Will Single Dental Implants Improve Your Smile?

Has tooth loss left an embarrassing gap in your smile? That's a common problem and one that can be quite embarrassing, since your smile is often the first thing people notice when they meet you. It can also be quite uncomfortable, affecting how you eat and speak, and can leave remaining teeth more vulnerable to dental problems and decay. However, these problems aren't ones you have to live with. With single dental implants, your Singapore oral surgeon can repair the damage, improving your smile with a dental restoration that will look, feel and function just like a natural tooth.

Losing even a single tooth can have quite an impact on the appearance of your smile. If you've lost a front tooth, you already know of course, that it leaves an immediate and unsightly gap. A missing tooth towards the back of the mouth doesn't cause that immediate, obvious change, but the gap can cause shifting in other teeth, gum recession and bone loss in the jaw, all of which can affect your appearance. Those changes can affect your dental health as well, making remaining teeth more vulnerable to damage, decay and periodontal disease.

So replacing missing teeth as soon as possible is important, and dental implants are the best method available to do that, since they provide a restoration that more closely resembles natural teeth than dental bridges, the other common option for single tooth replacement. Dental implants offer a replacement tooth that is structured like a natural tooth, the implant surgically placed in the jawbone and bonding with it to form an artificial tooth root, which anchors an attractive, natural-looking crown. Replacing the tooth root helps protect against bone loss and the gum recession that can come with it, since the implant provides stimulation to the jawbone to trigger new bone cell growth, much like the natural one once did.

Dental bridges, on the other hand, rely on the support of adjacent natural teeth, which are ground down and crowned to anchor the bridge in place, alterations that can weaken them and promote decay. Additionally, dental bridges only replace the visible portion of the tooth, leaving the jawbone beneath that crown with no tooth root, a situation that promotes bone loss. Deterioration in supporting teeth and bone loss often lead to loosening or failure, which is why the average bridge only lasts seven to ten years.

Restorations done with single dental implants have an average lifespan of  25 years, and with careful brushing, flossing and regular dental care, they often last a lifetime. So yes, single dental implants can improve your smile, offering a healthy, long-lasting and attractive solution to tooth loss.