Missing Teeth

Missing teeth not only affect the way you look, but they also can greatly affect the way your mouth functions. Missing teeth can be due to a lack of oral hygiene and dental visits or simply because you didn’t develop certain teeth.

Self-esteem: Your lack of teeth may cause you to be embarrassed and shy away from smiling and affect the way you feel about yourself as well as how you interact with people day to day as it can alter speech.

Alter your bite: Removing teeth is like removing one book from a bookshelf, the adjacent books collapse. Removing teeth without subsequent replacement of that tooth is one of the main factors of tooth movement. When these teeth move, this will then change the bite and you may find yourself chewing predominantly on one side permanently altering the jaw and bite position and placing too much pressure on the remaining teeth as there is a lack of balance.

Compromise Jaw: When a tooth is lost, there is a 25% decrease in the width of bone during the first year and an overall 4 millimetres decrease in height over the next few years. This will limit your options in terms of replacing this tooth or teeth.

Increase chances of decay: As discussed previously when a tooth is removed the adjacent and opposing teeth follow in the domino effect. This will begin to create spaces and pockets in gums leading to increased food accumulation making it harder to clean, resulting in decay, gum disease and further tooth loss.