Loose Teeth

Loose teeth can be painful and embarrassing and can be caused by several different problems. Loose teeth can be your natural teeth, false teeth or crowns and bridges that are working loose.

Our first priority is to find out why your teeth are loose and then to work with you to get a long term solution to give you secure, functional and attractive teeth allowing you to eat, talk and smile.

Here are some possible reasons that your teeth are loose and ideas about what can be done.

1. If you have gum disease and your teeth are getting loose, the treatment of your gum disease will often dramatically improve the stability of your teeth. Sometimes however you may have lost too much bone support around particular teeth that even with the treatment of the gum disease the teeth remain loose. We often use splints to connect several teeth together. This dramatically improves tooth stability and allows you to eat and smile with confidence again. If you have teeth that are too loose to be saved then we can restore the gaps with well-fitting dentures, bridges or implants. Sometimes we can use your natural tooth in the bridge work to give a truly natural appearance.
2. Loose teeth can be due to infection under the tooth, often the treatment of this infection will improve the stability of the tooth. You may require a root canal treatment or treatment of gum disease.
3. Failing dental crowns and dental bridges may work loose. It may be possible to remove these crowns and bridges and then re-cement them again so that they are secure. If it is not possible to re-cement your old crowns or bridges we will work with you to provide a good long term solution to your problem, possibly by providing news crowns or bridges or with the use of implants. Obviously every case is different.
4. Teeth can become loose because the roots are fractured. This is unfortunately never a good sign but many things can be done these days such as
   • Splinting to give support to shortened roots.
   • Forced eruption to allow the use a long root where the top part only has fractured off.
   • Replacement of the tooth with a denture, bridge or implant.

   We can generally find a solution that is suitable to your situation. Please do not feel that things are hopeless, we can usually help in every situation.

5. False teeth often become loose over the years. This can be corrected by either relining your old denture so that they fit to the shape of your mouth today and not what it was many years ago, or we may decide to make a new denture. Over the years we do find that the bony ridges that support your dentures decrease in size making it more difficult to get stable secure dentures.

We will often make the bases of new dentures slightly larger than your old dentures to try and improve the stability of your denture or if you particularly like your old denture we can copy your old denture but put a new fit surface on the denture so that they are more secure than your old denture. These days the best way to secure dentures is through the use of dental implants. These can be fitted with either poppers, bars or magnets to hold your dentures securely giving you real confidence in them staying where you want them, or you may decide to go for screw in teeth that can only be removed by your dentist.

There are many options these days to give you secure and comfortable false teeth. If you are interested in finding a solution to loose teeth please contact our Karen or Diane on 01925 758616.