and stable and can support individual dental crowns that are custom crafted to match the natural teeth in color, shape, and translucence. Dental implants can also be used to support dental bridges or full dentures; implant-supported dentures and bridges can combine the security and comfort of dental implants with the efficiency and convenience of dentures and bridges. Many people with missing teeth prefer dental implants because they are a permanent solution to missing teeth, and they can be cared for just as you would care for your natural teeth. The most beneficial characteristic of dental implants, however, is the medical benefit they confer: dental implants stimulate the growth of healthy bone in the jaw, restoring the integrity of the bone and the shape of the face.
Dental implants are tiny cylinders made of biocompatible medical-grade material, often titanium, that are surgically implanted in the jawbone where the root of a tooth once was. As the bone that surrounds the cylinder heals, it fuses with the bone, in a process called osseointegration. When the bone has fully healed and is one with the implant, the implant has become a permanent part of the bone and a powerful anchor for the dental restoration. This can take several months, but successful healing is an integral part of the overall success of dental implant treatments. Once the bone has fully healed, the top of the implant is exposed and an abutment is affixed to its tip. Then, the custom-made prosthetic is affixed to the abutment, and the restoration is complete.