The deterioration, also called atrophy or „erosion“ of an edentulous jawbone is a very serious health issue, starting with the change of facial features (the sinking of cheeks, early formation of wrinkles, sinking of lips etc.) and extending to major impact upon one‘s health and social discomfort (indigestion, inarticulate pronunciation, decreased quality of life).
Main causes of jawbone deterioration
- The bone tissue starts deteriorating in areas of missing teeth as there is no necessary masticatory pressure
- Jawbone deterioration also settles in under dental bridges and removable dentures as there is no masticatory pressure as well
- Atrophy of the bone tissue is also caused by oncological diseases of the facial area
- Atrophy of the bone tissue might be the result of dental and jaw trauma
- The jawbone might suppurate and decompose due to a secondary infection that has spread via root canals because of teeth affected by caries
- The jawbone might be damaged by paradontitis
It‘s worth mentioning that teeth surrounding the area of the lost tooth begin to collapse in a fashion similar to dominos; since they have no outer support and experience an increased masticatory load due to the missing tooth, it‘s only a matter of time when you start losing more teeth. The process of jawbone deterioration and further tooth loss is irreversible – the dentist is only able to stop it.
The patient is usually not aware that the jawbone begins deteriorating in areas of missing teeth, however, it is important to remember that the lost tooth is an important risk factor in jawbone atrophy. Therefore it‘s very important to see your dentist at least once in a while, just to check how you‘re doing even with a single tooth missing. Your dental condition can be clearly examined with the help of a panoramic X-ray picture.
If there is an apparent need to remove one or several teeth from a deteriorating jawbone prior to implantation, we strongly advise you to consult with your implantologist. If there is the slightest opportunity to insert a dental implant in place of a freshly removed tooth, i.e. perform immediate implantation, or fill it with a bone substitute, we would strongly recommend to do so as this would prevent against reduction in bone volume and extra complicated and expensive surgical procedures that would extend and make the implantation process much more costly.
Deteriorating jawbones can be successfully recovered using original, donor or artificial bone tissue (grafts). However, we do not advocate patients to rely on high standards of dentistry technology only to find out that they‘ve started experiencing deterioration of jawbone size and volume after tooth loss.