By Dr. Aastha Chandra

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04 Aug 2021

Why Replacing Lost Teeth Is Important?

1. Each tooth contributes towards the alignment and stability of its adjacent and opposing tooth.  If you’re missing a tooth however, you risk the possibility of the teeth drifting, leading to a change in your bite, potential gum disease and possible tooth decay. The adjacent teeth may start tilting towards the missing space, thus leading to mobility of these healthy teeth. The opposing tooth may supra erupt due to lack of opposing force from the missing tooth, thus leading to mobility and decay of this tooth.

2. Loss of your back tooth can potentially make your face look older. Every aspect of your face is intertwined, so the loss of a tooth can cause your bone to deteriorate and muscles to droop over time. Replacing the missing tooth helps to keep the others in place, ensuring your mouth stays healthy (with good oral care!) and your face doesn’t change dramatically.

3. A missing back tooth will affect your chewing efficiency, while a missing front tooth can be unaesthetic, thus affecting your self-confidence. Any missing tooth can drastically affect your speech patterns as well.

4. Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Disorder: A missing tooth and failure to restore it, leads to pain in the muscles on the side of your head, which help you to chew and rotate your jaw.

5. Faster Deterioration: The other teeth may wear quickly because they have to work more. The wear and tear is worse because it means fewer teeth for chewing. Missing back teeth also put an additional load on the front teeth, leading to multiple dental issues like mobility, drifting and even loss of the front teeth.