Tooth Replacement

Do you have MISSING teeth or ill-fitting dentures that don’t work?

At Riverstone dental, we make it our goal to educate our patients as much as possible, so that together we can come up with a treatment plan that best suits your unique personal and financial situation. Let’s go over the options you have for tooth replacement...

Option #1: Do nothing.

Leaving a gap after a tooth is extracted can be a valid option in certain cases. For example, it would be odd to replace an extracted wisdom tooth with an implant or denture. But, when the tooth extracted leaves a gap between teeth, you need to know that you can lose 4-5mm of bone just in the first year alone! This causes the teeth on either side of the gap to fall into the space, leading to their premature loss as well.

Option #2: Dentures

Partial dentures are sometimes used to replace missing teeth. They can be fabricated completely out of acrylic or metal frames with acrylic on top. It is a valid short term solution, but because the denture rubs against the gums where the extracted tooth was, even more bone loss occurs over the years - which is the cause for needing your denture relined. Because these prostheses use the adjacent teeth to hold them in place, they loosen the teeth over time, leading to the subsequent loss of even more teeth. The life span of a partial denture is approximately 7 years.

Option #3: Bridge

Bridges are used to replace missing teeth, and can also be made from gold, porcelain fused to gold, or all-porcelain depending on the location and nature of the bridge. Bridges are being done less and less as more people are choosing titanium implants to replace missing teeth.

Option #4: Dental Implant

A dental implant is a titanium root that is positioned beneath your gums. It is the perfect long term solution for a missing tooth or teeth. We can remedy spacing that a bridge or denture would normally fill by mounting replacement teeth to the implanted root form base. A dental implant is the best long term choice to date. An implant will encourage bone stability, deter bone loss and preserve the adjacent teeth, since we do not need to clasp or drill these teeth. And there is hardly any discomfort at all. Life span of an implant is approximately 25 years or more!