Did you know that your tooth roots, jawbone tissue, gums, and other teeth hold all your teeth in place? According to oral health experts, losing one tooth increases the risk of further tooth loss. Besides having a tremendous impact on your self-confidence, missing teeth leads to other complications down the road. Luckily, restorative dentists are ready to discuss why patients should replace missing teeth with bridges, implants, and full-arch dentures in Reno.
What Are the Benefits of Replacing Missing Teeth?
Since replacing a missing tooth improves the mouth’s overall health, dental professionals highly recommend tooth replacement. Tooth loss negatively affects the surrounding teeth, nutrition, and jawbone density.
- It Improves Your Ability to Speak
Oral structures such as the tongue and teeth play significant roles in speech. Correct pronunciation requires your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth and teeth as you form words. For this reason, missing teeth impacts your ability to speak clearly. Moreover, certain words become challenging to say depending on the areas in your mouth teeth are missing.
Additionally, patients with missing front teeth usually avoid revealing the gap by developing the habit of mumbling or covering their mouth with their hands while talking. If you’ve suffered tooth loss and are looking to speak clearly and confidently, you’ll want to ask your dentist about tooth-replacement options that support proper speech.
- It Restores Your Chewing Power
Changes in how you eat your food can result from missing one or more teeth. For instance, if you’re missing molars on one side of your mouth, you’ll chew your food slower using your teeth on the other side.
Moreover, food debris can scratch your gums and cause pain when they enter where teeth used to be. Since missing teeth limits your diet to what your remaining teeth can handle, you’ll eat less and miss out on many vital nutrients. Unless you replace your missing teeth, this concern will result in poor nutrition and other health issues.
Besides filling in the gaps in your smile, tooth replacement options restore your chewing power. Since new teeth expand your diet, you won’t have to stick to soft foods or steer clear of harder, crunchier, and healthier food options.
- It Strengthens and Preserves Your Jawbone
Your teeth have roots that extend down to your alveolar bone or the portion of your jaw that anchors your teeth in your mouth. Your jawbone needs the tooth roots to stimulate new bone growth.
When you lose a tooth, the area of your jawbone where the tooth is missing will no longer receive the necessary stimulation. The lack of stimulation triggers your body to absorb the minerals in the jaw and use them elsewhere.
As a result, the jawbone surrounding the empty socket starts to deteriorate, and you may eventually experience facial collapse. When the shape of your face changes due to facial collapse, you’ll look older than you really are.
Since the implants act as natural tooth roots, replacing your teeth with dental implants or implant-supported dentures will give your jawbone tissue enough stimulation to keep it healthy.
- It Boosts Your Oral Health
Did you know that each tooth in your mouth supports the teeth around it? Once a tooth is missing, the surrounding teeth will have nothing to lean on. Consequently, they’ll shift out of their correct positions and tilt toward the open space, leading to dental misalignment.
Unfortunately, crooked teeth are more challenging to clean. For this reason, they increase your chances of tooth decay, cavities, or further tooth loss. Thankfully, tooth replacement options can help prevent excess hard-to-reach tartar buildup by keeping your remaining natural teeth in their original positions.
- It Brings Back Your Self-Confidence
Whether you like it or not, the first thing people notice about you is your smile. People who aren’t satisfied with their teeth look often have low self-esteem. Consequently, they feel self-conscious and uncomfortable in social situations and might avoid them altogether.
If you’re among the 25% of people with missing teeth who don’t feel comfortable with their smiles, you owe it to yourself to schedule a consultation with a qualified and experienced restorative dentist.
What Are the Different Options for Tooth Replacement?
Single Dental Implants
A dental implant is a screw-like post that acts as an artificial root once it has fused with the bone. Moreover, the dentist begins the procedure by surgically placing a single dental implant into the gum and jaw tissue by drilling a hole in the bone.
Once the screw-shaped implant post fuses with the bone via osseointegration, the dentist attaches a temporary dental crown to the implant’s abutment until the gums heal. Finally, they’ll remove the temporary crown and replace it with a permanent one.
Whether missing one or several teeth, you can restore your smile with multiple single-tooth implants. However, it’s worth noting that your dentist must place each implant individually.
Moreover, the best candidate for a single dental implant has healthy gums, practices good oral hygiene, has enough bone to support the implant, and is a non-smoker. Conversely, patients who have any form of gum disease, have poor oral hygiene, don’t have enough bone density, and are smokers are likely to experience dental implant failure.
Denture Retention Implants
Unlike traditional dentures that shift in the mouth or fall out, denture retention implants stay in place. Furthermore, the dentist surgically attaches the dentures to the mouth by installing dental implant screws into the jaw for an effective and permanent solution.
Besides offering more stability, denture retention implants retain jawbone density and eliminate the need for denture adhesives. Best of all, these tooth replacements typically last a lifetime. It’s worth noting that anyone who’s missing several teeth and has good gum, bone, and overall health can benefit from this treatment.
Full Arch Dentures
This tooth-replacement option replaces all teeth in your upper or lower jaw with one full bridge arch. Since a full arch treatment requires less surgery than other options for restorative dentistry, it’s more convenient and affordable than other procedures.
Your dentist makes your custom bridge arch by grabbing an impression of your teeth before the treatment. Next, they’ll strategically place each implant in your mouth before having the arch over them. Once you complete the healing process, the dentist fits you for your permanent bridge.
Considering Full Arch Dentures in Reno?
At Smile Design Implant Center, we offer top-quality dental services so you can achieve your best smile yet. Contact us today to make an appointment.
Get Your Smile Back
We at Smile Design Implant Center exist to help our patients transform their lives and improve their health and quality of life. We believe that a beautiful, confident smile equates to a healthier, more fulfilling life. We strive to be the premier practice in dental transformation through service and technology.