When you lose a tooth, the biting forces change on the teeth next to the space, which could cause them to shift. Opposing teeth may even begin to extrude out of the socket, which means they too could eventually be lost. As your bite changes, it gets more difficult to chew your food, and you may suffer damage to your jaw joint. It’s also much harder to clean teeth that have shifted; harmful plaque and tartar collect in the new hard-to-reach places created by shifting, causing tooth decay and periodontal disease.
For all these reasons, it’s critical that we replace a lost tooth. An excellent option for replacing a missing tooth is an artificial tooth secured by a dental implant.
Implants are titanium cylinders that are surgically placed in your jaw to serve as artificial tooth roots. Attaching a replacement tooth to an implant allows us to avoid placing a bridge. Bridges require that we cut down the adjacent natural teeth, and that weakens them substantially.
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