How Dental Implants Can Boost Your Confidence and Improve Your Oral Health

It’s easy to brush off a missing tooth as a minor flaw, but it can wreck your confidence and oral health. Here’s how dental implants can restore both.

Missing teeth ruin your smile and tank your self-confidence, but they also threaten your oral health. Although you have several options for replacing lost teeth, none compare to dental implants.

If you live in the Museum District of Houston, Texas, you have one of your neighborhood’s leading dental implant experts. At Anna M. Munné, DDS, PA & ASSOCIATES, we provide state-of-the-art technology and perform advanced periodontal procedures, including dental implants.

Here’s a look at how dental implants can boost your confidence and improve oral health.

Why missing teeth are problematic

Missing teeth have become an epidemic in the United States. Experts estimate that about 7% of adults have lost at least one tooth to disease or decay by 17, and 69% have lost at least one by age 44. The average 50-year-old has 12 missing teeth, and over a quarter of all 65-74-year-olds have no teeth. And all this tooth loss has consequences.

Tooth loss and self-confidence

Before you write off a missing tooth as a minor cosmetic issue, consider how it may affect your self-confidence. If you’re self-conscious about the gap in your smile, you may smile and laugh less. You may feel embarrassed about your appearance and avoid social situations. You may even miss professional opportunities because you don’t feel comfortable speaking in front of others.

Missing teeth and the low self-confidence it causes affect your relationships and decision-making processes, potentially altering your life’s course.

Tooth loss and oral health

In addition to confidence problems, missing teeth are detrimental to your oral health. Here are some examples of the impact of just one missing tooth.

Misalignments: missing teeth allow other teeth to shift
Chewing problems
Digestive issues linked to chewing problems
Nutritional deficiencies
Difficulty speaking clearly
Gum recession
Periodontic disease
Jawbone deterioration
Facial structure changes

The more teeth you lose and the longer you ignore the gaps, the worse these conditions get. Missing teeth can also affect your overall health. Studies show that oral bacterial infections can enter your bloodstream, triggering premature birth in pregnant women and leading to heart disease in otherwise healthy people.

How dental implants improve your confidence and oral health

You can close the gap left by missing teeth with dentures or bridges, but neither of those options solves the issue of jawbone atrophy, and both devices require eventual replacement.

On the other hand, dental implants check all the boxes regarding a stellar smile and long-term oral health. Dr. Munné anchors a titanium post into your jawbone, tops it with an abutment, and places a crown at the top, making dental implants the most durable, natural-looking option.

Every time you chew, the post sends pressure to your jawbone, stimulating cell turnover and growth. The permanent implant prevents your facial structure from caving in, enables you to chew and speak normally, staves off tooth shifting and gum disease, and doesn’t require removal or special care.

If you have several missing teeth in a row, Dr. Munné offers implant dentures to fill the gap and still deliver the benefits of permanence and bone stimulation.

If you want to save your oral health and self-esteem, contact us online or by phone to schedule a consultation with Dr. Munné and discover how dental implants can change your life.