Avoid Premature Facial Aging With Dental Implants

Depending on how many you have, missing teeth can make chewing and speaking a difficult task. In addition, other teeth often migrate towards the open space, which disrupts the alignment of your smile. Missing teeth, however, an also put years on your appearance, making you look much older than you really are. While it is easy to see how missing front teeth can jeopardize your aesthetics, missing molars can also contribute to an aged appearance.

Premature facial aging refers to the hallowed or sunken appearance in the lower third of the face when the jawbone atrophies or diminishes. What does missing teeth have to do with bone loss in your jaw? Everything!

Your jawbone needs consistent stimulation in order to retain its form and structure. This is done through biting and chewing. However, when there is no tooth and tooth root in place to stimulate the jaw bone, it naturally gets resorbed within the body over time. In fact, in just one year after tooth loss, there is a 25% decrease in bone width! After 3-4 years, patients may lose as much as 4 millimeters in the jawbone height.

Unfortunately, when your jaw bone loses form, so does your lower face. If there are multiple teeth lost and bone loss progresses further, the lower third of the face will eventually collapse and the lips will start to sag. This “facial collapse” can often make people look old, unhappy or even tired.

Dental Implants are the Only Solution

While there is more than one way to replace a missing tooth, there is just one way to avoid bone loss in the jaw. Dental implants represent the only restorative solution that replaces the tooth as well as the tooth root. In doing so, the jaw bone regains proper stimulation and the risk of bone loss is drastically reduced. Even modern removable dentures don’t stop the progression of bone loss and subsequent facial aging. As a bonus, dental implants look and feel more natural than any other treatment option, and the success rate exceeds 95%!

To find out if you are a candidate for dental implants, please call 1899 Dental Implant. If you are concerned you’ve already lost too much jaw bone to hold a dental implant, we can explore the possibility of bone grafting before implant surgery. Missing teeth shouldn’t make you look older or less happy than you really are. Let our implants specialists help you today!