Dental bridge keeps coming out
Your dentist will have initially made a bridge for you in order to replace a missing tooth or teeth. The 3 methods of replacing a lost/missing tooth or teeth are:
- A denture
- A bridge
- An implant
Your dentist will have initially discussed the above 3 options with you in detail to make sure you were making the correct decision. A dental bridge literally “bridges” the gap due to losing one or more teeth for any reason. The tooth or teeth could have been lost through decay, gum disease or an accident. Dental bridges have advantages such as helping you to smile again, maintain the ability to eat and speak properly again, they can maintain your facial aesthetics, reduce forces in your other healthy teeth and also can avoid the remaining teeth moving out of position. But dental bridges also have certain problems and one of the most frequent problems is that the bridge is loose or totally comes out. When this happens, it is often a nuisance and a worry.
Here we will tell you what to do and why dental bridges can become loose or totally fall out. Below also is a summary of how a bridge works and the problems that can occur with its fit.
When you have a missing tooth, the gap can be filled in with an artificial tooth and one of the options is a dental bridge. The false tooth which fills in the gap or the gaps is held in permanently by the adjacent teeth. In other words, the missing tooth is held by using the neighbouring anchoring teeth. Problems with these anchor teeth also called abutment teeth can occur and we will discuss this further below.
A dental bridge can become loose or fall out fairly quickly or soon after you had it fitted or after some considerable time since it was initially placed but is always annoying and distressing.
The reasons for a dental bridge to become loose or totally come out are as follows.
- The bridge has a poor fit.
- The bridge had inadequate tooth preparation carried out.
- The cement and all the glue which is used to hold the bridge in place has failed.
- Changes in your bite have made it more likely that the bridge is dislodging.
Here we can further discuss why your dental bridge may be poorly fitting causing it to become loose or even fall out altogether which can be very embarrassing for you.
You will recall that when you had your bridge initially made, you had two appointments for this. In the first appointment, your dentist would have carried out some modifications to the teeth on either side of the gap and taken some impressions of your teeth. If the modifications to the anchoring teeth were below standard or the impressions were not accurate enough, this can cause subsequent problems at the second appointment when the bridge is fitted. Your dental bridge would have been sent off as impressions to the dental laboratory but it is still ultimately the dentist’s responsibility to ensure that the construction is adequate. When you came back for the second appointment, which is usually a couple of weeks later, your dentist would have tried in the bridge to make sure that it was fitting properly before gluing it in on a permanent basis.
If the bridge does not have a close enough fit and contact to the holding teeth, any amount of glue will not be sufficient to keep it in place on a permanent basis and that’s why it could keep on dislodging. The answer here is really to start from a fresh perspective. This would include a new diagnosis with a new treatment plan plus a new set of impressions to send off to the laboratory. Then when the final bridge appointment is due, the bridge should be tried in and the fit verified appropriately. Only then can it be fitted on a permanent basis.
We mentioned above that inadequate tooth preparation on the first appointment can also result in a bridge failing. A bridge is held in using one or more adjacent teeth and this need to be prepared or modified. This modification appointment is extremely important as it has a huge bearing on whether the new bridge will stay in permanently or not. If your dental bridge does keep on falling out or become loose regularly, this could be that the teeth need to be remodified, which means that we have to start from the beginning again in constructing a new bridge. If you have had the bridge for not a long time, you should ask the dentist for a free replacement as a goodwill measure.
The dental bridge is also held in using a special type of resin glue or cement. Problems can occur with the fit stage, especially if the glue has become contaminated with saliva which can happen from time to time. Contamination of the dental glue will result in its weakening which could be the reason for your bridge coming out. The glue has to stick to both on the inside fitting surface of the bridge and onto the abutment teeth.
When you first had your dental bridge fitted, you may have noticed that the bite felt a bit odd or strange. This is quite normal and you will become accustomed to this fairly quickly. However, in certain cases, the bite created by fitting the bridge can be incorrect which is causing the bridge to become loose or dislodged. This frequently happens when you are eating. You can try something yourself which involves biting up and down on your back teeth to see if the bite may be incorrect or uncomfortable. You can also slide your teeth against each other from side to side and forward and backward to see if there are any odd sensations with the bite. If the incorrect bite is an issue with your bridge, it needs to be adjusted and unfortunately, sometimes it is necessary to replace the bridge with a new one.
If your dental bridge does keep on giving you problems such as looseness or dislodging altogether, you should ask your dentist why this happens and what can be done about it.
We speak to many patients every month having problems when their dental bridge is coming loose or falling out and we can help you get the funds for treatment that you need so that further treatment doesn’t end up costing you hundreds or thousands of pounds. You can contact us for a free initial Dental claim consultation and we can tell you if you may be able to make a claim against your dentist, totally free of charge.
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