Failing to replace missing teeth can have severe repercussions for oral health. A gap left behind may promote gum disease, cause crookedness in adjacent healthy teeth or shift their alignment, leading to further oral issues and shifting alignment issues with other healthy teeth.
As well as this, an empty space can impede your ability to properly chew foods and cause deficiencies in nutrition, leading many people to opt for dental implants as a form of restoration therapy.
Difficulty Chewing
Diet can become increasingly challenging without teeth to chew food properly and you may find it harder to consume certain hard or chewy items, which in turn could negatively impact your health over time. If this occurs frequently enough, this could eventually force you to refrain from these types of meals and have serious repercussions for overall wellbeing.
At the same time, without natural teeth to support it, the adjacent ones may shift into the gap and change your bite pattern, leading to crooked or twisted teeth and even bone resorption.
Missing teeth can also make it more challenging to communicate clearly. Slurred or whispered speech could result in social situations or speeches at work or school being embarrassing; you might feel self-conscious and this could affect your confidence; therefore it is vitally important that missing teeth are replaced immediately to avoid such complications from occurring.
Bite Issues
Your mouth was designed to evenly distribute biting forces so they do not harm different types of tissues. When you lose a tooth, those forces become misdirected and cause issues with gums, teeth and jaw bone.
When there’s an empty spot in your mouth, the surrounding teeth tend to shift and fill it in by shifting and shifting into position – this may create crooked, misalign or crowdedness in the form of misalignments, crowding and overlappedness – this makes cleaning difficult while potentially leading to additional oral health concerns.
Taylor Street Dental recommends replacing lost teeth as soon as possible in order to avoid additional issues and more invasive treatment in the future. Contact our office now to discover ways you can restore your smile!
Gum Disease
Losing a tooth increases the risk of infection and decay in surrounding gum tissues and bones, potentially resulting in jaw pain and issues with bite alignment.
An empty space left by a missing tooth can force neighboring teeth to shift into it and create crooked or crowded ones, altering your facial structure and altering its contours and making you appear sunken or asymmetrical.
Dependent upon which teeth are missing, missing teeth may alter how you speak and pronounce words. You could develop a lisp that makes communication more challenging and limits social interactions; you could have difficulty chewing and digestive issues; while clenching or grinding could increase the speed with which supporting tissues deteriorate over time.
Bone Loss
Missing teeth create gaps in the jaw bone that may deteriorate over time. Regular stimulation by biting and chewing helps maintain healthy bone tissue; without it, however, over time your bone structure could weaken and shrink over time.
Sometimes the surrounding teeth shift to fill in an empty space, creating gaps and altering your bite – leading to additional tooth loss and serious health concerns.
Eating can become more challenging with missing teeth as certain foods become harder to chew, which may result in digestive issues or even the development of a lisp, impacting confidence and relationships with people. That is why affordable dental implants should be used to replace missing ones as soon as possible.
Changes in Your Face
Losing even one tooth can have devastating repercussions for your appearance and self-esteem, not to mention health concerns in your mouth and jawbone. As soon as one is gone, surrounding ones shift in to fill in the gap; altering the way your face and lips look as well.
Even if a tooth is missing in the rear, it is still important to replace it immediately. Your remaining back teeth depend on that molar for support; without it they could shift and eventually require dentures as protection from strain and pressure.
Tooth loss may be due to gum disease, tooth decay or an accident and should be addressed immediately in order to avoid further issues. It’s vital that any lost teeth be replaced as soon as possible in order to avoid more complications in the future.
