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How Missing Teeth Change Your Life

Your teeth are important. They perform multiple crucial functions, such as eating and speaking. They give you a beautiful smile and are an essential part of your jawbone health. Chances are that you don’t often think about them, even if you lose a few. Ignoring missing teeth can be quite detrimental. At Dallas Prosthodontics, we understand the repercussions of not addressing missing teeth and offer many solutions to help you replace them.

Poor Health

When you lose your teeth, eating normally becomes difficult. You can no longer chew your food properly. Some foods get stuck in the gaps, while other foods become impossible to eat. Chewing is the first step in digestion, helping to break down what you eat into smaller pieces, making it easier for the body to absorb nutrients. When foods are not broken down the way they should be, digestion is affected. Ultimately, it can lead to malnutrition due to improper nutrient absorption.

Hard to Communicate

You don’t often connect your teeth with speaking. However, they play an important role in this function. Your teeth control air flow and certain sounds require your tongue to tap against them. Without your teeth, air flows freely often resulting in a lisp. The more teeth that are missing, the harder speaking becomes and the more difficult it becomes for others to understand you.

Man with missing teeth

Self-Consciousness

Your smile is often the very first thing that people notice about you. When you are missing your teeth, your smile is incomplete and imperfect. This can often lead others to get a less than impressed first impression of you. The efforts to hide your smile (either by smiling with your lips closed or disguising your mouth with your hand) can have this same effect.

Altered Facial Structure

Believe it or not, your teeth play a crucial role in maintaining the health and strength of your jaw. Every time you chew, the roots of your teeth stimulate your jawbone, which sends a message to your body that nutrients are needed. In response, essential vitamins and minerals are sent through the bloodstream to the jaw. When you lose your teeth, those messages are no longer sent. Your body thinks these nutrients are no longer needed and therefore sends them elsewhere. As a result, your jawbone begins to weaken and slowly changes shape. Not only does this alter the structure of your face, giving you a more aged appearance, it also causes your remaining teeth to shift from their original positions. In turn, this affects your bite, which can then lead to other serious oral health issues, including uneven wear on healthy teeth and trouble with your temporomandibular joint.

What Can You Do?

Fortunately, missing teeth can be replaced, restoring not only the function of your teeth but the appearance of your smile. At Dallas Prosthodontics, we have several options for you to choose from, including bridges, dentures (both partial and full) and dental implants. All of these options are meant to give you back your life.

Single Tooth Replacement
Dallas, TX

Missing a single tooth can look trivial, but it can really change the appearance of your smile and even affect your dental health. One missing tooth will leave a space that will affect how you chew food, and even disturb your speech production. Thankfully, you can replace just a single tooth without waiting for others to fall out or even causing a detriment to your jawbone health. At Dallas Prosthodontics, we carry out single tooth replacement to help patients restore their smiles, oral health, and ability.

What Is A Single Tooth Replacement?

Single tooth replacement is a procedure our professionals perform to restore a missing tooth for patients. Dental implants are the most suitable solutions for a single tooth replacement. Dental implants consist of three parts. One is a tiny titanium post which is surgically placed inside the jawbone to act as a tooth root. Another is an abutment which holds the third part which is a crown to the titanium post. With so many benefits to offer, dental implants prove to be long lasting solutions with little to worry about.

How Is A Single Tooth Replaced With A Dental Implant?

Once you lose a tooth, our professionals advise that you come for a replacement as soon as possible. This is to prevent the jawbone in that space from losing its density. In your initial appointment, our professionals will examine the vacant space. We will also go through your dental and health records to ensure that you are a fit candidate for a dental implant.

If you do not have adequate jawbone density in the space, you may require an initial bone graft procedure. This will help to rebuild your jawbone to required health. Once healed, the procedure for placing the dental implant will commence. Our team will surgically place the implant post into your jaw, and allow your jawbone to bond with the post during a healing period. The bonding is necessary to hold the post securely.

After the jawbone has healed, holding the implant post firmly, we will proceed to attach the abutment to the post. This may require several weeks to heal. Finally, a crown that has been previously designed to fit your teeth alignment will be placed to complete the tooth replacement.

Benefits Of A Single Tooth Replacement

While the most obvious benefit is an instant and enhanced restoration of your beautiful smile, single tooth implants offer better esthetics for your dentition. They subtly blend in with your natural teeth to give the perfect finished look. With dental implants, your natural teeth are all still retained, as other replacement options may require that you remove or reshape some of them.

Also, replacing a single tooth with dental implants ensures that your teeth alignment is preserved, and more importantly, bone loss is prevented. Dental implants are a good choice for your oral health, and they tend to last a lifetime.

So, do not hesitate about replacing your single missing tooth. You can contact us at Dallas Prosthodontics to learn more about how you can benefit from a single tooth replacement. Call us today at (972) 503-7200 to schedule a fitting consultation.