Apart from obvious aesthetic reasons for replacing missing teeth there are a number of health-related issues involved. If you are missing a tooth or several teeth, you can always replace them with dental implants and restore your smile, beautiful appearance and prevent development of major health issues. Keep reading to learn the reasons to replace your missing teeth.
Appearance
Every missing tooth makes you look older and wrinklier because of their influence on the cheeks and other facial muscles. You can ask any plastic surgeon and they will tell you how every single thing is intertwined in your face’s appearance. A tiny millimeter of skin stretch here or there will change the look of your face.
With missing teeth your cheeks become hollow and saggy simply because they cannot stabilize your lips from the inside any more. So when you have a missing tooth, or teeth, they rearrange your whole face eventually by influencing your cheeks, jaws and lips.
Self-esteem and confidence
When you face starts changing due to a tooth loss, it happens gradually. So you don’t immediately notice the effects. However, when you finally start feeling it, you don’t connect your changed and saggier face with the missing tooth (or teeth). You think that your age has finally taken a toll on you. This often leads to a loss of self-image and self-esteem and a feeling that you are getting old. Well, once you start losing teeth, you actually start looking old.
Well, if you knew from the start that the cause of this changed appearance is your teeth, you could prevent it and would continue feeling young and attractive.
Chewing problems
Most adults are expected to have 32 teeth. But due to certain factors a modern man rarely has fully functional wisdom teeth, so they are removed in most cases. However, the remaining 28 teeth you are supposed to have.
Did you know that with each missing tooth you lose 10% of your chewing ability? Because of the decreased chewing capacity, some of the food ends up not digested properly. This may cause further digestion problems in your stomach. Not to mention, the gaps place more stress on the other teeth, which leads to their weakening and deterioration.
Bone and gum health
When you remove or lose a tooth or multiple teeth, the jaw bone underneath it does not get stimulated enough and it starts shrinking. The gum also starts receding.
Neighboring teeth
The process of bone and gum recession endangers neighboring teeth, by weakening them. Eventually, if you don’t replace a missing tooth, they will collapse. Once you’ve lost one tooth, you will lose more, if you don’t do something about. And the only thing that can be done is replacement of the missing tooth (or teeth) with dental implants.
Remember, every tooth counts.