Missing teeth can create a number of complications for your dental health, oral capabilities, and smile aesthetics. You might lose one or more teeth after suffering significant dental damage or due to an accidental injury. Regardless of the reason, tooth loss can prove seriously detrimental.
You should seek tooth replacement treatment from your dentist to restore your smile in the wake of tooth loss. But ideally, you can preserve your natural dental structure for as long as possible by preventing this serious dental concern. Read on to find advice from your dentist that can reduce your risk of suffering tooth loss.
Practice Consistent Oral Hygiene
Oral hygiene refers to the practice of cleaning your smile on a regular basis. We must brush our teeth twice a day and floss every day in order to remove plaque and other residues from our smiles. Lingering plaque will eat away at your dental structure, weakening your teeth and putting them in greater danger of decay.
Extensive deterioration of your teeth may lead them to fall out of their sockets or require extraction to preserve the rest of your smile. Plaque build-up may also allow oral bacteria to spread more easily, increasing your risk of gum disease too. This infection of the gum tissue is the leading cause of tooth loss, so you want to avoid contracting it.
Adhere to a consistent oral hygiene regimen to ensure you remove these harmful particles from your smile in a timely fashion. Skipping this routine will heighten your risk of dental damage significantly, so do not do so.
Visit Your Dentist Regularly
Proper oral hygiene is not complete without a regular professional teeth cleaning from your dentist. During these appointments, a dentist will scrape away plaque and tartar from spots of your mouth that a toothbrush cannot easily reach. Without this expert attention, you could still face dental dangers even with diligent at-home oral hygiene.
Your dentist will also examine your teeth and gums for early signs of damage. Then they can intervene and treat the issues before they progress and lead to tooth loss or other problems. Attend these routine dental check-ups every six months or as directed by your dentist.
React Promptly If You Suffer a Dental Injury
While dental deterioration can put you at risk of tooth loss, you might also lose a tooth for an acute reason, such as an accidental blow to the face. If you knock out a tooth, make sure you take swift action to improve your chances of your dentist saving it and restoring it back to your smile.
Contact your dentist and attend an emergency dental appointment within an hour of losing the tooth if possible. Beyond this time, the tooth will lose vitality, and the dentist will have a harder time saving it.
Make an effort to preserve the tooth as well as you can. Place it gently in its socket if possible so that your saliva can keep the tooth healthy. You may also store the tooth in a cup submerged in spit.