It is common that people have one or two missing teeth and sometimes people would ignore restoring those missing posterior molar teeth, because people would think it is at the back and nobody can see their missing teeth. Also, people chose not to restore them because of cost of replacing them and they believe they are chewing fine with their remaining teeth.
However, posterior teeth are especially important for chewing. Lack of posterior molar teeth can dramatically decrease a person’s chewing efficiency. Also the lack of posterior molar teeth can put additional stress on the rest of remaining other teeth. I will show a photo of a patient who recenlty come to my office. She has missing posterior molar teeth on both side of her mouth. She mainly only chew with the premolars and anterior teeth which are relatively small and are not designed to handle the stress in chewing and grinding food. Thus, with times, the right upper premolar tooth becomes fractured. The photo shows that the tooth has a fracture line down thru the mid-section of the tooth. Upon clinical examination, the fracture actually goes deep down to the mid root and this tooth cannot be repaired and needs to be extracted.
Another problem with missing teeth is that the teeth around the missing tooth area would start to shift in position. The other teeth may collapse into the empty space. The bite will be in disharmony and excessive wear and tear will happen to the other teeth. Opposing teeth would start to come down and eventually they would touch the gum. The opposing teeth will be affected and may have the risk of losing them, in addition to the already missing teeth.
Written by Daniel Tee, DDS, MS
Practicing General Dentist Serving the city of Tempe, Chandler, Phoenix, Gilbert, and Mesa in Arizona.
