Dental implants can make a big difference in the look of your smile, your self-confidence, and your overall health. By replacing missing teeth, implants help keep the rest of your teeth healthy and also help you maintain a proper diet.
Why Replace My Missing Teeth?
Missing teeth are often considered to be just a cosmetic issue, but gaps in your smile can cause serious problems if left alone. Other teeth will start to move into the empty spaces, creating misalignment. This means your upper and lower teeth won’t fit together properly anymore. This can create a variety of problems, including:
- Abnormal wear and tear
- Teeth grinding and clenching
- Temporomandibular joint disorder
- Headaches
- Premature tooth loss
Replacing your missing teeth will help prevent these problems. Prosthetic teeth maintain the proper alignment between top and bottom teeth and keep other teeth from moving out of position. You also won’t encounter other problems associated with missing teeth, such as an inability to chew nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables. These foods can be difficult to chew if you have missing teeth, and they can also present problems for denture wearers. If you have dental implants, though, you will be able to eat anything you want.
Choosing Dental Implants
If you have missing teeth, talk to an implant dentist about replacing them with implants. While traditional dentures and bridges replace the visible portions of the teeth—the chewing and biting surfaces—but do not provide a replacement root. Therefore the jawbone tends to atrophy over time, because there is no root to stimulate its growth.
Implants, though, feature an artificial root. This root, made of titanium, is placed directly in the jawbone. The prosthetic tooth, made of porcelain or another tooth-colored substance, attaches to the root. As you bite and chew, your new teeth stimulate growth in your jawbone, keeping it strong and healthy. Over time, your face will avoid developing the shrunken look commonly seen in older people with numerous missing teeth.
Call our office today to discuss your own implant options!
