Implant, yes or no?

[Keith]

I am a 63-year-old male living in the UK. I parted company with my wisdom teeth decades ago so I am down to 7 teeth in each quadrant.

A couple of weeks ago my dentist had to remove my top right 6, leaving number 7 isolated. He is now suggesting I should replace the missing tooth with an implant.

There are no cosmetic reasons for doing this. I don't want to go for a bridge or dentures so the choices are implant or do nothing and leave a gap. Cost is not an issue (but don't tell my dentist!). I just want to do what's best for my mouth.

My instinct is to do nothing but my dentist is suggesting there may be adverse oral health impacts.

What are the pros and cons of having an implant versus leaving a gap? Any advice or experiences greatly appreciated.

Keith

 

[Dr. Garrett Fiorenza]

The best thing for your oral health is the implant. These are the gold standard for dentistry today. Implants give you the most natural chewing capabilities, they preserve bone levels, and they support occlusion (how you bite together). Those are the pros. The con to an implant is the cost, they can be expensive.

The pro to doing nothing is you don't have to spend a dime. The cons are that area will not have proper chewing ability, it will likely cause some bone loss since nothing is there to maintain the bone, and the tooth that is farther back will start to migrate forward which could effect occlusion. You do 90% of your chewing with the tooth you are missing, so you will most likely feel a difference in chewing ability.

I would suggest watching the area over the next month or two and deciding if you can live without the tooth. Either it will be driving you crazy and you should get the implant, or you won't even notice it's gone (in which case you can do nothing and save some money). Hope this helps,

Garrett Fiorenza, DDS
fiorenzadentalgroup.com
Greenwood, IN

 

[DRAVG]

why did you have to remove the tooth? are any other teeth scheduled for extraction? do you have gum disease? how severe? smoker?