If you have between one and three missing teeth in a row, then yes, your smile may benefit from a dental bridge. Designed to address minor tooth loss, a custom-made bridge offers a lifelike and dependable solution for the gaps in your smile. In today’s blog, we’re talking about how we create them and when our Brighton, MA, patients should consider a dental prosthetic.
What Causes Tooth Loss?
Why do we lose our natural teeth? Multiple issues could be related to adult tooth loss, such as injury or advanced tooth decay and infection. The most common factor is periodontitis. The advanced stage of gum disease, periodontitis severs the tissues between your teeth and gums, leading to teeth becoming loose and eventually falling out. Often, maintaining good oral hygiene and seeing your dentist for checkups and cleanings is enough to keep periodontal issues at bay and protect the health and stability of your smile.
Creating a Custom Prosthetic
If you have suffered minor tooth loss, then we may prescribe a dental bridge. In addition to withstanding bite pressures and forces like natural teeth, we also want to ensure your prosthetic fits comfortably and blends with your smile. We will take detailed impressions of you smile, which aid in the design and fabrication of the prosthetic. Our team will create them using natural looking materials, such as ceramic, which can be shaded to match surrounding teeth and blend with your smile as a whole.
Placing Your Dental Bridge
Simply put, the prosthetic builds a bridge between the natural teeth on either side of the exposed gap in your smile. The bridge contains your new teeth, but with crowns attached to each end. We will prepare the teeth on either side of the gap, removing structure to make room for the crowns. Once we place the crowns, this anchors the new teeth firmly in place, offering a durable solution to tooth loss, one that could last between 10 and 15 years with proper care and attention. Caring for your new prosthetic is simple. You will brush and floss your smile daily as recommended, including your new bridge. You will also clean the space between the top of the gums and the bottom of the bridge itself. These steps, along with routine checkups and cleanings, help protect your new teeth from decay, infection, and periodontal issues.
Do You Suffer From Missing Teeth?
At Brighton Family Dental Group, we want to help you enjoy a full and healthy smile with our lifelike prosthetics. You can schedule an appointment or consultation with Dr. Villani or Dr. Kondrat by reaching out to our office at (617) 562-5210. We are proud to offer a range of dental services to patients from Cambridge, Brookline, Newton, and all neighboring communities.
