Losing one of your teeth is a disappointing situation that immediately impacts your everyday life. While the effect on your appearance is quite clear, you quickly come to understand how your smile’s function reduces. Because you rely on your teeth to aid in forming speech, losing a tooth can alter the sound of your voice. You find yourself avoiding once favorite foods that now threaten to harm your open socket. Without the stability of the now missing tooth, the remaining teeth risk drifting. This compacts problems with your smile’s alignment, leading to potential incidences of tooth decay and gum disease. You may even feel consistent soreness in the joints of your jaw as you move your mouth in awkward positions to attempt to complete your bite. Fortunately, by pursuing a prosthodontic replacement tooth, you can return your bite’s ability and appearance in a handful of visits.
At Sunny Smiles Family Dentistry, we provide restorative dental services that help you respond to losing a tooth. We can examine your mouth to determine if you are healthy enough for a dental implant. Because this treatment secures permanently within your jawbone, you require enough bone density to hold it in place. For alternative treatments, we also offer dental bridges that can return your smile without the need for surgery.
Responding To Missing Teeth
What are the conditions that lead to losing one or more of your teeth? When a person neglects their oral hygiene, plaque, and tartar can wear away at a tooth to the point it becomes unsalvagable. When this happens, we may suggest extracting the remaining portion of your tooth to prevent decay from spreading to neighbors in your smile. While tooth decay is preventable, sporting injuries and other freak accidents may be much harder to predict. Both situations suggest candidacy for dental implantation.
The most common reason for missing teeth among adults, however, is gum disease. When gum infection eats away at the connective tissue that secures your teeth to your jaw, your smile becomes unstable. If we detect an active case of gum infection, we suggest periodontal maintenance to remove bacteria and reduce your inflammatory process.
Placing A Dental Implant
By inserting a titanium post through your open socket into the jawbone, your oral tissues fuse to hold it in place. This biocompatible prosthetic provides the opportunity to secure a false tooth above the gum line that restores your bite and smile’s appearance. To care for your implant tooth, continue brushing and flossing daily and stick to a semiannual checkup schedule.
SPEAK WITH YOUR DENTIST AT SUNNY SMILES ABOUT A PROSTHETIC SOLUTION FOR MISSING TEETH
A dental implant can help preserve your smile after losing a tooth. 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.