Tooth care is a crucial part of your self-care routine and should be prioritized. While your mouth is used everyday to speak to friends and family and chew your food, its care is sometimes left on the back burner. Li Family Dental recommends regular checkups and cleanings to keep your mouth fresh and your teeth feeling good because the cost of waiting to fix teeth can be high. So what is the cost of waiting to fix your teeth?
Unfortunately, there always seems to be somewhere else our money is going. While it’s important to pay rent and keep food on the table, there are negative implications that accompany neglecting your dental care. In some cases, these issues could require treatment which costs more than preventative care would have.
There’s more at stake than the comfort of your bite when you forego necessary dental treatment. When you neglect your teeth you also put other parts of your body and health at risk. Let’s take a closer look at the cost of waiting to fix teeth.
Missing Teeth and Shifting Teeth
Your mouth is like a perfect quilt, stitched together one piece at a time. Every piece is held in tightly by the piece next to it. If a quilt maker was to forget to stitch a piece of the blanket, the next piece would have nothing to hold it in place. This is the same for your teeth. When you lose a tooth, your mouth suddenly has more space than it knows what to do with. Without the tooth next door, other teeth may begin to shift and wander.
Fixing a missing tooth doesn’t need to be complex and the details will be worked out in one visit to your dentist. The cost of such a procedure is affordable but could be an inconvenience. For those who put it off it could result in a much larger bill. The longer you wait to implant a replacement tooth, the more teeth will shift. This could result in a need not only for a replacement tooth but for braces as well. Waiting has added to the overall cost of fixing your teeth.
Missing Teeth and Bone Loss
It’s not just moving teeth that could be cause for concern when it comes to the cost of waiting to fix teeth. If missing teeth aren’t treated straight away, your jawbone could be permanently impacted by the loss. Your bones deteriorate with age naturally, but the speed of deterioration can speed up if a bone isn’t being utilized for its main purpose.
A scientific paper in the Journal of Periodontology found that alveolar bone in the jaw deteriorated more quickly in those who were missing teeth. The spaces where teeth aren’t attached to the bone began to break down. You can prevent this by having dental implants placed into the bone by means of a titanium post. The post secures the natural-looking tooth, fixing the gap and increasing the structural integrity of your mouth and jaw.
The Link to Heart Disease
The cost of waiting to fix teeth can travel beyond just your mouth or your wallet. Your body is a finely tuned machine. When one part stops working, it negatively impacts the rest of you. A fine example of this is seen in the relation between gum care, dental care, and heart disease. Research shows that your heart is directly affected by dental diseases. A study published in the British Medical Journal found that poor dental health and hygiene increased the risk of heart disease. This was escalated more so in young men than women.
Having regular checkups and completing dental work as necessary helps to reduce the risk of gum and dental disease. In this case, spending the money when the work is needed will save money and further treatment later. In this case, it could save you more than money – it could save your life.
Chipped Teeth Become Broken Teeth
You might not realize the level of abuse your teeth take on a regular basis. From grinding together in your sleep to scraping together while you speak to grinding and chomping when you chew. All this use causes wear and tear on even the healthiest of teeth. But, what about teeth which are damaged?
A chipped tooth might not set off alarm bells at first notice. Many men and women will wait to see the dentist until it’s convenient financially to do so. Unfortunately, once the tooth has been damaged, you run the risk of further damaging it quickly. A small chip in your tooth is like the chink in a knight’s armour, it poses the risk of weakness in your protective covering. One problem faced by waiting for dental care is a broken tooth.
As the chipped tooth is rubbed and ground against, it further breaks down and could impact your overall bite and comfort. Exposed nerves will make a broken tooth uncomfortable and maybe even unbearable.
Summary: We all prioritize different things in our lives, but there’s a cost when we keep letting our dental health slip. Did you know there’s a cost to not getting your teeth fixed? Not only can it cause cavities to form, which will cause pain and destruction to your teeth, but if you are missing teeth it can cause permanent bone loss.
The Cost of Waiting to Fix Your Teeth – The True Cost
Waiting for that next paycheck before calling your dentist might seem like a good idea in theory but putting off dental care once makes putting off dental care a second time easier. The longer you wait to fix a concern in your mouth, the greater the risk that the problem will grow and extend to other areas of your mouth, or even the rest of you.
While additional financial costs are certainly a concern when you don’t fix your teeth right away, the most concerning costs are health-related. Between your teeth, gums, bones, and heart, it’s crucial that you care for your teeth regularly, and that you seek help from a dentist at the first sign of trouble.
At Li Family Dental, we understand that financing dental care can be costly and stressful. That’s why we offer affordable solutions to everyday dental work. Our main concern is always the health of you, our patient, and we want to help you avoid the cost of waiting to fix your teeth. Call us at (416) 232-2033 today to book an appointment.