Don’t Wait Too Long To Replace a Missing Tooth – Here’s Why

A missing tooth can cause more problems than simply a gap in your smile. In fact, leaving tooth replacement too long can have catastrophic effects on your oral health and function.

Many of our patients are often shocked when we explain the consequences of waiting too long for tooth replacement. With this in mind, we wanted to share those consequences with you in our latest blog, so you can act quickly to protect your oral health.

Why You Shouldn’t Wait Too Long To Replace a Missing Tooth

Involuntary Tooth Movement

When you lose a tooth, it leaves your remaining teeth vulnerable for a number of reasons, one of which is involuntary tooth movement.

When you lose a tooth, your remaining teeth will immediately and gradually start to shift into the gap left behind. This creates multiple smaller gaps in your teeth, making it much easier for issues like decay and gum disease to occur.

You may also need orthodontic treatment to restructure your smile when gaps have occurred due to missing teeth, in addition to tooth replacement treatment. However, orthodontic treatment is completely avoidable if you act quickly to address tooth loss.

Premature ageing of the face

It’s not just your smile’s vitality that will decline when you lose a tooth. The whole aesthetic of the face can change when gaps are left untreated. It’s not uncommon to notice hollowing in the cheek area, as well as a more angular jawline.

So, why does this happen?

When tooth roots are absent from the jaw, the jaw begins to struggle without stimulation. In response, it starts to waste away – the clinical name for this is resorption.

The good news is, it is reversible, but we’d much rather our patients didn’t have to go through it in the first place! We will always seek to educate our patients on the risks of leaving a tooth untreated (hence this blog!) so that restorative treatment can be avoided.

However, if you do require treatment for tooth loss and jawbone resorption, a dental implant is your best option.

A dental implant tackles the issue of resorption head-on, by becoming replacement tooth roots within the jaw. They are the only tooth replacement treatment to boast this advantage, and they can be totally life-changing for patients.

Meliora Dental’s implant dentist and Practice Principal Dr Kunal Rai has helped countless patients achieve tooth replacement using dental implants. If you have suffered with jawbone loss as a result of living with gaps in your smile, Kunal can help you take the first steps to turn this around and be with you every step of the journey to a healthier smile and younger-looking facial aesthetic. Simply click on the Meliora Dental website after you’ve looked up ‘dental implants Leeds’ in Google.

Tooth wear

Each individual tooth plays its role when you break down foods of all textures. When one is lost, this throws your chewing and biting capacity out of balance. You might have noticed since losing a tooth (particularly if it’s one of your back teeth), that you do most of your chewing on the other side of your mouth.

This can eventually lead to tooth wear on the teeth located on the side of the mouth you chew on, leaving you more vulnerable to decay and cavities.

Here at Meliora Dental, we can use dental implants to perform full mouth rehabilitation. Crowns are then placed over the top, giving you a new and healthy tooth surface with which to efficiently chew and bite. The crowns for your implant are custom-made and help to rebalance the forces across the mouth.

Lapse in self-confidence

Losing a tooth doesn’t just leave gaps in your teeth, but gaps in your confidence too.

Living with missing teeth can be destructive to your emotional wellbeing.

Many of Dr Kunal’s patients tell him that the most detrimental impact of living with missing teeth has been on their self-worth. Many have even said they stopped smiling in public altogether, and that they feel their dating lives and career prospects have been hampered by not having a full smile.

With this feedback in mind, dental implants don’t just restore functionality, but they can transform the emotional welfare of an individual too. Once restored, a full smile can help you to smile freely and make a fantastic first impression on everyone who passes through your life.

What Are Your Options For Replacing a Missing Tooth?

We believe in giving our patients as much choice as we can when it comes to tooth replacement.

We believe that dentistry should never be one-size-fits-all, and every part of your treatment will be customised, whether you choose dental implants, a dental bridge, or a denture.

Whilst bridges and dentures provide a reliable solution to tooth loss, there is no beating dental implants.

Dental implants are a biomimetic treatment; they imitate the functions of real tooth roots, and they’re an entirely fixed option. Bridges and dentures, on the other hand, do not sit within the jawbone, therefore they can’t offer the same level of restoration and enhancement as dental implants.

Dental Implants: Leeds Meliora Dental Can Help You Smile Again

As an implant-based dental practice, there’s nothing we enjoy more than seeing a patient overjoyed at the effect a new smile can have on their physical and mental health. We strongly recommend addressing tooth loss as soon as it occurs, to avoid the problems we’ve explored above – we promise you won’t regret it!

Almost 3 in 4 adults have had a tooth extracted, but it doesn’t have to be this way! As well as restoring your smile, we can offer preventive periodontal advice to avoid gum disease (the biggest threat to the dental health of adults in the UK).

Get in touch with us to book your consultation with Dr Kunal Rai today and set yourself on the path to a smile and confidence transformation.