Do You Have Missing Teeth?
Missing teeth happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes people are simply born without certain teeth. While other times, teeth are removed by a dentist or are lost through trauma. No matter the reason, living with a missing tooth can be both embarrassing and frustrating. Your overall course of action in dealing with a missing tooth will largely depend on what tooth is missing and where that tooth is located.
Treatment Options
There are many different treatment options available to you should you want to correct the space or spaces caused by a missing tooth or missing teeth:
- Leave the Area Alone – Most patients who have lost a back tooth simply choose to let the area stay as it is. The issue with this, however, is that without a proper replacement, lack of biting pressure on the area will cause a loss of bone density. Furthermore, the teeth surrounding the area will begin to shift and drift out of place, which will affect your bite and cause more issues down the road
- Dental Bridgework – In some cases, a simple bridge may be the best alternative to fill in the gap between two teeth. In this option, the two teeth surrounding the space are drilled down in order to create a connecting post and crown. As the name suggests, those two teeth act as an anchor to the false tooth that will connect between them
- Dental Implants – In a dental implant procedure, a post is surgically implanted into the bone tissue by an oral surgeon. After a period of healing, your dentist will then fit a crown onto the post, thus filling in the gap
- Composite Bridges – If possible, this is potentially a better option over traditional bridgework in that the overall tooth structure of the anchoring teeth is preserved. Instead of drilling the teeth down, your dentist will simply use composite, or tooth-coloured material, to build off of the adjacent teeth in order to fill the gap
- A Removable Appliance – Just as the name suggests, an artificial tooth and supporting structure is made out of acrylic material. Not only does this fill the gap with a seemingly real looking tooth, but it also is easily removed so that both the appliance and the area can be thoroughly and regularly cleaned
No matter which option ends up being the best option for you, let the caring and skilled staff at Divine Dental Care help you erase those embarrassing spaces in your smile today.