Missing Teeth

Replacement Options

Dental Implants

They are usually made of titanium and they replace the roots of the tooth inside the bone. Other components for the implant are connector piece (abutment) and crown. The connector piece attaches to the implant and sticks out of the gum for the crown to be placed on it. Implants crowns are usually made of porcelain and they look like a tooth and function like a tooth.

Fixed Bridge:

If the implant is not an option and both sides of the missing tooth are stable, we can place crowns on the adjacent teeth that would be connected by a middle crown sitting on the gum. The dental lab fabricates the bridge and it would be cemented permanently on the prepared adjacent teeth.

Dentures:

There are different kinds of dentures:

Fixed dentures: are not removable as they are screwed into the implants. Fixed dentures require implants to be placed into bone to secure the denture.
Removable dentures: can be easily removed by the patient. There are different kind of removable dentures;
Precision dentures: They hook on attachments coming off the crowns to make them more retentive
Over dentures: These dentures snap on the implants but they are not fixed. They can be removed.
Simple full and partial dentures: They replace the missing teeth. Partial dentures have more retention since there are some teeth to hold them in place as opposed the full dentures which relies solely on the bone underneath.