Facial collapse doesn’t just look bad. It seriously undermines your health.
If you’ve struggled with problems with your teeth for a long time, you might think it would be easier to just get them all removed and go to a well-made denture. Not so! Every time you lose a tooth, the bone at that site is reabsorbed by your body. If you are missing all your teeth, your jaw bones may deteriorate until you suffer from a condition called “facial collapse”.
When a Picture Tells the Story
The graphic pictured here (courtesy of Dr. Carl E. Misch from his textbook Dental Implant Prosthetics) is a dramatic illustration of what can happen to your jaw bone over time if all of your teeth have been removed. If the jaw bone is allowed to deteriorate so severely, there are few options left in terms of treatment.
The jaw bone pictured at the bottom of the graphic will not allow the use of conventional dentures, and is no longer stable enough to allow for surgical implantation of root forms for dental implants. The only course of treatment might involve bone grafts to restore the bone, and then dental implants to prevent reoccurrence of the problem.
The patient pictured here is clearly suffering from facial collapse. From a cosmetic standpoint, people with facial collapse generally look much, much older than they are.
From a functional standpoint, facial collapse can be a serious health issue. Getting proper nutrition is exceedingly difficult when eating is painful and you cannot chew.
And imagine what this does to your ability to communicate verbally. So much of our quality of life depends on our connection to others. Talking—and being understood when you do so—is an integral part of our human condition. Losing the ability to communicate clearly could cause many people to withdraw socially, to isolate themselves.
Don’t let this happen to you. Dr. Patel can help. Talk to him about possible solutions if you already suffer this condition, or about treatment options that can help prevent it from ever developing.