Most adults have lost a tooth or two. If you’ve still got all your teeth, you can probably skip this post for now, but you may want this information in the future. Unless the only teeth you’ve lost have been your wisdom teeth, there’s a chance your missing teeth could lead to a decline in oral health. Unfortunately, losing a tooth and not getting it replaced is a potential route to losing more teeth. The solution? Southlake TX oral surgeon Chris Tye provides dental implants to replace missing teeth and preserve your oral health.
If you are interested in learning about dental implants, Southlake TX oral surgeon Dr. Christopher Tye can help you. Call our Colleyville office at 817-552-3223 to make an appointment.
How Do Lost Teeth Affect Your Healthy Teeth?
Many patients who lose a tooth think, “I’ve still got another 27 teeth left; losing one is no big deal.” But the truth is that proper placement of teeth is necessary for good oral health. When you lose a tooth, the other teeth around it don’t just stay in their proper places. They start to drift toward the open space. This can upset how well your teeth fit together and how they work together to chew your food. Problems in your bite can make teeth more vulnerable to friction from chewing and may make them more prone to cracking and enamel damage.
Having a lost tooth replaced promptly is a good way to make sure your other teeth stay in their correct spots and don’t create new alignment and bite problems. Many patients develop temporomandibular joint (TMJ) problems after losing a tooth and not having it restored. If the lost tooth is a molar, it can change how you chew your food and you may become more partial to one side of the mouth. Soon, your jaw muscles grow stronger on one side and weaker on the other and the jaw joints no longer work together to open and close the jaw in a balanced way.
Two Ways to Replace a Lost Tooth
There are two ways to replace a lost tooth: bridgework and dental implants. A tooth bridge can stabilize your teeth, so a gap doesn’t upset your alignment, but it’s not as healthy as a dental implant. Before dental implants were widely available, a dental bridge was the standard way to restore a lost tooth, but it wasn’t ideal. Bridges require the teeth adjacent to the gap to be crowned, and are dependent on the health of those adjacent teeth to stay stable. If one of the two teeth in the bridge construction should fail, the whole bridge fails; instead of one missing teeth, you now have two!
Dental implants are a better choice for three reasons:
(1) A dental implant is a free-standing restoration that will not affect any of your other teeth.
(2) Dental implants preserve the health of your jawbone better and prevent bone loss.
(3) Dental implants are considered permanent. Bridges usually have to be replaced every 8 years or so, but an implant can often last forever.
Lost a Tooth? Contact Southlake TX Oral Surgeon Dr. Chris Tye
Dental implants are an excellent way to restore a missing tooth, and they feel natural and stable in your mouth. If you’ve lost a tooth, we will assess your oral health and determine whether you are a good candidate for one or more implant restorations. As a dual-degreed dentist and oral surgeon, Dr. Tye has the knowledge and experience to make sure your dental implant is properly placed and monitored after your surgery. Contact us today for an appointment with a Southlake TX oral surgeon at Texas Oral Surgery Specialists.
