Dental implants in Windsor: not for pirates
Having a missing tooth can add a certain element of danger to your look. It can give off an edgy, piratey, ‘I’ve lived to tell a few tales’, kind of a vibe. All well and good if you want to appear a bit mysterious, but not so great for your health.
You may believe that having one missing tooth is no big deal, there’s another 31 in there, so what’s the problem? The difficulty is, the intelligence of the human body. It is a perfectly balanced bio-machine, where every small part makes a difference.
Take the humble tooth: once a tooth is lost, both root and crown, the body’s intelligence kicks into gear and adapts to the changing environment. ‘Ah’, it says to itself, ‘I’m not getting any taps on this part of the jaw anymore, obviously it’s not needed here. I’m going to resorb the bone and use the precious nutrients elsewhere.’ This is why the jawbone can lose 25% of its density after a tooth loss in first year alone. To stop this from happening, the tooth root needs to be replaced, as well as the crown. This is so the vibrations from opposite teeth tapping together can travel down the crown, into the root and to the jawbone. Then the body knows the tooth is still active and keeps rebuilding the jaw here.
There is only one form of tooth replacement that replaces tooth roots, and that’s dental implants. In Windsor, here at the Old Windsor Dental Practice, we’ve been fitting implants for years, and have seen the huge difference they’ve made to our patients’ health.
Apart from the bone density issue, having a missing tooth also affects the delicate balance of your bite. You will most likely unconsciously start to favour the side where you have all your teeth, leading to uneven wear, and possibly further tooth loss. You may also start to avoid nutritious, crunchy and chewy foods, such as apples and nuts. This dietary restriction can have an impact on your overall health and wellbeing. Dental implants in Windsor are the only tooth restoration that can offer the full chewing power of natural teeth.
