Can you imagine that when we had a problem in a finger it would be necessary to cut it? We would be mutilated and lose its function and esthetics. Fortunately, this does not usually happen. However, with teeth, until recently, any tooth that posed a problem was almost systematically extracted. Therefore, to a greater or lesser extent, many of us are “oral invalids”.
Over the years, preventive medicine has become part of society and the mouth is no exception. Today, we take more care of our teeth and there is more of a fight to preserve them. In any case, it will always be necessary to extract those pieces that are seriously affected by periodontal disease, also called pyorrhea; by large cavities, infections or trauma.
Application of dental implants and bridges
Tooth loss involves changes in the way of chewing, at the temporomandibular joint level and esthetic changes. Often only aesthetics is given importance, almost nobody allows themselves to be without a tooth in the front part, but it is surprising the great number of people who live without teeth in the posterior sectors. It seems that what is not seen does not matter. Ideally, in dentistry, all missing teeth should be replaced, except in the case of wisdom teeth, in a reasonable time so that the adjacent or antagonist teeth do not change position.
If a patient has lost all his teeth, until recently they could only be replaced with the traditional full dentures. In the case of partial missing teeth, one way to replace them is with the typical prosthesis with “hooks” to attach to the adjacent teeth and also removable.
Nowadays many of these cases are solved with the application of dental implants, which act as anchors to subsequently place teeth on them. If the objective is to replace one or more teeth in a fixed way, one of the classic treatments was to lower the teeth next to them so that they could be anchored on them thanks to caps that, in turn, hold the missing teeth.
Thanks to the advances developed in recent years, nowadays with osseointegrated dental implants we can replace the absence of these teeth without having to lower the adjacent teeth. The implant or implants act as a fixing root whose function is to anchor the definitive fixed teeth. In any case, the classic fixed bridges still have their functionality, for example in situations where the teeth adjacent to the gap or gaps are very deteriorated by caries. In this way they would be protected and restored with crowns or crowns.