Preventing the loss of one or more teeth is often the ultimate goal of good hygiene and regular preventive care. Fortunately, that goal can be largely successful, and when it is, the advantages to your oral health can be even more profound than you realize. Today, we examine what preventing tooth loss can actually help you avoid, and why it’s so important to preserving your healthy, natural smile.
The diminished function of your bite
Your teeth are important for many things, and while filling out your smile’s appearance is the most obvious one, your teeth’s main purpose is to bite and chew your food every day. Losing even a single tooth diminishes the rest of your teeth’s ability to function at their full potential. The loss can disturb the proper balance of your bite, which can create several additional concerns with your oral health and bite function. By preventing tooth loss, you can avoid this from impacting your bite’s function and the many potential problems that could arise from that dysfunction.
The loss of bone structure in your dental ridge
Many of the consequences of tooth loss aren’t things that you can see or feel immediately, but that can have devastating consequences to the state of your oral health nonetheless. One of these consequences is the way the bone structure in your dental ridge reacts to the loss. When a tooth is uprooted from its socket, the bone structure surrounding it resorbs unto itself. Your body will also redirect the minerals and nutrients that were meant for the tooth to another area of your body, instead of to your jawbone. This is largely what’s behind the loss of mass and density in the bone structure, as your dental ridge requires the stimulation of your teeth roots to maintain this supply of nutrients.
The domino effect that leads to more tooth loss
The many different impacts that tooth loss could have on your oral health have several cumulative consequences, as well. For instance, the combination of changes to your remaining healthy teeth and the loss of stimulation in your dental ridge can lead to significantly higher risks to your oral health overall. While replacing your lost teeth can help you mitigate these impacts, especially if you choose dental implants, the most effective way of avoiding them is to prevent tooth loss from occurring in the first place.
Learn more about preventing tooth loss
Tooth loss can be the beginning of many different problems for your oral health, and preventing tooth loss could be the best way of avoiding them. To learn more, schedule an appointment with us by calling Dreem Dentistry in Leawood, KS, today at 913-681-5500.
