Missing teeth usually occur as the result of an accident or injury, decay or gum disease and can have a serious impact on a person’s appearance, social comfort, oral health and functionality of their smile.
Dental implants are an effective, long-lasting and robust tooth loss solution that delivers natural-looking results to help restore your smile and give you back your confidence.
We spoke to some experts who specialise in dental implants in Essex, to find out why it is so important to replace missing teeth and how dental implants can help.
Improve Appearance
Although it may sound superficial, for someone who last lost one or more teeth, it can have a profound impact on their self-confidence, affecting every aspect of their daily lives from their jobs, social interactions and relationships to things as simple as speaking to or eating in front of people.
Dental implants help to fill the gaps where the missing teeth once were with a natural-looking, custom crown that fits in seamlessly with the surrounding teeth to restore your smile and improve overall facial aesthetics.
Enhanced Oral Health
When you lose a tooth, the entire dental structure of your mouth is affected. This is because where there are gaps, the neighbouring teeth will shift and tilt over time towards each other to fill that space.
Crooked teeth can overlap and create areas that toothbrushes and floss cannot effectively clean, leading to issues with oral health that can result in a much higher risk of plaque build-up, tooth decay, gum disease and further tooth loss.
Replacing the missing teeth with a dental implant works to prevent the other teeth from shifting, making it easier to clean your teeth, improving oral hygiene and keeping your smile straight and healthy.
Prevents Bone Loss
With the jawbone, the force from the actions of chewing and biting works to stimulate the area around the teeth, sending signals to what are called ‘osteoblasts’ to keep that bone strong. When a tooth is lost, there are no stimuli to encourage the development of new tissues, and this results in bone resorption.
If this occurs then it can lead to the deterioration of the facial structure and cause issues that affect the vertical dimensions of the jaw contour, leading to sagging cheeks, premature wrinkling and early on set ageing.
Replacing missing teeth as soon as possible helps to create a strong, stable support that mimics real teeth to halt bone absorption, prevent the jaw from changing shape and maintain the healthy facial structure.
Restores Function
We need our teeth to carry out basic everyday functions such as eating and speaking, but when a person has one or more teeth missing, it can compromise their ability to do these simple things.
Tooth loss can impact a person’s speech, especially if they have lost one of the front teeth. This can make them feel self-conscious and affect their jobs, relationships or social lives which can put a strain on mental health and wellbeing. When it comes to eating, losing a tooth can mean it is more difficult to bite or chew certain types of foods, limiting dietary choices, impacting nutrition, weight and overall health.
Replacing the missing teeth with robust dental implants helps to restore chewing functions and speech so that they can go about their daily lives and carry out these essential functions with ease.
Stops Further Tooth Loss
When you lose one tooth, there is a much greater risk of you losing subsequent teeth. This is because those around the gap are less supported, meaning they can shift over time, becoming loose and eventually falling out. Not only this but the uneven bite leads to an impaired chewing function which puts additional strain on the remaining teeth, causing them to weaken and leading to a greater chance of wear, fractures and tooth loss.
By placing a dental implant into the empty space, the surrounding teeth are supported and there is nowhere for them to move to which helps to keep them from shifting and prevents further tooth loss.