Ways To Replace Missing Teeth

Missing teeth don’t just affect your appearance, it also negatively impacts your oral health. Gaps in your teeth can affect the way you talk or chew, and cause a range of serious dental problems if left untreated. Faced with the prospect of further damage to your smile, what are you to do?

If you’re missing a tooth, the first thing you should do is schedule an appointment with your dentist. Their job and passion are helping restore the look and function of your smile.

First, you should know why it’s not good to leave holes in your mouth. Then we’ll tell you 3 options for how we replace your teeth, depending on your specific needs and desired outcomes.

Don’t Let Missing Teeth Affect Your Smile

Lifestyle And Health Issues That Can Be Caused By Missing Teeth

While gaps in your teeth are immediately noticeable by others, there are a host of health concerns that go beyond the appearance of your smile..

Trouble Speaking

Losing your teeth can impact your ability to speak properly. Even one lost tooth may make it hard to pronounce certain words or give you a lisp.

Difficulty Eating

From tearing meat to gnashing food into a paste, each of your teeth has a specific function and purpose.

Missing teeth make it harder to properly chew your food. Foods that aren’t chewed fully don’t provide as much nutrition, and compensating by chewing with the other side of your mouth unevenly wears down your teeth.

Bone Loss In Your Jaw

Your teeth support the jaw’s healthy bone density. When a tooth is missing, the bone stops building cells in order to stay strong. Over time the bone weakens, reducing the health and stability of your other teeth.

Crooked Teeth

Without all your teeth in place to stabilise one another, constant pressure from chewing can force teeth on either side of the gap to bend inward. This leads to jaw pain, misaligned bites, and a crooked look.

Gum Disease

Spaces in your mouth are more susceptible to gum disease. The bacteria that cause gum disease more easily breed and hide out in spaces between your teeth. Gum disease leads to gum tissue pulling away from your teeth and eventually to bone deterioration and tooth loss.

Damage To Self Esteem

The risks of missing teeth aren’t all health-related. A damaged smile may leave you feeling embarrassed to show your teeth in front of others and negatively affect your self-esteem and confidence.

Filling The Gaps For A Happier & Healthier Smile

The good news is that replacing missing teeth is easier than you think. You have multiple options to bring your smile back to life. Dental implants, bridges, & dentures all fill the gaps and get your chompers chomping again with confidence.

Dental Implants

Implants are about as close as it gets to a true tooth replacement. An implant replaces both the visible part of your tooth and also the root with a metal screw inserted into the bone. The bone in your jaw grows around the titanium post creating a super stable and solid connection.

Dental implants are an amazing solution to fill in the gaps in your mouth, giving you a  natural-looking fixed tooth replacement while keeping the bone and gums healthy.

Fixed Or Composite Bridge

If you’re missing a tooth, dental bridges & crowns can cover the gap left in your mouth. A dental bridge functions much the same way as a regular bridge; the two teeth on either side of the gap act as anchors with a connecting “bridge” tooth filling the gap.

Dental crowns are fitted over the anchor teeth, with the connecting tooth secured in the gap. A dental bridge is non-surgical and takes significantly less time to complete than an implant, but a bridge may not suitable in all circumstances.

Dentures

If you’ve lost many or all of your teeth, or your existing teeth and gums cannot support a bridge or implant, a set of natural-looking and custom-made dentures can get your smile back to looking and functioning its best.

Gone are the days of bulky and uncomfortable dentures that easily move around in your mouth or fall out. Today’s dentures are made from colour-matched and high-tech resins carefully crafted for impressive comfort and a natural look.

Partial dentures replace a few missing teeth while full dentures replace all of your teeth. With a new set of teeth, you can enjoy steak or corn on the cob once again with ease.

Replacing your missing teeth restores function and completes your unique look, giving you the confidence to smile wide again. Schedule an appointment for a no-obligation consultation with one of our dental specialists. We’ll help you decide which treatment option is best and answer any questions you have.

A brighter smile starts with King Street Dental. Call us today.