How to Prevent Alveolar Bone Shrinkage due to a Missing Tooth?
When you lose one or several teeth for any reason, your jaw bone starts to shrink, and we call this process bone loss. Whether you had a tooth extraction or your tooth got knocked out, preventing the bone loss following the event seems to be of the essence. If you don’t pay enough attention to your jaw bone condition after a missing tooth, you will probably put the surrounding teeth and tissue in danger. Faze.ca has recently published an article in which Dr. Behnam Bohlouli from Smile Point Dental argues that there are several preservation stages through which you can prevent alveolar bone shrinkage when you lose your tooth.
In addition to tooth removal, periodontal disease can cause alveolar bone shrinkage too. Periodontal disease is associated with a bacterial infection that will deteriorate the gum and bone tissue step by step until the teeth root gets exposed and become loose. Still, the most prevalent reason for bone loss is tooth loss and, specifically, tooth removal. The jaw bone always requires the chewing force to remain tight and healthy. We can say that chewing pressure preserves the bone tissue alive and constantly growing. When you lose your tooth after the tooth extraction process, your body absorbs the jawbone tissue as there is no tooth it can support. Here the bone degeneration starts, and it gets lost gradually.
Bone loss typically happens in the tissue surrounding and supporting tissue of the extracted tooth. This area of the jaw bone is called the alveolar. Anyway, it would be best if you considered a tooth replacement technique to stop the bone loss process before it is too late. Several dental treatments, such as dental implants and dentures, can replace your missing teeth. Still, you should pay attention that denture, full or partial, will not prevent bone loss individually. They can even accelerate the bone loss process, and they will wear away the gum and bone tissue. This will unfortunately even make eating and chewing a painful procedure. Besides, dentures may also cause your lower jawbone to collapse.