Doctor Alex Martin Talks about why it is important to fix or replace damaged and missing teeth
If you have missing teeth and you try eating, first off, you’re not gonna be able to eat as well. You can’t chew your food. You can’t digest properly if you’re not chewing your food properly.
As far as your mouth goes, when you’re missing a tooth, the other teeth start to drift. Your mouth wants to close that gap one way or another, whether the top tooth is coming down into that gap, the side teeth are closing in, tipping into that space, and that just creates more problems with your bite, which can make a TMJ problem more of an issue later on.
You gotta get more food caught between your teeth. You gotta have more periodontal issues, a lot of things that can end up bothering you later that you might not even realize is gonna happen. It just slowly starts taking over.
Replacing that missing tooth with an implant or a bridge, something to hold everything else in place just keeps your whole mouth working naturally and the way it should.