Missing Teeth

Patients often tell me, “It’s a back tooth Doc, just pull it out!”

An international well respected dentist from Northern Europe was quoted as saying:

“If a person loses one tooth they will lose all of their teeth.”

This may sound incredulous but those of us who have practiced dentistry for multiple decades have seen how this statement could be true. The loss of one tooth can affect the remaining teeth several ways.

Some of the ways this can occur is that the adjacent teeth can collapse into the space causing gum disease, cavities on the weakest areas of the tooth, excessive tooth wear, bite imbalance jaw joint problems etc. These can cause additional loss of teeth, which then puts more stress on the remaining teeth until there are no more teeth. In some extreme scenarios, even death of the patient can occur from the infections associated with the loss of teeth.

It is crucially important to save your teeth. If one is lost it is imperative that the tooth be replaced by either a removable partial denture, a fixed bridge or a 21st century dental implant.

We have all heard the phrase that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In Dentistry, an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.