Lost A Front Tooth? What Are Your Options?
Losing a front tooth has an immediate impact on your appearance. Our Addlestone dentists offer advice.
Tooth loss is inevitable with our first, or baby, teeth. This is a natural part of life. Once our adult teeth have come through though, they will be the last natural teeth that we have and need to be looked after.
Generally speaking, it is perhaps the teeth at the rear which are more prone to decay as they do much of the chewing of foods, including sweets, and are also more difficult to keep clean.
Front teeth can also decay of course, and are particularly vulnerable to enamel erosion. Perhaps one of the leading causes of front tooth loss that we see at the Synergy Clinic though is where a tooth has been knocked out.
Whether the loss of a front tooth has been caused by decay or an accident, it still leaves the patient with the dilemma of what to do about it. In today’s blog, we take a look at the options that are available to you.
Leave the gap
This is an option,, but not a good one. For obvious reasons, most people, and especially younger ones, will not want to leave a gap in their front teeth. This gap would be all too obvious when talking, laughing or even smiling. This is likely to cause embarrassment and can even lead to a few speech issues as well which could cause the person to become more withdrawn.
In addition to this; where there is a gap in the teeth, it allows space for other teeth to encroach into and can eventually result in the rest of the teeth becoming crooked and uneven.
Dentures
This is probably the first thing that comes into most people’s mind when they lose a tooth. It is a well tried and tested solution and, without a doubt, the quality of dentures has improved greatly over the years. Modern dentures offer a reasonably realistic replacement tooth and some offer a flexibility which makes them more comfortable. They are also reasonably affordable and usually require no invasive treatment.
Why then wouldn’t you want to have dentures? The fact is that dentures aren’t for everyone. Some people find that they are unstable and prone to moving around when they are speaking. Because they only replace the crown part of the lost tooth and not the root, they are not as secure as a natural tooth and may cause problems when eating. Some denture wearers deliberately choose their food options around what they ‘can’ eat, rather than what they would ‘like’ to eat. Cleaning dentures can be fiddly too, adding to the inconvenience.
Most dentists will have heard patients say that they would dearly like to have nicer looking teeth but that cosmetic dentistry treatments are too expensive. It is true that these treatments are not available on the NHS and therefore, without any government subsidy, the full treatment has to be paid for by the patient.
Although at the time of writing this blog the weather is looking very Autumnal, we have at least recently had a glimpse of the sunnier weather that hopefully lies ahead. Many of our Synergy Clinic patients will have noticed blossoms and buds appearing in their gardens, bringing with it the promise of brighter and warmer weather. In addition to this, the vaccine rollout is going well and there is every likelihood that in a short while, we will be starting to get our lives back to something approaching normality.
Dental braces have been in use for many years. In fact, they are believed to have been used as far back as 2000BC by the ancient Egyptians. The use of metal and animal parts wrapped around the teeth which have been found in mummies is not something that most of us would recognise as dental braces these days!
When we think about dentistry, we tend perhaps, to think largely about our teeth. After all, anyone who has neglected their teeth and had a painful toothache will know just how bad that can be.
As some of you will be aware, many dentists are currently having to limit the number of patients they can see each day due to the Covid restrictions. The essential cleaning of equipment and practice areas between patients means that we currently aren’t able to see quite as many patients as before. This does mean that there may be longer gaps between your usual check up appointments and it is important that you are even more diligent with your personal care regimen and keep your teeth and gums as healthy as possible during this time.
Few of us will have found many reasons to laugh or smile over the last year. Without a doubt, it was a terrible year and sadly some of us may have lost friends or relatives who succumbed to Covid-19. Others will have been affected by it either through illness or through the effect on jobs or even lack of social interaction.
As this will be our last Synergy Clinic blog of 2020, we thought that it would be timely to take a look at the festive season ahead and the sorts of things that you can do to keep your teeth and gums in good health at this time. Although year round dental care is very important, there is little doubt that Christmas and New Year pose some particular challenges to our oral health. In addition to that, many dental practices will be closed for some of the time making seeking treatment more tricky if you do have a problem.
Tooth loss is not uncommon. For most people that lose teeth, it is usually the odd one or two, perhaps caused by an accident rather than poor oral health care. This is not the same for everyone though and some people can suffer from numerous oral health problems or have a traumatic accident that results in the loss of a significant number of teeth.
Do you remember, as a child, when you had competitions with friends to bite into an iced lollipop and see who could keep their teeth there the longest? If you did, you would probably not do so now, and for some of us, just a second of doing this could cause a lot of discomfort.
