Losing teeth as a child is a celebration because it means the tooth fairy is coming to bring you money! It also means your big adult teeth are growing in. As an adult, losing a tooth is not a celebration. Instead, it’s a serious loss. Once you lose an adult tooth, there’s not another to take its place. Your only options are to go toothless or invest in a tooth replacement option. So what happens when you lose your teeth?
Tooth Decay and Gum Disease
The first things that can happen when you lose your teeth are tooth decay and gum disease. These issues commonly occur in people who lose some of their teeth, but not all of them. When there are large spaces of missing teeth in your mouth, there becomes more space for food and bacteria to cling to. These areas also might be harder to reach with a toothbrush and floss. As a result, plaque and bacteria will begin to build up on your teeth and under the gum line, leading to tooth decay and gum disease.
Teeth Misalignment
Your teeth support each other like beams of a house. When one beam goes down, it can cause changes all throughout the house. When you lose a tooth, similar changes occur. Without replacing a missing tooth, there will be a large gap between your remaining teeth. As a response, your remaining teeth will begin to move into the empty space. This can cause changes in your bite as well as misaligned teeth. As a result of the new misalignment, you may also develop a TMJ disorder too.
Lastly, with your newly misaligned teeth, you will also find it more difficult to effectively clean the teeth. This can result in tooth decay and gum disease.
Bone Loss
Think of your jawbone as the foundation of a house. If there is no house on top of the foundation, the foundation doesn’t really need to exist. Well, if you no longer have any teeth, your jaw no longer needs jaw bone. Therefore, when you lose your natural teeth, it’s normal for the jaw bone to begin to resorb. Jaw bone resorption can cause any remaining teeth to have less support and it can also cause your face to prematurely age. This is because the jaw bone also provides support for facial features.
Loss of Confidence
It’s not unusual to feel a lack of confidence when you have gaps of missing teeth in your smile. Your smile is one of the first things that people will notice about you and unless your missing teeth are in the back of your mouth, other people will notice. When you lose your natural teeth, expect to feel a loss of confidence in your daily life. You might begin to hide your mouth when you eat, speak, or laugh. It might even prevent you from ever becoming the center of attention in social situations because you don’t want to draw attention to your missing teeth.
Inability to Chew
Teeth aren’t just there to look pretty, they’re there to help you chew. Depending on which teeth you lose, certain foods might become more difficult to chew. For instance, after you lose a lot of teeth, you might not feel up for chowing down on a steak or crunchy chips. As a result of the tooth loss, you might start adjusting to a soft food diet so that eating is easier.
Speech Problems
Your teeth can also play a large role in the way that you speak. When you lose a tooth, it’s common to develop speech problems including a lisp. When your tongue doesn’t have the teeth there to help annunciate certain sounds, it will affect your overall speech.
Premature Aging
The last thing that will happen when you lose your teeth is premature aging. As we mentioned earlier, losing your teeth will result in bone loss which will affect your facial features. The lower third of your face will lose its support and it will begin to flatten in height. You might start to notice wrinkles around the mouth, thin lips, and sagging and loose skin in the neck and under the chin.
Avoid The Problems Associated With Missing Teeth With Fountain of Youth Dentures
If you want to avoid all of the problems we listed above, we have a perfect solution—Fountain of Youth Dentures®. DFOY® is a denture system that utilizes neuromuscular principles to not only replace your missing teeth but provide you with a comfortable bite and more youthful appearance. The neuromuscular principles help slow the process of bone resorption to maintain your youthful appearance as well as support your facial features and provide a more comfortable and better-fitting bite. You can also get 4 to 6 dental implants to support the dentures too if you’re looking for a higher level of stability.
If you’re interested in replacing your missing teeth, find a FOY® Dentures dentist near you today.
