How Dental Implants Affect the Jawbone
Under normal conditions, your teeth sit in sockets in your jawbone. As you eat and chew, the slight movement of the tooth roots in the sockets stimulates the bone to keep regenerating. If the tooth is lost, the root no longer stimulates the bone in the socket, and the body resorbs the bone to repurpose the minerals. This reduces the density of the bone and makes the jawbone thinner in that spot. If all the teeth are missing, the entire arch of the jawbone thins, causing the upper and lower jaw to sit closer together.
With dental implants, the root portion of the tooth is replaced with an artificial root that contains titanium. The bone will naturally bond to the titanium, so the new root continues to stimulate bone growth. With implants, your jawbone remains healthy and strong, and you don’t develop the “shrunken” look often associated with toothless people.
Other Advantages of Dental Implants
Implants offer other advantages, as well. Unlike dentures, they can’t shift or move in your mouth, and they won’t fall out at inopportune times if they aren’t properly secured. They won’t cause irritation to the gums, and they don’t need to be removed to be cleaned. Even options that make use of fewer implants to secure a removable denture still help stimulate the jawbone. In this case, you would need to remove the denture for cleaning, but the denture won’t need to be relined or resized in the future, because the shape of your jawbone won’t change over time.
If you have missing teeth and are exploring your options regarding tooth replacement, be sure to talk to our dentist about dental implants for the best possible outcome for your smile. Contact our team today!