Dealing with oral health concerns successfully is often about more than just directly treating the concern. Your oral health is complex, and given the nature and extent of the problems your smile faces, some of them can have a compounding impact on other aspects of your oral health. For example, if you lose one or more teeth, then replacing the lost teeth should do more than just restore your smile’s appearance. With the right dental bridge, partial, or full denture, you can effectively rebuild your smile and avoid some of the consequences that can result from the loss.
The goals in addressing your tooth loss
When it comes to addressing tooth loss, there are many different complex concerns to consider. The most immediate is how the loss impacts your bite’s function. Whether you’ve lost one, several, or all of the teeth on your dental ridge, the loss can dramatically impact your bite’s balance and function, making it more difficult to bite and chew comfortably. Therefore, one of the most important goals in addressing your tooth loss is restoring your bite’s ability to function properly. This requires a custom-designed dental bridge or denture that closely replicates the correct size, shape, contour, appearance, and structural integrity of your healthy, natural teeth.
Traditional bridges, partials, and dentures
Dental bridges, partial dentures, and complete dentures are designed to address different types and severities of tooth loss. For example, if you lose one tooth, or multiple teeth that are adjacent to each other, a dental bridge may be able to close the gap with an appropriate number of custom replacement teeth (or pontics). However, if you’ve lost multiple teeth that aren’t next to each other, then restoring your smile could include having a partial denture custom-designed to span your dental ridge. The restoration will only have replacement teeth in the areas where you’ve lost healthy, natural teeth, and be designed to comfortably fit around and support the healthy teeth that remain.
Modern restorations supported by dental implants
Whether you’ve lost one, several, or all of the teeth on your dental ridge, you may benefit from supporting your custom-designed restoration on a series of dental implant posts. While modern dental bridges and dentures of various sizes can closely mimic the form, appearance, and function of your lost teeth’s crowns, implant posts can do the same for your lost teeth roots. Each implant post is placed separately along your dental ridge, making them viable for supporting a dental restoration of any size.
Choose the right tooth replacement for your smile
Modern dental bridges and dentures come in a greater variety than ever before, including dental implant-supported designs, to help nearly anyone bounce back from tooth loss. To learn more, schedule an appointment by calling Allen & Neumann Family Dentistry in Pella, IA, today at (641) 628-1121.