Dental implants and implant-secured restorations offer high-quality treatments for patients missing one or all of their permanent teeth. At Concord Lexington Periodontics, we offer full-service implants to help patients restore their smiles. Restorative treatment with dental implants can improve the bite, the smile’s appearance, and even speech. Discover more about the benefits of dental implants in our Concord and Lexington, MA offices below.
What Can Dental Implants Address?
There are many benefits of dental implants. Dental implants and implant-secured restorations can prevent or reverse these problems:
Tooth and Bone Loss
Teeth can be lost for a variety of reasons. Anything from disease, injury, birth defects to decay can result in teeth being lost or removed. However, many dental and health problems can result from tooth loss or removal.
Diet
Without properly aligned teeth, an individual might be unable to chew correctly, and diet could be affected. With missing or no teeth altogether, chewing becomes difficult or impossible. The diet then becomes restricted to soft, easily chewed foods.
This diet might not meet the body’s nutrition needs, which can cause constipation, weight loss, arthritis, indigestion, and rheumatism. Teeth are important to meeting the nutritional needs of the body. Without them, the health of the body can be severely impacted.
Speech
Teeth play a major part in speech. Some letter sounds such as s, z, d, x, n, th, and sh are made with tongue-to-tooth contact. Without teeth, these sounds will not be able to be made easily and may result in a lisp. Lisping can be an embarrassing condition and may make it hard for you to be understood.
The tongue is also affected by lost teeth. With no teeth to keep it in place, the tongue will broaden and fill the newly open space. This thickened tongue makes it harder to control and may result in difficult-to-understand speech.
Bone Loss in the Jaw
Teeth do more than help us chew our food and speak. They actually serve to stimulate the bone in the jaw. Each time you chew, the teeth stimulate the bone. Without this natural stimulation, the alveolar bone–the portion of the jawbone that anchors teeth in the mouth–begins to break down and is re-absorbed into the body. Since no longer teeth exist that “need” the jawbone, the bone deteriorates and disintegrates.
The rate of deterioration varies per person; however, it begins almost immediately after a tooth is lost or removed and continues throughout life. Once deterioration reaches a certain point, dental prosthetics–such as dentures–will no longer be useful because there will not be enough bone to support them.
Misalignment
Misalignment occurs when teeth no longer have an opposing tooth structure. The tooth with no counterpart can become loose, and the bone supporting it may begin to deteriorate because of a lack of stimulation. Losing even one tooth may cause the remaining teeth to shift their position, altering an individual’s bite pattern and leading to head, neck, and jaw pain.
Facial Appearance
Teeth are also designed to hold the lips and cheeks in place. When teeth are missing, the lips and cheeks do not have their natural support system. When closed, the mouth will appear “sunken in” without the support of the teeth. This can age the appearance of the person greatly.
Discover More Benefits of Dental Implants in Lexington
Restore missing permanent teeth with high-quality dental implants. Call our Lexington office at 781.384.5892. You can also call our Concord office at 978.391.6081.