Different Ways of Dealing with Tooth Loss
The loss of your adult teeth, whether it's one or several, can have a detrimental affect on your dental health, function and aesthetics. You can compare your teeth in your jaw to stones comprising an archway, all together the arch is strong and stable but remove a stone and the entire structure could collapse. The replacement of teeth helps prevent your dental system from failing. It improves chewing efficiency, prevents gum deterioration, helps to evenly distribute the stresses of your bite and helps to keep the lips and cheeks from sinking inward. There are basically three options available for tooth replacement therapy, removable dentures, bridges and dental implants.
Removable dentures
One option is to replace missing teeth with dentures. Dentures can replace one tooth or several teeth, and are removable. They are never cemented in and they rely on metal clasps and acrylic overlays to deep them in place. Full dentures simply rely on suction. Some dentures can appear to look natural, but functionally they create a lot of stress on the remaining teeth and the tissues they rest on.
Bridges
Bridges are the second option for tooth replacement and are usually made of gold or porcelain-bonded to metal. This option requires one or more of your natural teeth on either side of the space to be capped or crowned and the artificial tooth is bridged between them. A bridge is structurally one unit but looks like several individual teeth. Once cemented in permanently, a bridge has an average lifespan of 10–15 years.
The aesthetics are usually quite good and chewing function for most people is comparable to chewing on natural teeth. The main drawback is the need to use adjacent teeth. Some teeth may not warrant the treatment of being prepared for crowns only to support a bridge.
Dental Implants
The final option available is dental implant therapy. This method is the only one that not only replaces a missing tooth, but also re-establishes the root to anchor that tooth in the mouth. The anchor resembles a small screw and is surgically placed under the gum tissue, into the bone and left for the bone to harden around it. Once healed, the implant can be used to support an artificial tooth, a bridge or full dentures.
The aesthetics and stability of implants is excellent with long term success rates between 90-95%. Although dental implants can take longer than dental bridges, they have the large benefit of not affecting the adjacent natural teeth.
The Placement of Dental Implants
Teeth and gums before procedure
Showing the dental implant inserted into jawbone
X-ray showing how the dental implant fits into the jawbone, just like a real tooth
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