How Missing Teeth Can Affect Your Health

How Missing Teeth Can Affect Your Health

Ever wonder what it’ll be like if you had missing teeth? While it doesn’t take a genius to explain that there are effects of having missing teeth, it’s more than just aesthetic-related concerns. In fact, missing teeth can affect your health in different ways. 

Missing teeth mean that your mouth is prone to a variety of illnesses and disorders, especially the distortion and deterioration of the jawbone structure. When the jawbone structure experiences deterioration, the roots can lose their strength. You shouldn’t waste any time replacing missing teeth before it becomes a greater cause for concern.

Here are a few health risks associated with missing teeth. Nearly all of these risks can cause long-term effects and severe lifestyle implications if you leave them untreated for long.

  • Effects on Your Smile

There’s a huge variety of effects that missing teeth can have on your smile. You might become shy and highly subconscious about your missing teeth condition. This can cause you to avoid social interactions, so you don’t have to smile so often, leading to anxiety, phobias, and depression. Additionally, when your teeth sockets are empty, it can cause the remaining teeth to shift to the empty spaces, which makes the existing teeth structure crooked. This can put a further strain on your mental health regarding your smile.

  • Risk of Gum Diseases

This is also a no-brainer, but many people fail to realize it or choose to ignore it on purpose. But not paying attention to the risks of gum disease can prove detrimental to your overall health as well. Gum disease is a culprit behind many types of health conditions such as digestive issues, stomachaches, and even serious internal infections. The empty tooth pockets that once housed your teeth are now safehouses for bacteria.

  • Jawbone Density Loss

Jawbone issues are highly common among those who start losing their teeth due to an injury, medical condition, or other reason. Teeth allow the jawbone to hold well, which gives your face proper structure. This also promotes the density and keeps the jawbone strong for the timeline. Since missing teeth no longer stimulate the jawbone, bone loss occurs through bone density loss.

  • Prolonged Bite Problems

Whether you have bite problems, losing one or more teeth can cause the problem to become persistent. This is because the missing teeth provide the necessary gaps for the remaining teeth to overlap each other and become crooked due to exerting pressure. Of course, you can’t just stop chewing or biting forever. Hence, contacting the right healthcare expert is significant. 

Conclusion

Get the best oral and facial healthcare to ensure proper treatment for your face and mouth. Your teeth are a vital part of your daily life, and quite frankly, most people tend to ignore oral healthcare, which is already a cause for concern. However, Dr. Shawn B. Davis, DMD, at Oral & Facial Surgery Institute, can help you take care of several dental conditions by providing effective solutions.

Meet with Dr. Shawn B. Davis, DMD, by making an appointment at Oral & Facial Surgery Institute. Call us at (435) 740-8296 for more information. Check out our website for more information.

What Is Bone Grafting and Why Do I Need It?

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What Is Bone Grafting and Why Do I Need It?

Bone grafting is a medical procedure that can occur in nearly any part of the body. The procedures for bone grafting are rather simple but require expert surgical skills. When bones break or deteriorate in an area of the body, your doctor may advise replacing these broken bones.

A surgeon safely removes damaged bone fragments from one part of the body and replaces them with healthier ones; this process is called bone grafting. For most reasons, bone grafting is a cosmetic procedure to restore and improve the contour and shape.

Why Do You Need Bone Grafting? – Jaw Bone Density

Bone grafting can become necessary when there’s a need for dental implants. The basic requirement for dental implants is that you must have a strong jaw bone to hold the implants in place securely and tightly. However, it may be unsafe to insert dental implants if your jaw bone appears to have signs of deterioration or damage. 

A dentist may use bone grafting to restore the jaw bone before placing dental implants. A bone grafting procedure can take several months to heal. The body absorbs the graft during the healing stage, and the added bone combines strongly with the area bone.

Jaw bone density issues are quite common and mainly affect adults. The Jaw bone can weaken with age and can deteriorate faster if any of the following conditions are part of your overall health:

  • Tumors
  • Periodontal diseases
  • Sinus abnormalities
  • Congenital disabilities
  • Trauma

The main reason for issues in jaw bone density is that, as people age, they start losing their teeth. Although decay, injuries, and trauma to the jaw can occur at any time, old age can be more susceptible to tooth problems. Loss of teeth can weaken the jaw bone and lead to its deterioration. The longer your mouth suffers tooth loss, the higher the degradation of your jaw bone will be. That is why you may require bone grafting before any dental implants.

What Kind of Bone Grafts are There?

Surgeons use several types of bone grafts for different patients, depending on their underlying medical conditions. All bone graft types comprise different types of material.

  • Autograft
  • Alloplast
  • Allograft
  • Xenograft

Conclusion

Do you require jaw bone treatments at the hand of one of the best specialists around? You should pay a visit to the Oral & Facial Surgery Institute in Utah. Dr. Shawn B. Davis, DMD, is a renowned oral and facial health issues specialist who can help you with right jaw bone density conditions through bone grafting techniques.

Find out more through the official website of the medical institute. Contact at (435) 228-7282 to meet with Dr. Shawn B. Davis today.