If you have recently lost one of your teeth, talk to your dentist about your options for restoring your smile. While the esthetic impact of tooth loss may be apparent, its effect on the function of your bite can be much worse. Certain foods you once loved may now cause serious pain. If your voice begins to sound off, it’s because we rely upon our teeth to help form our words. Without replacement, neighboring teeth can drift into the open gap, further misaligning your bite. As your bite worsens, you become more susceptible to tooth decay and gum disease. This can lead to an unvirtuous cycle that contributes to additional dental loss! Fortunately, a dental implant can secure inside your jaw to secure a permanent prosthetic.
At Sunny Smiles Family Dentistry, we want you to know that a hole in your smile should not be permanent! We can inspect the health of your mouth to determine if you are an appropriate candidate for dental implants. Because this unique prosthetic option anchors to your bone, it provides needed stimulation to maintain the density of your jaw. This can prevent the sunken-in look that affects many people with missing teeth.
How Do Adults Lose Their Teeth?
While we expect children to lose their first set of teeth, the primary goal of dentistry in adulthood is to preserve your smile. This means losing a tooth is an unfortunate event, but by understanding the contributing causes of tooth loss, we can prevent losing additional teeth. Predicting a physical accident may be difficult, but we can predict if we are susceptible to tooth decay or gum disease.
Stay on top of your at-home oral care to ensure that cavities and gum recession do not threaten the stability of your smile. If decay advances to a point where fillings or crowns cannot repair a tooth, we will suggest extracting it to prevent the decay from spreading to neighboring teeth.
Designing Your Dental Implant
We will take an X-ray of your jaw to tell if it is dense enough to receive an implant. If so, we can insert a titanium rod directly into the bone through the open socket. Over the coming months, the biocompatible nature of your implant allows it to fuse with your oral tissues, holding it in place for a lifetime. We then connect an abutment to the end of your implant post which can secure a dental crown. We could also place a bridge or set of dentures for more advanced cases of tooth loss.
SPEAK WITH YOUR DENTIST AT SUNNY SMILES ABOUT A PROSTHETIC SOLUTION FOR MISSING TEETH
To learn more about restorative treatment or plan your next visit, please call our Sunny Smiles location on N Zaragoza Rd in El Paso, TX at (915) 849-9000.