Dental Bridges

How Missing Teeth Impact Your Smile

Missing teeth do more than create embarrassing gaps. Without replacement, they can affect your oral health and quality of life in several important ways:

• Impair your ability to smile, speak, and chew with confidence and ease
• Allow adjacent teeth to drift into the empty spaces, changing your bite alignment
• Cause opposing teeth to extrude when they no longer have a counterpart to meet, further compromising your bite
• Promote cavities and gum disease as shifted teeth become harder to clean and biting forces distribute unevenly

Rebuilding a Complete Smile

Modern dentistry offers effective solutions for replacing missing teeth and restoring complete, attractive smiles. Thanks to advances in dental materials and technology, it's easier than ever to achieve natural-looking, long-lasting results.

At West Park Dental, we understand that each smile is different. We offer expert guidance to help you choose the most suitable tooth replacement option, whether that's partial dentures, fixed dental bridges, or dental implants. Whatever method you select, you can feel confident your smile will look good and feel great.

About Dental Bridges

A dental bridge offers a highly effective, stable, and fixed solution for replacing missing teeth. Unlike removable partial dentures that clasp onto remaining teeth, a dental bridge relies on the support of crowns attached to adjacent teeth or strategically placed dental implants.

In addition to restoring the look, feel, and function of a natural smile, bridges prevent your teeth from shifting and protect the alignment of your bite.

Today's dental bridges are fabricated from the highest quality materials, including porcelain, porcelain fused to metal, and engineered ceramics like zirconia. They're stronger and more durable than ever before, and they appear beautifully natural.

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Common Types of Dental Bridges

Depending on the number of missing teeth, the health of your remaining teeth, and other factors, a dental bridge can replace a single tooth or multiple teeth. The most commonly recommended types are:

Traditional Fixed Bridge

A traditional fixed bridge typically requires preparing and crowning teeth on either side of the gap. These crowned teeth support the artificial teeth, called pontics, that span the space. Much like a bridge over water relies on sturdy pillars at each end, a dental bridge gains strength and stability from the terminal crowned teeth fused to the pontics.

A cantilever bridge is similar but differs in one significant way: only one side of the pontic attaches to a crown for support.

Implant-Supported Bridges

As the most advanced method for replacing missing teeth, dental implants come closest to replicating the look, feel, and function of natural teeth. For this reason, an implant-supported bridge often represents the best option.

With an implant-supported bridge, there's no need to prepare, crown, or involve any adjacent natural teeth. Because dental implants behave like natural tooth roots, they provide all the support a bridge requires.

Additional benefits of implant-supported bridges:

• Provide a self-supporting solution without affecting healthy teeth
• Offer the most versatile approach for rebuilding your smile
• Can support any number of replacement teeth, up to an entire arch
• Help prevent bone shrinkage that naturally occurs after tooth loss
• Maintain normal facial contours

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Your Care at West Park Dental

Our mission is to help every patient enjoy good oral health and the benefits of a beautiful smile. We provide skilled, experienced care and offer the most advanced solutions to transform incomplete smiles into ones that look great, function well, and inspire confidence.

If you're missing one or more teeth, we invite you to schedule a consultation. We'll evaluate your oral health, discuss your goals, and recommend the best bridge option for your unique needs.