Age Gracefully After Tooth Loss: How to Stop It from Changing Your Facial Shape

Aging gracefully. Everyone hopes they will manage to slow down the hands of time and look youthful for as long as possible, and they do what they can to make it happen. In fact, the anti-aging industry was worth about 62 billion dollars globally in 2021! Obviously, people are willing to do whatever it takes or costs to keep classic signs of aging at bay, but it may take more than wrinkle creams.

Unfortunately, if you’re missing one or more teeth, you may be headed toward premature aging with changes to your facial shape. How is this possible? What impact does missing teeth have on your facial shape? What can be done? Continue reading to find out!

How Missing Teeth Affect the Shape of Your Face

You’ve probably seen the elderly who have a sunken face. This doesn’t just naturally come with age but with tooth loss. When you have multiple missing teeth or have no natural teeth left at all, your mouth collapses when you close your jaw. It’s unmistakable and immediately ages you. You need prosthetic teeth to maintain that space and keep your jaw properly aligned.

At first glance, you may only notice the lost crown, which is more visible, but it’s perhaps more important that you lose the tooth’s root with missing teeth. This structure crucially is integrated with the jawbone and keeps it stimulated, drawing nutrients into the area. When the roots are no longer there, those nutrients go elsewhere. In fact, your body resorbs the jawbone as it slowly loses density. As a result, it shrinks, creating wrinkles and a sunken appearance that can make you look much older than you actually are.

Dental Implants: The Key to Preserving Facial Shape

Fortunately, all hope is not lost after missing teeth! Your dentist offers multiple restorative solutions. At minimum, traditional dentures stop obvious and instantaneous collapse, but jawbone deterioration still occurs under the gums surface.

Your smile can have a second chance with dental implants. These replacements address the entire missing tooth structure—including the root. In fact, the implant posts become just as embedded as natural tooth roots, giving your prosthetic teeth much more stability and strength. By stimulating the jawbone, the implants also prevent it from diminishing over time. In other words, with dental implants, you can hold onto your more youthful facial shape longer!

Clearly, your looks depend on more than just the shape of your face, but missing teeth can lead to a dramatic change in your facial structure, altering your appearance. Now that you’re aware of this potential side effect of tooth loss, you can fight it with the right replacements, delaying the aging process a bit more.

About the Practice

At On Point Dentistry, Dr. Marco Caballeros and Dr. Carlos Parra are proud to have many replacement options for those with missing teeth. As a periodontist, Dr. Parra is uniquely qualified to place dental implants, while Dr. Caballeros, a Fellow with the Academy of General Dentistry, provides the flawless restorations. They work together to customize treatment to each patient’s individual needs. If you have questions about tooth replacement, please contact our Frisco office by calling 469-476-4092 or going online here.