There is a range of effects that tooth loss can have on your dental health, overall appearance, and quality of life. The lost tooth can certainly impact how you look when smiling, but the lost tooth root below the gum line often has a greater long term impact on your overall appearance. When patients go too long without replacing a missing tooth, they often experience facial sagging, which can make someone look significantly older than they actually are.
What Is Facial Sagging?
Over time, the loss of a tooth root leads to a shrinkage of bone tissue in the jaw. This can lead to a sunken appearance in the lower chin, especially when more than one tooth is lost. It can make you look older than you are and also changes the fit and function of the bite. When teeth from the upper arch are lost, the bone loss allows skin above the lip to sink inward. In addition to this, the upper teeth can shift inwards when the tooth is not replaced and the mouth will sag inwards.
This sunken appearance gives the impression that the face is sagging as there is no longer enough bone to support the skin and tissues. Some patients notice that their chin sits closer to their nose and their lips seemingly “disappear” as they fold into the mouth.
How Dental Implants Improve Facial Sagging
Dental implants replace both the tooth crown and the tooth root. The implant stimulates healthy bone growth after tooth loss or extraction which will support your natural jaw structure, minimizing any impact to your appearance from bone loss. The placement of dental implants to restore one or more lost teeth will provide the most natural-looking, functioning, and stable result. Prompt replacement of a lost tooth will also help you to avoid the development of facial sagging.
Treating this bone loss is important in order to restore the jaw. The jaw may be able to be restored through bone grafting procedures, which allow our team in Sterling, VA to restore volume to either the top or bottom arch of the jaw. Once the bone grafts have healed, dental implants will then have a stable foundation to be placed.