Missing a tooth comes with several downsides to cause significant disruptions in your day-to-day life. Besides ruining your smile and facial aesthetics, you also experience challenges biting and chewing foods, making you think you must have a replacement for the lost tooth as soon as possible.
When you see the dentist in Seattle, WA, you receive a suggestion to have dental implants undergoing surgery or dental bridges if you want a conservative option as a replacement solution. You favor dental bridges without realizing you are accepting responsibility to maintain the dental bridge after getting it fixed in your mouth over the edentulous tooth socket because replacing the tooth with a dental bridge infuses upon you the responsibility to care for the tooth replacement and your dental health. As discussed below, failure in caring for the dental bridge can result in many issues.
Inappropriate Dental Bridge Management
Getting dental bridges near you will seem convenient and comfortable because the solution requires about three weeks to close the edentulous tooth socket. The Seattle dentist will reshape the teeth neighboring the empty void in your mouth to accommodate dental crowns that function as abutments holding a dental bridge or pontic between them. After restoring your missing tooth, the dentist provides after-care instructions for the artificial tooth to ensure you don’t have to endure the following complications.
- Tooth decay: when you don’t pay sufficient attention to your replacement tooth, you set the tooth up for decay. Tooth decay is the leading cause of improper dental hygiene. Therefore you must pay close attention to your dentist’s instructions and dental bridge to prevent this infection.
- Food Remaining Trapped: after receiving a prosthetic tooth, you will confront the challenge of having food particles trapped beneath the dental bridge. Improperly maintaining the dental bridge ensures further debris buildup, leading to bacterial infection and lousy breath.
- Bridges falling off: when you don’t maintain appropriate dental hygiene, the practice can weaken the natural tooth holding the abutments on both sides of the missing tooth gap to result in failure of the dental bridge, which falls off to leave you toothless.
To avoid the above challenges, you must stringently become involved in dental bridges after-care to ensure you don’t have to seek replacement bridges soon after getting a new dental prosthetic for your missing tooth.
Caring for Dental Bridges
Understand how you can prevent the complications mentioned above from improper handling of your dental bridge by reading the tips that will prove helpful.
- Brushing Teeth Twice Daily: you cannot neglect to brush your teeth twice daily as many people do to impact your dental bridge. Daily brushing is an essential requirement that becomes crucial after getting a new dental bridge. Therefore you must brush twice daily to prevent plaque and tartar buildup that can result in other dental infections.
- Using a Fluoride Rinse: after getting a dental bridge, you must request the Seattle dentist recommend a fluoride rinse because it helps strengthen your gumline and prevents bacterial buildup around the prosthetic tooth. While brushing daily helps remove bacterial buildup, a fluoride rinse provides an added layer of protection against bacteria, gum disease, and tooth decay.
- Cleaning under a Dental Bridge: Dental bridges are securely bonded to your natural teeth using special dental cement. Therefore minimal space is available to pass dental floss between them, making it challenging to clean beneath the dental bridge. This problem requires you to invest in special cleaning tools to clean under your dental bridge and the dental crowns mounted as abutment teeth on the natural teeth beside the missing tooth gap. You can consider using interdental brushes and floss threaders for cleaning around the dental crowns and beneath the dental bridge.
- Refrain from Eating Cold or Hard Foods: ceramic helps make dental bridges which, despite remaining durable, are not as strong as your natural teeth. Eating cold and hard foods can cause the ceramic bridge to wear off over time. You must ensure you preserve the longevity of the replacement tooth, following basic etiquette by refraining from having certain foods that can damage the artificial tooth.
- Dental Visits: you must visit the Seattle dentist every six months for exams and cleanings to ensure dental infections are not manifesting around your teeth or beneath the dental bridge.
A dental bridge has a lifespan of around seven to ten years. However, if you care for it appropriately, you can extend its longevity by another five years, saving yourself some money.
3rd & Columbia Dental provides dental bridges to help replace one or more missing teeth advising patients on the care bridges need to serve as excellent replacements for missing teeth. Consult the practice if you want a conservative tooth replacement solution to close the empty void between your teeth today.