Lost A Tooth? Prepare For The Others To Become Crooked.

Whether you've had a perfect smile all your life or needed braces to get there, it can be extremely discouraging to see an empty spot in the middle of your straight teeth. But unfortunately, matters can get worse. If you don't want your teeth to become crooked, you might want to consider getting a replacement set up soon, like a dental implant. Here's why.

What Happens With The Opening

When you lose a tooth, there's obviously a space left behind where it used to be. This is where the problems start with teeth becoming crooked.

Teeth don't just rely upon themselves and their gums to stand up straight. They also effectively get held in position by their neighboring teeth. But when one of these teeth goes missing, the neighboring teeth can start to lean inwards towards where the tooth used to be. Once they shift, their neighboring teeth shift too, and so on until your entire mouthful of teeth has become crooked.

Why Other Methods Don't Always Work

There are plenty of tooth replacement methods out there, like bridges and dentures, but not all of them are effective against preventing this problem. There's one main reason for it: they only replace the tooth above the surface.

While the neighboring teeth primarily move above the surface to take up the space where the missing tooth once was, they also move under the surface of the gums. That's because each tooth extends further than you can see, and that empty spot exists under your gums, too. So dentures and bridges can keep teeth from moving up above, but they can't do anything about the roots of the teeth drifting.

Why Implants Do

Dental implants are your best solution here because they do extend under the surface of the gums, just like a real tooth does. The implant takes up the entire space where the missing tooth used to be, becoming a sort of barrier that prevents neighboring teeth from shifting into its space, even before the crown is mounted on top.

If you act quickly and get a dental implant soon, you can prevent your neighboring teeth from moving at all. But even if they've already shifted somewhat, you can still keep your smile from becoming extremely crooked by acting as soon as you can to get a dental implant.

If you took pride in the appearance of your smile up until you lost a tooth, you can again. Just talk to a dentist about getting dental implants and maintain the straightness of the smile you enjoy.