What Could Losing a Tooth Lead To?

Many people who experience tooth loss realize that it’s a big deal for their oral health. That’s because many of the consequences are obvious, including the impact of the loss on your smile’s appearance and its effect on how your remaining teeth feel when you bite and chew. However, there are more consequences to tooth loss than you might be able to notice, and losing a tooth could lead to many other problems for your oral health if you don’t replace it.

A growing tooth alignment problem

The pressure of your bite is immense, and to accommodate that pressure, your dental ridges must be full of properly aligned teeth. When you lose even one tooth, that can disrupt the pressure of your bite and cause other teeth to shift out of alignment in response to the change. This shift may be subtle at first, but as soon as it begins, it can have an increasingly more severe impact on your overall bite function and oral health. By closing the space with a custom, lifelike replacement tooth, you can largely avoid the shifting of your remaining teeth and the potential consequences they could have on your long-term oral health.

Damage to the structures of other teeth

The changing alignment of your remaining teeth is a serious problem, but it isn’t the only thing you might notice as your bite pressure and balance change. The increased pressure on some of your other teeth can prove more than they’re able to withstand, and the longer the imbalance remains, the greater the risk of your teeth becoming fractured, broken, or significantly worn down. Even after replacing your lost tooth and restoring your bite’s balance, you may still require additional treatment to repair the damage that one or more of your other teeth have sustained.

Increased risks of chronic oral health concerns

Direct impacts on your remaining healthy teeth can be obvious consequences of losing a tooth. Yet, the loss can also have long-term consequences that may not be noticeable at first, until the consequence becomes severe. For instance, the cumulative impacts of losing a tooth can leave your other teeth at a higher risk of developing chronic tooth decay, or raise your risks of developing gum disease around one or more of them. Such concerns can have long-lasting impacts on the state of your oral health, and may continue to affect your smile after replacing the lost tooth.

Avoid further problems by replacing your lost tooth

Losing a tooth is a problem on its own, but if ignored long enough, the loss could also create several other concerns for your smile and oral health. To learn more, schedule an appointment by calling Gentle Smiles in Dallas, TX, today at 972-329-7645 (972-329-SMILE).