Visual Explanation Of Replacing A Missing Tooth

Hello. Hi. I’m Dr. Grey Kantor. I here, work here with my father, Ezra Kantor at Kantor & Kantor DDS, Dentistry for Healthy Living. Today I want to talk about missing a tooth.

What can you do if you’re missing a tooth?

You have a tooth that you lost due to, say, an accident. You bumped it out, or you had a big cavity and you lost the tooth, or maybe a gum disease and lost the tooth that way. Either way, you’re left into the situation where there’s a missing tooth and you’d like it back. So there’s three, maybe four options to replacing a missing tooth.

The first option, our favorite option here at Kantor & Kantor Dentistry, is to use an implant. Implants replace a tooth almost perfectly. They floss normally, they have the same color as teeth, and they really, really look great and feel like a normal tooth.

Another way to replace a tooth is a bridge. A bridge, you have to reduce the neighboring teeth in order to replace that tooth. So, if we look at this picture here, we have two teeth on either side of a missing tooth area. So when we reduced the the two neighboring tooth… Sorry reduced the two neighboring teeth, you have the ability to put a bridge over the top of it. One thing you’ll notice, it being one piece, there is no way to floss down between those teeth. How are you gonna floss right through here when it’s attached? So the only way to floss is using a floss threader which you thread underneath the tooth and then floss normally. We can get it to really match the color of the teeth just like in all of these examples. But the main problem with bridges is the flossing, it takes a little bit longer and having to reduce the two neighboring teeth down which maybe healthy otherwise.

The final method is a removable appliance. This is something that you take in and out at night and keep it clean. It also works really well, but again, the main problem with it is having to take it in and out at night time. But you can chew on it just like all the other cases. The fourth sort of option is a cantilever named after us, Dr. Kantor. And it’s basically the same as this bridge that we talked about, the only difference is, is you’re not using one of the abutments. It’s only used in certain situations, so that’s why say it’s kind of an option. It depends on the situation but it’s an option where you only have to reduce one side and not both sides. Again, it can’t be used in all situations, only for your smallest teeth is it a viable option.

Those are the three, possibly four ways to replace a teeth. You have an implant, a bridge, or a removable denture. All of these work excellently, and we can help you with each one here at Kantor & Kantor DDS, Dentistry for Healthy Living. Again, I’m Dr. Grey Kantor here in Santa Fe, California, and I look forward seeing you at our office.