Missing a Single Tooth

Your teeth are designed to work harmoniously together, and each has an important function, helping you to bite and chew food properly and sharing the stresses this creates. When you lose a tooth, the additional stresses of biting and chewing have to be absorbed by your remaining teeth, placing them under extra pressure and increasing the chance that they could chip or fracture later.

Leaving a gap in your mouth allows unwanted tooth movements. The teeth adjacent to this gap will begin to shift toward the gap, becoming less stable as they do so and creating unwanted spaces between other teeth. The teeth in your opposing arch will also begin to move towards this space, affecting your bite. Once these teeth have moved out of place, it can be very hard to restore them to their proper positions.

There are several missing tooth replacement options, including:

• A three-tooth or three-unit bridge
• Single dental implant
• One tooth denture (dental flipper)
• Maryland bridge

An implant post is inserted into the jawbone, where it fuses with the bone over several months. Once fully fused, the post easily supports a single implant crown. Single implant crowns can look amazing and exactly like a real tooth or even better. A single dental implant is self-supporting, so no tooth modifications are necessary. Unlike a three-unit bridge, a dental implant is unique in that it will preserve the bone around it.

Treatment typically takes several months to fully complete and does require a short surgical procedure to insert the post. Sometimes it is possible to restore a single dental implant soon after insertion with a temporary tooth. The temporary tooth is replaced with the permanent tooth when healing is complete, and the implant is fully fused with the bone.

Initially, treatment is more expensive, but in the longer term, a single implant can be more cost-effective than a three-unit bridge, because all restorations need replacing eventually. When the time comes, it is cheaper to replace a single implant crown than a three-tooth bridge.

A one tooth denture is called a dental flipper tends to be a temporary solution only as they are not very stable or comfortable and only really provide aesthetic benefits. They are generally used immediately after a tooth is removed and while the empty socket heals.

A Maryland bridge has two wings made from metal or ceramic that are bonded onto the inner surfaces of the teeth either side of the gap, so they are nearly invisible. The wings support the replacement tooth or pontic.

Minimal preparation is needed to fit this bridge, but Maryland bridges are only really suitable for front teeth because they aren’t especially strong. Sometimes the bonds will fail, and the Maryland bridge must be re-cemented in place by a dentist.