Bridging the Gap: Treatment Options for Tooth Loss

Man smiling. Caption: A dental bridge can correct tooth loss due to disease or injury.

Tooth loss can be a disheartening and even debilitating condition. It can impair your ability to eat and speak normally and affect the beauty of your smile. The damage of a missing tooth is ongoing, as teeth on either side of the gap drift into the space, sometimes tilting and leaning. If not treated, a gap in your smile can affect your entire mouth. To restore your smile and prevent further deterioration, Dental Partners of Boston offers dental bridges.

A dental bridge is a cosmetic dentistry procedure that replaces one or more missing teeth with a prosthetic. With a dental bridge, the gap in your mouth is filled, allowing you to talk, eat, and smile as you did before. Filling the space prevents nearby teeth from drifting and preserves the integrity of your bite. The sooner we can bridge the gap, the better it is for your remaining teeth. There are different methods to fill the gap. Let’s talk about a few of them.

Removable Partial Dentures

One solution for filling a gap in your teeth is with a removable partial denture. The removable denture fills all the cosmetic and functional roles of your missing teeth. Although not as stable as a fixed bridge, this solution does not alter any of the adjacent structures in your mouth.

Tooth-supported Fixed Bridges

This option fixes a bridge permanently in your mouth and provides greater stability than a removable partial denture. A tooth-supported fixed bridge relies on a porcelain crown fitted over the teeth on either side of the gap to support the false teeth in the middle. It is also possible to make a bridge that fastens to only one side of the gap, although not recommended.

Implant-supported Bridges

For the greatest stability and comfort, we recommend implant-supported bridges. Dental implants are artificial structures implanted in your jawbone, where the tooth roots were originally. A single implant or a pair of implants can support a bridge and replace multiple teeth. Aside from keeping your teeth from drifting, dental implants help halt the deterioration of bone and gum tissue around the site of the tooth loss. This preserves the natural, healthy structures of your mouth. Although dental implants are not possible for everyone, they are an excellent option for replacing one or more missing teeth.

Call or request an appointment online to learn more about dental bridges.

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