When we lose a tooth, whatever the cause, it can be a traumatic and distressing experience. When one lost tooth becomes several lost teeth, as well as negatively affecting our confidence, it can also have serious implications for diet, oral, and general health. Ask any dentist and they will tell you that missing teeth should always be replaced promptly.
Accidents, injuries, and oral health conditions such as gum disease and tooth decay can all lead to tooth loss. If a tooth is knocked out in an accident, your dentist can sometimes reimplant it in the socket, strapping it to adjacent teeth for a few weeks for extra support.
If the tooth can’t be put back in your mouth, for example if it is badly damaged or lost completely, it will need to be permanently replaced. Warrendale Dental Care in Ross-on-Wye advocate using dental implants to replace permanently lost teeth – for one tooth you will need a single implant and a crown.
When several or all the teeth are lost, dental implants are often also the best option. They trump both standard bridges and dentures for a number of reasons, principally their permanent nature and the fact that they are the only way to replace natural tooth roots.
Tooth roots’ primary function is to hold your teeth securely in the jaw, but they also play an important role in preserving the health of your jaw bone. A receding jaw bone is one of the primary reasons that dentures can become loose, which can make it very difficult to eat, to speak, and can leave you feeling under-confident in social situations. It can also lead to painful sores in the mouth caused by your dentures rubbing.
Restrictions on your diet can lead to a range of general health complaints if they affect your ability to eat some of the major food groups. A dentist can stabilise your denture by placing dental implants, which both hold the denture securely and comfortably in place and support bone growth to alleviate bone loss problems.
Implants are designed to be permanent – they have a success rate of more than 90% and can last for decades.