There are a lot of good reasons to get dental implants if you have one or more missing teeth. They certainly beat dentures when it comes to eating naturally, and they don't need any work done on adjacent teeth like a bridge requires.
What people don't always consider — or aren't at all aware of — are the numerous health benefits dental implants can bring. Once they're fitted, they can improve the health of your mouth in several ways, which will help you prevent any other problems later on that will need treatment. Here are some of the less obvious ways implants can help you.
Keeping your jaw healthy
When you have a gap after losing a tooth, the jawbone in that area can begin to deteriorate over time. This is because, without the root in place, the jaw changes quite rapidly and begins to weaken. While dentures and bridges can cover the gap so your smile looks great, they don't provide the same support for the jaw.
Implants are essentially an artificial root that's inserted into the jaw, and they do exactly the same job as the roots of natural teeth, keeping the jaw healthy. In fact, they can actually improve the strength of the jaw, particularly if you've had a missing tooth for some time.
Helping other teeth stay strong
If there's a missing tooth, other teeth can begin to slowly shift position as the pressure that kept them in place is gone. Dentures help to prevent this to a certain extent, but as they're not worn at night, the position of teeth can still change.
When teeth move out of their ideal position, they can quickly become weak, which puts them in danger of being lost as well, and can make them more difficult to keep clean.
Having a dental implant fully replaces the natural tooth or teeth that have been lost, so they keep all the other teeth in your mouth firmly in position.
Improving oral hygiene
Gaps left by missing teeth are often neglected during brushing, and since there's no tooth there, people sometimes think it's not a problem. However, bacteria can quickly build up in these spaces, spreading to the rest of your mouth and possibly damaging other teeth. With an implant, you'll brush and floss as normal, keeping everything healthy.
Some tooth replacement options are also quite difficult to clean, particularly bridges attached to other teeth. Implants are easy to keep clean, and the time and money invested in them also has the important psychological effect of making you more thorough when it comes to looking after them.
