Dental implants are the best tooth replacement option available. They look like natural teeth, function like natural teeth, and maintain your natural gums and bone so your results can last a lifetime.
Dental bridges are a close second. An artificial tooth connected to dental crowns over teeth on either side of the artificial tooth can work well. Dental bridges can function like natural teeth, but they don’t support your jawbone and gums, which can sometimes collapse under the bridge. This not only affects the appearance of your dental bridge, it could potentially cause the failure of the bridge because there’s no longer enough bone to support it.
But now a new technique, called root submergence, promises to help dental bridges look and last more like dental implants, though they still fall short.
Keeping the Good Part of Your Tooth
Root submergence is used when you have a healthy tooth root but the upper part of your tooth is too damaged to support a dental crown. The decayed or damaged crown of your tooth is removed at the level of your bone. Then the gum tissue is closed over the tooth root. A dental bridge is placed over the gums, with the pontic (replacement tooth) nestled down into your gum tissue to help improve the appearance of the restoration.
Benefits of the Procedure
The primary benefit of the procedure is that it maintains your natural bone and gum tissue. It might even do this better than a dental implant. That’s because it maintains the natural connection between your tooth and your bone. The synergy between your natural tooth and your bone is a little better than that between bone and dental implants. And it might be especially helpful for maintaining your gums, which can be hard to maintain around dental implants.
It also help because you don’t have to extract your natural tooth. The extraction can cause some bone and gum loss, even if you get your dental implants right away.
Still Not as Good as Dental Implants
Although root submergence can make dental bridges look more attractive and maintain the bone around them, dental implants are still superior.
Dental bridges still have to be supported by neighboring teeth. This means that those neighboring teeth have to have natural tooth material removed to make room for the supporting dental crowns.
And once the dental bridge is finished, you have two teeth doing the work of three. This can put stress on the teeth and reduce their longevity.
And there’s the fact that this is a relatively new procedure with little data to support it. A few case studies show it can work, but not how long the results can last or what kinds of complications may arise.
And with the help of a periodontist to manage your bone and soft tissue around the dental implants, your cosmetic results can be as good as the optimal result from root submergence.
If you are looking for the best tooth replacement option in Rancho Mirage, that’s still dental implants. To start your dental implant procedure, please call (760) 832-7915 today for an appointment with an implant dentist at Country Club Dentistry.
