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Anytime you lose a tooth, you jeopardize your oral health. It alters your bite, affects tooth wear, and causes bone loss in your jaw. Options are available to replace teeth, from bridges and crowns if you have one or two teeth missing, to full dentures if you’ve lost all your teeth. The new gold standard, though, is the dental implant, as it ticks all the boxes of what a tooth replacement should do.

Louis A. Russell, Jr., DDS, and our team at Russell Family Dentistry use state-of-the-art technology, including dental implants, to replace missing or damaged teeth for patients of all ages, restoring their natural smile. As many people don’t yet know just how beneficial dental implants can be and when they might be necessary, the team put together this guide to share that information with you.

Missing teeth affects your oral and systemic health

Your mouth is happiest and healthiest when all its parts work together. It’s no great surprise, then, that when you’re missing teeth, it negatively impacts your oral health. Research indicates, too, that your risk for dental problems — and even overall health problems — increase with each additional missing tooth. Missing teeth:

Cause shift in tooth alignment: can lead to bite problems and difficulty with speech

Change how and what you eat: front teeth needed for biting, molars for grinding tougher foods

Impact digestion: failing to chew properly causes problems like acid reflux

Fail to stimulate jaw bone: without new tissue from bite pressure, nearby teeth loosen and can fall out

When are dental implants necessary?

Even though dentures, artificial teeth attached to an acrylic base, are an easy and relatively inexpensive choice to replace missing teeth, they fail in a major way — they replace only the crowns of the teeth, not the roots anchored in the jawbone. On the other hand, dental implants replace the whole tooth structure, from the crown on top to the root at the bottom. That’s important, since the roots hold your teeth in place.

In addition, dentures and bridges don’t provide the bite-created pressure needed to retain jaw mass, but dental implants look and function like your natural teeth, meaning they’re anchored in your jaw, providing the necessary bite pressure while also serving as a solid anchor on which to place a dental crown.

The bottom line? Dental implants are necessary to help maintain your oral and overall health.

No one will be able to tell you have an implant, because all “parts” of the tooth are present, and it looks and functions the way a natural tooth does. And as long as you keep brushing, flossing, and coming in for regular checkups, the implants should last you a lifetime.

If you’re missing a tooth, call our office in Tomball, Texas, at 281-603-1911 or use our online scheduler to request an appointment with us today.