It’s an unfortunate fact of life; accidents happen. We break our bones, we gash our skin; we damage our insides and out outsides in many ways. We try to be careful, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. From head-to-toes, it’s amazing what our bodies can withstand and medical advancements have given us the ability to get back to our regular lives as quickly as possible.
It’s the same with our teeth. We still have accidents and some of them cause us to lose what we have. From car accidents to flying hockey pucks, there are many ways to lose a tooth. But there are wonderful dentistry options available to us to get our choppers looking good and back to working order in no time.
Sadly, we sometimes neglect our teeth. While a broken bone is something that must be dealt with immediately, a missing tooth is something that gets pushed off. When it isn’t dealt with it in a timely manner, the problem becomes bigger than it was when we started out.
Bone Loss
When a tooth is missing for a long time, the bone will reabsorb or actually disappear from the jaw. You might notice that your face will sink in a bit in the areas where teeth have been absent. When you have back teeth that are missing for awhile, the sinuses actually have a tendency to push down and lessen the bone in the area. To avoid the changes in your facial features or your sinuses, dental implants are the way to go. Implants will stop the bone loss and fill in your form. But what if you’ve waited too long and already have bone loss? Can you still get implants? The good news is; you can.
Procedures
For missing bone in the sinus area, we perform a sinus lift. This is a gentle way to move the sinus back up where it belongs so we can do a bone graft. This gives us enough bone to set the implant. When it comes to missing bone in other areas, we can use ridge augmentation to build up the bone that was lost. Either way, we prepare your mouth for your implants so that you have a successful outcome.
At Shine Dental, we want to see you take care of yourself after any accident or loss, and we’re here to help you do just that. Don’t let your tooth loss become bone loss; come and see us for a free consultation today.
