The Tribune

BY DR SPARKMAN

FERGUSON

REGISTRAR-BAHAMAS DENTAL COUNCIL

“A DELICATE balance of nature is breached whenever a permanent tooth is removed from any mouth. The exception to this rule is the wisdom teeth.”

Permanent teeth do not announce their arrival, but the first of them are in place at the age of six. The others join them by age 13, and then the wisdom teeth complete the set when they arrive between the ages of 17-25.

I mentioned in a previous article that losing the wisdom teeth is not considered a loss to the mouth. The other acceptable loss involves the removal of permanent teeth to create space during braces treatment.

I mentioned yet in another previous article that generally speaking, rotting teeth is the main reason that younger individuals lose permanent teeth, and that gum disease is responsible for most permanent teeth loss in older individuals. Whatever the circumstance, a missing tooth/teeth from the mouth presents its own special concerns. This is precisely the reason why the dental profession spends so much energy educating persons in prevention practices.

We have all heard it, “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”. This is a true statement in many arenas, but especially in dentistry. When we prevent the common dental diseases, we do not lose teeth. However, when we are not sufficiently preventive minded, we can lose teeth. Following the loss, we are then faced with having to replace teeth, along with the expense of doing so. If we then find that we are unable to afford to replace our missing teeth, our mouth problems increase exponentially.

What is this delicate balance all about?

One’s natural teeth erupt in a special pattern into the mouth. Each tooth is dependent on its neighbouring tooth like a team depends on teammates. They function as a unit.

In a complete mouth with 28 teeth, there are 14 top teeth biting against 14 bottom teeth. If a person loses two bottom teeth, we then have 14 teeth biting against 12 teeth.

Lets change the scenario. We now have four missing teeth in the top jaw and four missing in the bottom jaw. We are now even with 10 teeth in each jaw, except that we were meant to function with 14 in each. These are “engineering load problems” that most people do not grasp at first. To compound this issue and make everything worse, the space created by a vacated tooth encourages all the other teeth in both jaws to begin a slow movement, becoming mobile. The net result of all this is that other teeth will eventually be lost.

Once a tooth or teeth are removed and healing is complete, replacement teeth are available to get the mouth back to its original form. A few options are available when replacing missing teeth. One can choose dental implants, or dental bridges, or partial dentures. Each of these has its advantages and can be discussed with your dentist.

Persons with missing teeth are cautioned not to think that it is okay to not replace missing teeth. This will only cause the future loss of teeth. If such teeth are absent at the front of the mouth, there is also an aesthetic issue added to the other aforementioned issues.

Finally, all persons are encouraged to avoid the loss of permanent teeth by having regular yearly dental checkups. These checkups detect dental diseases early, thereby helping to curb the loss of the permanent teeth.