Do you have a missing tooth that you want to fix with a dental bridge? If so, you likely have questions about dental bridge treatment before you decide to move forward.

Can Anybody Get A Dental Bridge For A Missing Tooth?

It's important to know if you are able to get a dental bridge, which requires a visit to your dentist for a consultation. It will be important that you have healthy teeth that surround the missing tooth, since they are needed to support the dental bridge. If any of those teeth are also at risk of coming out, a bridge may not be possible. Your dentist can create a dental bridge that is supported by only one health tooth, but two healthy teeth will be ideal for maximum stability. If you have more than one tooth in a row that is missing, it is possible to get a bridge that extends across both missing teeth to fill in the gap. 

Can You Wait To Get A Dental Bridge?

One of the problems with waiting a while to get a dental bridge is that your teeth run the risk of shifting during that time. The surrounding teeth tend to drift toward the center of that gap, since they no longer have the support of the missing tooth to keep everything in place. If you wait too long to get a dental bridge, you may find that you caused more damage to the alignment of your teeth that was not there before. 

Will The Surrounding Healthy Teeth Be Altered? 

Be aware that a dental bridge requires crowns to be placed on the surrounding teeth that support the bridge. This means that those teeth will be altered by shaving down parts of the teeth so that a crown can fit on top of it. If the crowns ever fall out due to damage, you will have surrounding teeth that are much smaller than they once were and will be more exposed to potential damage.

This is all necessary so that you have a natural bite with the bridge installed. Since a crown needs to be placed on top of those healthy teeth, room needs to be made for the coverings that go over the teeth. Without shaving down parts of those teeth, the crown would rest on top of the teeth and not align with those next to it. It would cause your bite to feel off, since your teeth would not all come in contact with each other when chewing like they did in the past.