Missing Teeth

Dental implants are a great way to replace missing teeth and also provide a fixed solution to having removable partial or complete dentures. Implants provide excellent support and stability for these dental appliances.

Reasons for dental implants:

  • Replace one or more missing teeth without affecting adjacent teeth.
  • Resolve joint pain or bite problems caused by teeth shifting into missing tooth space.
  • Restore a patient’s confident smile.
  • Restore chewing, speech, and digestion.
  • Restore or enhance facial tissues.
  • Support a bridge or denture, making it more secure and comfortable.

Before Implants:

In the past, if you were missing a tooth, we would make a bridge out of gold and porcelain. In order to attach the bridge, the neighboring tooth on either side of the space needed to be ground down to allow room for the gold and porcelain to be cemented on.

If the surrounding teeth did not need crowns, then this process removed a major portion of healthy tooth unnecessarily. In some cases, bridges can cause excessive stress on the two healthy teeth used to hold it on. Also, because bridges are soldered together for strength, they can be more difficult to clean and floss around.