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Understanding the Consequences of Tooth Loss: Why Is My Mouth Changing?

Tooth loss can seriously impact your quality of life. Depending on the location of the missing tooth, chewing, swallowing, and even speaking may become a challenge. However, these noticeable changes could only be the surface of your oral-related problems if you don’t get a dental restoration with a prosthodontist in Pompano Beach soon. 

Missing teeth can become the factor that triggers a series of unwanted dental health problems. It can affect your bite alignment, change your face’s appearance, and foster further tooth loss. If you’ve already started some of these changes, here’s how dental restorations can help you prevent that. 

Prosthodontist in Pompano Beach Explains Consequences of Bone Resorption

Why Is My Face Changing After Tooth Loss? 

Tooth loss can foster bone resorption, a natural process in which your bones continuously reshape themselves, adding new bone where needed and removing old bone. This process is beneficial to your health. 

Two types of cells in your bones carry out all the necessary work to restructure your skeleton: 

  • Osteoblasts create your bone where it needs to be strengthened (ossification). 
  • Osteoclasts break down old bone and transfer it into your bloodstream (resorption). 

Your body creates bone more quickly as a child, but this process slows down as you age. Nearly all of your skeleton was replaced in your first year of life, and as an adult, your bones remodel themselves at a rate of roughly 10% annually. 

However, resorption can cause a reduction in bone mass and increase your risk of fractures and breakage if it occurs more quickly than it can be replaced. In your mouth, this process tends to mostly affect your jawbone. 

The Effects of Bone Resorption on Oral Health 

The human body is a smart system constantly looking to optimize resource placement. Therefore, the osseointegration process uses tens to reinforce mostly used bones. Your jawbone does fit this criterion, as you use it daily to chew and bite—however, when a tooth is missing, the force you exert through your teeth into your jaws is diminished. 

This means the jawbone’s osteoblasts receive fewer signals to keep that bone strong. Instead of giving rebuilding the bone structure in the jawbone priority, osteoclasts will start to break it down. New bone will still form but at a slower rate than the bone that is being destroyed. 

The initial phases of jawbone loss might go undetected. However, as resorption increases, you may notice one or more of the following symptoms: 

  • Changes in your bite and facial structure. 
  • Uncomfortable chewing. 
  • The area around your mouth starts to wrinkle. 
  • Your teeth may be moving or becoming loose. 
  • Lips start to sink inward. 
  • Jaw pain, facial pain, and headaches. 
  • Increasing difficulty in speaking. 

How to Stop Bone Density Loss 

Jawbone dentist loss is a natural development—but it can be highly damaging to oral health. If you’re already noticing these outcomes after tooth loss, Park Plaza Dental can help. 

We offer several bone regenerating treatments, from dental implant restorations that help provide continuous stimulation to your jawbone to bone and gum grafts, aiming to help you recuperate the lost density.  

By regrowing the bone that contains tooth sockets, we will ensure a healthy mouth for years to come so you can keep enjoying your smile. 

How Your Dentist in 33062 Uses Fluoride to Protect Your Kid's Healthy Teeth

Protect Your Smile with a Prosthodontist in Pompano Beach 

Our body’s bones naturally lose bone density over time. While this is a common process, tooth decay and other oral illnesses, like gum disease, can accelerate it, making your jawbone thin and weaker. 

Contact us today, and let’s work together to find the perfect dental restoration for you! 

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