A youthful, symmetrical face is envied just as much as the perfect smile. However, if you’re missing some teeth, it can affect your appearance more than you realise. Besides a gap in your smile, missing teeth can weaken your jawbone, change your facial shape, and cause wrinkles.
Recent studies show that ‘74% of British adults have had at least one tooth removed’ (2022). But, even if it’s just a molar or two, this can impact your appearance and smile because the teeth stabilise the jaw and the surrounding bones, which gives the face its structure.
All of your teeth are equally as important in preventing facial collapse. Your back teeth are responsible for maintaining your jawline and its structure, while the front teeth support the muscles in your lips and cheeks.
There are times when losing some teeth is inevitable. For instance, you may require extraction before orthodontic treatment if you have a small mouth. A dentist will oversee this extraction, and a brace will shift the teeth evenly around the space in the mouth to stop the face from collapsing. However, replacing teeth with a denture, bridge, or dental implant is essential if you lose teeth at any other time.
Even if you lose only one tooth, your jawbone will feel the loss more than you realise. After only one year of missing teeth, you can experience 25% boss loss. Jawbone atrophy weakens your mouth, making it harder to support the remaining teeth. Therefore, if you lose teeth, the neighbouring ones will shift around and become misaligned. It can also change your facial shape.
After losing your teeth, you should act fast to replace them. This is because, over time, your jaw can weaken too much for dental implants or bridges. If this is the case, the only remaining option is dentures or a bone graft to improve bone atrophy. After a bone graft, you can then seek dental implants.
Why Do Missing Teeth Matter?
Missing teeth are a serious matter because once the jawbone weakens, it cannot support your face’s structure. This is especially true for lost molars which leave empty space for the sides of the mouth to cave in and look hollow. As a result, your face can collapse, making it look sunken and shorter than normal.
The space between your nose and chin will also decrease as the lower part of your face collapses. This can change the appearance of your entire face, creating asymmetry or a permanent frown.
Not only can missing teeth age your face because of gaps, but it can also produce wrinkles and soften the definition of your jawline.
Lastly, your bite may be off. As your bones shrink, your teeth stop touching each other, making it harder to bite or chew. You may suffer from an excessive underbite, overbite or crossbite. You may also experience pain from conditions such as TMD. A bone graft followed by dental implants is the best fix.
How We Can Help Missing Teeth From Changing Your Appearance:
Dental implants are an innovative and permanent way to replace missing teeth. Implants also significantly support and protect the rest of the teeth and jaw so that the face can regain its former appearance.
A dental implant has two parts; a titanium screw that acts as an artificial tooth root and a custom-made crown that acts and feels just like a natural tooth.
A dental implant involves multiple surgical procedures because you must wait for the body to heal between stages. If the dentist needs to extract your tooth, you’ll have to wait 2-4 months for the socket to heal. However, if the tooth is already missing, you’ll need less time in the dentist’s chair. After extraction, a dentist will make a gentle incision into your gum and secure the titanium screw into the jawbone, which will take another 3-6 months to heal. Once the gum has healed, an abutment, also known as the connecting piece, is secured to the implant. Finally, a custom-made crown, designed to match the rest of your smile, is fitted to the abutment. So, in all, that’s about 5-10 months to replace a decaying tooth.
At the Bristol Dental Practice, we offer bridges, dentures, full-arch and All-On-Four implants to reverse the effects of missing teeth on your oral health and appearance.
All-On-Four implants are a transformative treatment that can replace a complete set of teeth from four or six implants. These implants, known as same-day dental implants are fitted in a single visit so you can have a full set of new teeth in one day.
We can provide bridges and dentures to fill wide, empty spaces if your jawbone is too weak for dental implants.
Taking good care of your oral hygiene is also needed to prevent infection and tooth decay, which are the main reasons for tooth loss. Regular brushing, flossing, and routine check-ups with our dentists and hygienists can help lower the chances of missing teeth.
Are You Missing Teeth? Dental Implants At Bristol Dental Practice Are The Best Way To Fix It.
Both our principal dentist, Dr Jonathan Cochrane, and aesthetics dentist, Dr Devin Vaghela, have treated over 5,000 implant cases at the Bristol Dental Practice.
Contact us at 0117 405 4374 to book an appointment with our Treatment Coordinator, Rebecca Hawkings, to discuss the best way to fix your missing teeth. You can also contact us online. We want to make your trip to the dentist as stress-free as possible. That’s why we offer 0% finance to all our patients.
We look forward to welcoming you!