Patients often don’t think of lateral tooth restoration right away. This is because side teeth are not seen by others in everyday life – when smiling or talking. However, very often it is the lack of lateral teeth that can lead to malocclusion complications.

☝ The first thing patients usually notice is that the incisors start to wear or enamel fractures appear. Most often, patients with such complaints come with the desire to have restorations to restore the aesthetics of their incisors. However, very often, during the examination, one or more lateral teeth are found to be missing.

It is immediately explained to the patient that the missing lateral teeth need to be replaced before the incisors can be restored, as any resulting damage to the incisors developed mainly because the loss of the lateral teeth shifts the biting load to the incisors, for which the incisors are not designed.🦷

It should also be mentioned that the lateral teeth need to be restored as soon as possible. If a lateral tooth is not replaced for a long time, the jawbone decreases in volume, the adjacent teeth start to migrate and further tooth replacement is already very difficult.

There are several options for restoring lateral teeth:

1 – implants – an implant is screwed into the patient’s jawbone (replacing the root of the tooth) and then a crown (replacing the visible part of the crown) is placed on top of the implant. A very optimal and clearly predictable way of replacing a tooth.

2 – bridge-retained denture – this denture can be created if both sides of the missing tooth have their own teeth.The main disadvantage of this prosthesis is that it requires both abutment teeth to be ground down, which results in the loss of healthy tooth tissue.But otherwise the bridge prosthesis serves very well to replace 1-2 missing teeth.3 – Removable denture.A financially quite cost-effective option that can replace all missing teeth.Of course, a removable denture will not be as comfortable as a bridge or implant, but I usually recommend that patients replace their teeth with a removable denture at least until an implant can be placed, thus preserving the space of the missing tooth.Any of the above options can be created in our clinic! Feel free to come and we will find the best option for you!👩🏻‍⚕️

Article by Dr. Laila Kondratjeva