Do I have to have an implant?

[mediphobic]

Dear Forum

I am seeking the opinions of all the Dental professions out there because I just wasnt satisfied with my denstists response to my queries as he seemed more interested in just getting me out of there and wouldnt tell me what was better an implant or a bridge.

ok so im a healthy male in my 20s with no major teeth problems except a missing tooth down the bottom on the left hand side, in fact I have never had an adult tooth there (just the baby one that was extracted in my teens and an adult one never grew there, weird huh?) so I was just visiting my dentists today and he said i should get a crown or an implant there. his reasoning was that if I didnt the tooth directly above it would continue to grow downwards and "cause problems in the future", now at first i found that a bit odd and hard to believe, teeth don't just keep growing do they? now I have an overbite and when i looked in the mirror the upper teeth dont exactly line up with the lower teeth anyway, i.e there isnt one single tooth above that empty space, there is two that overlap it, as there is no single tooth above that space and I have an overbite (meaning that when i close my mouth the above teeth dont exactly sit right on my bottom ones) it seems to me (and i am uneducated about these things) that this space on my lower jaw couldnt possibly have the impact on the tooth (or teeth) above it that the dentist was describing, or could it??

can someone please give me some advice? i dont really want to do anything, I dont mind having a missing tooth, it does not effect my life or looks, i can eat whatever i want, i have no pain, and i have had this gap for about 7-8 years or so if i remember right and it hasn't caused me any complications, i dont really like the idea of screwing something into my jaw or chiseling my other perfectly good teeth for a bridge and i feel that this guy just wants to make me go through this procedure for no good reason.

[Zzzdentist]

You are certainly free to decide what to do with your dental situation, but with each choice there usually can be some consequences. Teeth can and do super-erupt if there isn't an opposing tooth to keep them in place. Most of the time, there are partial contacts which keep the teeth from moving, but in some cases they can start drifting and erupting. It's usually a slow going process, but it can sometimes get in the way of restoring the area. Some people do fine with a missing tooth so it isn't the end of the world.

[mediphobic]

thanks

would having an overbite be a factor in this at all?

also I am reading that there is technology to regrow teeth, if this exists why on earth would anyone have an implant??? can you "regrow" a tooth that was never there to begin with?

[Zzzdentist]

It's hard to say whether your overbite might be a complicating factor without seeing your teeth. I haven't heard of any teeth being regrown in a practical situation. There might be something in the research and scientific areas, but I don't think that sort of treatment is mainstream at the moment.