Increase Your Chance of Success
Your natural teeth help to keep your jawbone strong on a daily basis through regular chewing and speaking. When you lose a tooth, your jaw becomes weakened without this stimulation.
Dental implants require a certain level of jawbone density to create a stable bond, so Dr. Wirth may recommend a supplemental procedure if you’ve been missing teeth for a while.
How Missing Teeth Affect Your Dental Health
The teeth in your smile work together as a system to hold each other in place. Losing a tooth disrupts the harmony of your smile and damages your dental health in significant ways:
- Chewing and Digestion: Missing teeth can make it difficult to chew food properly, which can lead to digestive problems. This can also cause you to swallow larger pieces of food, which can be a choking hazard.
- Speech: Missing teeth can also affect your speech. The way you form words and pronounce sounds can be affected by missing teeth, which can lead to a lisp or other speech problems.
- Jawbone Health: When teeth are missing, the jawbone that once supported those teeth no longer receives stimulation. Over time, the jawbone can deteriorate, leading to further tooth loss and changes in facial structure.
- Oral Health: Missing teeth can also have an impact on your oral health. The surrounding teeth can shift and become crooked, making them harder to clean and increasing the risk of tooth decay and gum disease.
Our Supplemental Procedures
Bone Grafting
If the tooth you need to be replaced is on your lower jaw, you’ll likely undergo a bone graft. This treatment consists of attaching a small piece of bone tissue to your jaw to stimulate new growth.
Sinus Lift Augmentation
For a tooth replacement on the upper jaw, a sinus lift can help you regenerate bone tissue. The procedure is nearly the same as a bone graft but for the upper jaw, but special care must be taken because of the location of your sinuses.
Your sinuses can become enlarged when you lose your upper back teeth, so Dr. Wirth will reposition your sinus cavity back to its original position. He’ll then perform a bone graft so you can regenerate tissue.
After Your Procedure
Healing is of the utmost importance after your supplemental procedure. During this time, your jaw will create new bone tissue to restore density. You won’t have to do much for this process to occur — just make sure you’re taking care of your oral health.
What Is Gum Disease?
Gum disease is a bacterial infection that can wreak havoc on your smile and can even lead to tooth loss when left untreated. The bacteria that cause gum disease feeds on plaque, tartar, and debris.
When the gap left by a missing tooth causes your remaining teeth to shift around, it often leaves spaces that are difficult to clean. This allows plaque to develop, increasing your chances of getting gum disease. Losing one tooth and leaving it untreated can create a chain reaction that leads to the loss of additional teeth.
The other major way a missing tooth damages your smile is through jawbone disintegration. This process, known as resorption, causes your jawbone to diminish as soon as you lose a tooth. Dental implants are the only smile restoration that counteracts resorption by stimulating healthy jawbone growth.
Periodontal Disease Therapy
Periodontal disease, or gum disease, is a common occurrence in people over the age of 30, but it can threaten the health of your smile. Periodontal disease can also impact the success of your dental implant placement — that’s why we offer periodontal disease treatment for you.
We can provide you with one of our highly successful methods of removing gum disease. These include:
- At-home periodontal trays
- Scaling and root planing
- Periodontal surgery
- Laser gum surgery