It’s very difficult to say without having a full comprehensive examination of your dental health.

Essentially a bridge relies on the 2 teeth at either end to support it.  If these are “Virgin” ie untreated healthy teeth then they will have to have part of the tooth removed for the bridge to bond and attach to the tooth.  If the tooth has been weakened by previous treatments such as large crowns, fillings or root canal treatments then using it as a bridge support (pontic) could place stresses on the tooth.

There are many factors to consider; how big is the gap? where in the mouth?

Dental Implants can be used to support bridgework without using any of the surrounding teeth.  The implants themselves, act in a similar way to your natural tooth roots.

I hope that this answers your query.

Regards.

George Glover

Thanks for your question.

Dental x-rays are an essential part of the treatment planning and surgical process for dental implants.  This allows the dentist to asses the amount of bone that is available for the implant, and during the surgical appointments ensure that the implant is placed in the correct position.

Some patients may require a CT Scan which allows the dentist to see a 3d representation of the bone and for the lower jaw one of the nerves that passes through it.

The good news however is that many practices now use digital radiography which is a significantly lower x-ray doseage.  And for CT Scans some practices will use a ConeBeam CT scanner which has been specifically developed for dentistry and again is a much lower radiation dose than a traditional hospital CT scan.

Dental professionals will only take x-rays or scans where clinically necessary to avoid any unecessary exposure.  If you are going to another practice then it’s often a good idea to get copies of any x-rays you may have recently had taken.

I hope that this helps.

Kind Regards

George Glover