Daily dental hygiene helps us avoid many signs of facial aging by avoiding many oral diseases and pathologies.
Teeth whitening: By whitening teeth, we can prevent the yellow color that occurs in the teeth.
Annual checkups at the dentist: This is an essential pillar in delaying or preventing these signs of aging.
Maintaining a balanced diet along with healthy eating helps us delay aging.
Immediate replacement of lost teeth: If we experience tooth loss and replace it quickly, it helps to maintain bone and gum health, and prevents aging due to tooth loss.
While tooth replacement options have been available for a long time, traditional replacement options such as dentures and partials do not correct missing jawbone. While replacement prostheses cover the visible part of the missing tooth, they do not replace the roots of the jawbone. This means that artificial prostheses, even if they replace missing teeth, cannot prevent further bone loss.
Fortunately, there is a treatment called a dental implant that not only replaces missing teeth, but also replaces the missing jawbone support. Dental implants actually act like tooth roots because they fuse with the jawbone and provide full bone support just like your own teeth. After placing the implant, the dentist places a crown on it, which then replaces the root of the tooth and the missing visible tooth.
Aging due to tooth loss and jaw loss
The important thing is that jaw loss inevitably follows tooth loss. In the first year of tooth loss alone, there is a 25% decrease in bone width. This is followed by an overall reduction of 4 mm in height over the next few years.
If enough teeth are lost and bone loss continues, the distance between the nose and chin can narrow and the lower third of the face can partially collapse. With no structural support, the lips sag. This is why toothless people often look sad and sad and age quickly. Also, severe bone loss can predispose a person to jaw fractures.
In addition to helping a toothless person to look and feel good again, dental implants actually prevent bone loss and prevent aging due to tooth loss.
This is because implants are made of titanium, which has a unique ability to fuse with living bone. By becoming a permanent part of the jaw bone, dental implants stabilize and stimulate the bone to maintain its volume and density.
The dangers of removable prostheses
In addition to dental implants, your tooth replacement options include fixed bridges that accommodate or use adjacent teeth and removable dentures. However, you should note that the disadvantage of these options is that they can damage the anatomical structures on which they are located.
Full removable dentures pose the greatest risk to your health among tooth replacement options because they put pressure on the bony ridges that support your teeth and accelerate bone loss.
Removable prostheses and bridges that use natural teeth are less expensive than dental implants. Because dentures and bridges can cause new problems and may need to be replaced themselves, they don’t have the same long-term value. While implants are considered a sustainable investment for your comfort, health and well-being, they offer the best returns.
The cost of not replacing missing teeth
You may have made another decision: not to replace your missing teeth. It is better to reconsider your decision
In fact, the sooner you replace missing teeth, the less expensive it will be if your jawbone wears away completely over time.
As mentioned above, dental implants are the best option for replacing missing teeth in the right circumstances. However, if the bone supporting the tooth has begun to erode, there may be issues that need to be addressed before an implant can be placed.
For example, the bone may have shrunk so much that the nerve passing through it is now too close to the surface to risk placing the implant in the ideal location without creating bone volume there. Here you also need a bone graft, which is quite common these days, but adds cost and time to the treatment plan.
