WHY REPLACE A MISSING TOOTH?
- Compromised Aesthetics (Smile appearance).
- Higher Risk for Decay & Disease : When a tooth is lost, it doesn’t take much time before the adjacent teeth to migrate towards the empty space. This migration can make your smile crooked & create difficulty to clean areas in your oral cavity. As a result, you become prone to tooth decay & gum diseases.
- Jaw Problem : When neighbouring teeth shift out of proper position after a tooth/teeth loss, your bite alignment is disrupted, leading to TMJ discomforts & disorders.
- Poor Nutrition : Your teeth serves an important role to help you breakdown food for proper digestion. As they say, First Digestion Starts in Oral Cavity. Without balanced teeth & bite, you may miss fibre rich fruits and vegetables and other food that are imperative to good general health .
WHAT ARE AVAILABLE OPTIONS TO REPLACE MISSING TOOTH/TEETH??
1. Dental Crowns – They are commonly used after RCT. Dental crown replaces missing or damaged tooth structures or restoration. There are different type of crowns available in India :
a. All Porcelain
b. Porcelain fused to metal (PFM)
c. All metal crown
d. Zirconia crown
2. Dental Bridges – Bridges are fixed option to replace missing tooth/teeth. It involves, fixing the artificial teeth/tooth onto adjacent natural teeth. Bridges can’t be removed for cleaning.
3. Full Denture – These are removable acrylic or metal frameworks carrying artificial teeth. You will have to remove your full dentures out for cleaning.
4. Partial Denture – Removable Partial Denture can replace one or more missing teeth. These dentures are attached to your natural teeth by metal clasps or attachments. They commonly include a metal or acrylic (plastic) base with porcelain artificial teeth. These clasps are hidden for aesthetic reasons.
5. Dental Implants – Oral Implants are Best option to replace missing tooth/teeth. Implants are placed into the bone and act like tooth roots. These are artificial metal based (mainly titanium) root which is biocompatible with your jaw bone and tissues and have a prosthesis or crown on top of it . You need to be in good general health, have healthy gums and healthy jaw bone. There are however many surgical options to enhance your gum, bone health (bone graft, osseous surgery, sinus lift surgery).
Cheap and affordable tooth implants in India are the best long term option for permanent tooth replacement. Options with implants are as follows :
A. Mini Dental Implants : For the sites with small teeth and incisors narrower implants may be used as tooth replacement surgery. Patients won’t mind taking chances with mini implants as those are cheaper compared to conventional tooth implants, are less in width, do not have screws, and do not require bone graft.
B. Dental Implant Bridge : It is good replacement for several missing teeth side by side. In a situation when the surrounding teeth are not very healthy and are not good supports for a traditional bridge, this presents the case for using a dental implant bridge that prove to be very helpful. Tooth replacement implant dentistry in India is an affordable cosmetic smile correction option.
C. Dental Implant Overdenture : An overdenture or implant dentures is the one that goes over natural teeth or over dental implants fixing teeth permanently.
Our intent is to assist you in gathering the information necessary to make a wise choice within the larger context of helping you navigate to greater oral health and total well-being.
Although there is some hope that we will be able to grow new teeth from Stem cell research. As we hear more about this possible option, you’ll be the first one to hear about our findings !!
We hope that this analysis of the various options we have found available to fill the space of a missing tooth will help you along your path to greater oral health and general wellness.
