WHY YOU SHOULD REPLACE A MISSING TOOTH?
Losing a tooth is not something a person plans on. Often, it can be a sudden and devastating loss because of injury or trauma, but it can also happen because of gum disease or other oral health issues. Whatever the case, it is vital to replace missing teeth as soon as possible for a number of reasons.
PREVENT AND TREAT FACIAL COLLAPSE
Facial collapse occurs due to jawbone deterioration and can dramatically impact your appearance and general health. Missing teeth and wearing conventional dentures for many years can lead to jawbone loss and subsequent facial collapse.
As teeth are crucial for shaping the way your face looks, when multiple teeth become lost, this can throw your face’s shape out of balance, leading to hollow cheeks. In extreme circumstances, the chin can start to protrude due to the loss of jawbone over time, creating the appearance of a shorter face, which can age the face dramatically.
PROTECT YOUR EXISTING TEETH
Losing a tooth places pressure on your existing teeth, which pick up the slack when chewing your food. Failing to replace a missing tooth (particularly molars that play a big part in eating) can negatively affect other teeth that wear due to performing functions they are not designed to do.
RESTORE YOUR SPEAKING ABILITY
Missing teeth can make speaking a daily challenge. Many people with missing teeth experience problems with enunciating and pronouncing certain words, which can be detrimental to self-esteem and affect willingness to speak in public or as part of presentations or meetings in the workplace.
If you’re a long-term denture wearer and would like to know more about the differences between dentures and dental implants, read our blog ‘Dental Implants vs Dentures – What’s the Difference?’.
ENJOY YOUR FOOD
Eating is one of life’s great pleasures. Unfortunately, tooth loss can create barriers in your diet, particularly if you’ve lost one or more back teeth. If you’ve had missing teeth for a while, you may be frustrated with how limited your diet has become, with tougher and chewier foods being a no-go. Whilst this can take the fun out of eating, it’s also highly detrimental to your health, as you’re depriving your body of all the food types it needs.
ENJOY SMILING
Even just one tooth can change the way your smile looks, and as we humans have a habit of being self-critical, a missing tooth can become something that really stands out to us each time we look in the mirror, or when we’re in Zoom meetings!
Replacing a missing tooth or teeth can help rebuild a positive relationship with your smile, which gives you increased confidence and allows you to feel more relaxed around others in your social circle and the workplace.
The good news is, as dental implants are embedded in your jaw and fuse with your jawbone, they serve the same purpose as a real tooth, so bone growth and jaw stability are preserved. Unfortunately, traditional dentures cannot offer such support, as they are a removable treatment that does not create a connection with your jawbone in the way dental implants do.
There’s no doubt that extreme changes to the face brought about by facial collapse can be incredibly tough to deal with emotionally. Believe us when we say that seeking to reverse this with dental implants treatment is one of the most life-changing actions you can take.
Not only will dental implants make speaking feel second nature again, but they can also help you feel more confident when talking to friends, family, colleagues and render meeting new people a less stressful experience. It’s always fantastic to see patients’ self-esteem grow once they have replaced missing teeth with dental implants at our dental practice.
If you have been wearing conventional dentures for several years and are considering a more fixed solution to tooth loss, dental implants are your answer. As well as offering single and multiple dental implants for missing teeth, we offer All-on-4 dental implants, which are a popular answer to ill-fitting dentures.
Thanks to All-on-4, it is possible to secure a whole arch of top or bottom teeth using only 4 or 6 implants – ideal for patients with multiple missing teeth and looking for a cost-effective implants treatment. All-on-4 secures dentures in place with implants, eliminating the possibility of slippage when you eat, laugh and speak.
Dental implants can offer the stability your mouth needs to tackle a variety of foods, which will help your body get the full range of vitamins and nutrients it needs.
At Faces of the Mission, we are committed to providing the best solutions for our patients. We understand how important it is to stay ahead of advancements in dentistry. In addition, we are proud to be leaders in robot-assisted dental implant surgery with Yomi® by Neocis, which is the first and only FDA-cleared robotic device for dental implant surgery. In robotic dentistry, the robot does not perform surgery. It does, however, help guide the dentist during an operation. Robotic technology is especially helpful during dental implant procedures by allowing the surgeon to place implants more accurately than ever before.