This article provides a list of important reasons why a missing tooth or several missing teeth should never go without replacement.

Whether you have lost one tooth in a nasty car accident, or have steadily lost them over the years to gum disease, dental implants offer fixed and long-lasting solutions that simply aren’t rivaled by any other tooth replacement technology. Losing a tooth has a devastating effect upon the appearance of your smile. Even if the tooth has gone missing or been extracted from the back of your mouth where it is not entirely visible, there are some serious consequences for your oral health.

The Health Considerations of Ignoring Missing Teeth

Experts in the placement of Manhattan dental implants always stress the importance of replacing missing teeth as soon as possible. And not just with any dental technology, but with implants, which are designed to replace both the root and the crown of the tooth.

Sure, it’s easy to ignore a broken down or missing tooth, especially if it’s stopped hurting and is not really visible when you smile. But there are three important health considerations to take into account here, all of which are addressed by Manhattan dental implants:

1. Infection: Until it has been removed and the socket cleaned out, broken down teeth that are no longer restorable can provide easy access for bacteria to enter into the jaw bone and create and abscess or chronic area of infection. Your best bet is to book yourself an immediate appointment with an implant dentist who can remove the offending tooth, clean out the socket and replace the tooth before infection has had a chance to do seriously painful damage!
2. Dental Stability: Each tooth in your mouth provides support for its neighbors. When you lose a tooth, the adjacent teeth suddenly have nothing preventing them from migrating into the empty space left behind, which is precisely what they’ll often do. This dental instability passes down the tooth row in a domino effect, causing each tooth to slowly migrate into a new position. By replacing the missing tooth with a dental implant, your dentist can prevent instability from leaving your dental arch disturbed and vulnerable.
3. Jaw Bone Health: What really sets Manhattan dental implants apart from other tooth replacement technologies is that they replace both the tooth root and the crown. This restores the important stimulation – transmitted via the tooth roots – the act of eating provides the underlying jaw bone with. It’s this stimulation and ‘exercise’ that keeps this hard tissue healthy and strong. People who don’t have missing teeth replaced at all, or opt instead for inferior technologies such as dentures or bridges frequently suffer from jaw bone loss as a result of atrophication (shrinkage) of the hard tissue. Dental implants promote excellent jaw bone health, preventing all sorts of other problems in the long run which can then be costly and difficult to correct.

A Final Note on Dental Implants

These health considerations are just a few of the reasons you should never ignore a broken down or missing tooth. You also don’t want your smile aesthetics, bite functionality and ability to speak properly to be compromised by one or more missing teeth. Always put your oral health first, choose the best tooth replacement technology available – dental implants – and you will find yourself enjoying a much higher quality of life.