The Importance Of Protecting Your Bite

When it comes to dental treatments, the ones that we most commonly think of are things like cosmetic treatments to help us improve our smile and our confidence, routine cleaning, and care, as well as fillings and others designed to fight the slow march of decay. However, if you have a tooth that is damaged or even missing, there are options for you, as well. It’s important to protect not just your smile, but your bite, for a variety of reasons. Here are a few.

Eat with confidence

Of course, the first reason that comes to mind when it comes to protecting your bite is probably how you eat in the first place. There’s no denying that if your teeth aren’t lined up as they’re supposed to be, without any gaps, it can make it more difficult to eat certain things. Aside from being a little more awkward with how you bite, it can also put more pressure on the remaining, whole teeth, which can actually increase their chances of being damaged, as well.

Protecting your jawbone

If you are missing a tooth, then you might feel that the damage is done and there’s nothing more to worry about. However, without the tooth to support and put pressure on it, the body can start to lose jawbone, as well. Dental implants are widely recommended for replacing missing teeth as they make sure that this doesn’t happen. However, you also need enough jawbone to support the implant itself, so the sooner you start to look into it, the better. Jaw bone loss can even lead to changes in your facial structure as it gets more severe.

How you speak

Teeth that are either partially or wholly missing can also cause changes in how you speak. Practice saying words like “feet,” “chair,” or “think,” and mind how your tongue and teeth play a role in how you shape those words. If you have fewer teeth, then you might find it hard to say certain words as you did. This is especially true if you lose any of your front teeth. Of course, a lot of people might not be too bothered by this, but it can affect their confidence and the ability to communicate for many.

Addressing alignment issues

Our teeth going out of alignment is a problem that a lot of people are going to deal with. However, there are ways to prevent it or to at least lower your chances of it happening. One is to replace missing teeth as soon as they are gone or to use aligners on the remaining teeth. However, if a tooth is missing, your chances of developing alignment issues in the long term increase. This is because your teeth naturally put some pressure on each other, holding themselves in line. If a tooth is missing, then the pressure is only going to come from the other side, which can start skewing things out of alignment.

If you have any severe problems such as heavily damaged or missing teeth, it’s a good idea to get them fixed sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the problems above can become severe quickly