A tooth root loads the bone around it every time you chew, and that loading is what keeps the bone there. Remove the root and the loading stops, so jaw bone loss begins. It explains most of what happens years after a tooth is lost.
The bone that surrounded a root was thickest on the tongue side and thinnest on the cheek side. That thin outer wall resorbs first, so a ridge narrows before it flattens. From above it can still look like a ridge while being far too thin to surround a post, which is why width has to be measured rather than judged, as covered on CBCT Imaging.
Most jaw bone loss happens within six to twelve months, then continues more slowly for years. Rebuilding it later is Ridge Augmentation, and preventing most of it at the outset is Socket Preservation.
It is the reason two people with the same missing tooth can get very different quotes.
Jawbone
What follows
How jaw bone loss changes an implant plan
The site narrows
A post needs bone on both sides. A knife edge ridge cannot provide it without being rebuilt first.
Dentures stop fitting
A plate is made to a ridge shape that keeps changing, which is why relines and remakes are needed over time.
Neighbouring teeth drift
Teeth tilt into the gap and the opposing tooth over-erupts, which complicates restoring the space later.
Facial height drops
Across a whole arch and many years, the distance between nose and chin shortens as the ridges flatten.
What slows it
Only loading stops jaw bone loss
A conventional bridge or a denture sits above the gum and transmits no force into the ridge, so neither slows resorption at the site. An implant post does, because it takes the root position and carries chewing load into the bone. That is the mechanism behind most of what is claimed for implants, set out on Dental Implant Benefits.
Jaw bone loss does not reverse on its own; loading maintains what is there rather than rebuilding it. That is why timing matters so much, as covered on Tooth Extraction Implant, and why an anchored denture on posts behaves differently from a plain one, described on Implant Supported Dentures.
LoadingMaintained by
No loadingDenture
Only by graftingReversible
Read next
What follows from jaw bone loss in Victoria
What can be done at the time, and what has to be done later.
How fast, how much, and whether it can be reversed.
Fastest in the first six to twelve months after the tooth is lost, when the largest share of the width goes. After that it continues more slowly and steadily for years. That front loaded pattern is why acting early makes such a difference.
Not by itself. Grafting can rebuild volume, and it works well in contained defects and less predictably in large flat ones. Loading with an implant maintains what is there rather than restoring what has gone, which is a different claim from the one often made.
A denture does not slow resorption, and a poorly fitting one that rocks can concentrate pressure on parts of the ridge. That is a reason to keep dentures well fitted rather than to abandon them, and a reason anchoring one onto posts is worth considering.
Yes, almost always. The denture has not changed shape; the ridge underneath it has. Relines follow the shrinking ridge for a while, and eventually a remake is needed. It is the clearest everyday sign of what is happening underneath.
Rarely. It usually means grafting first and several extra months, which is a different answer from no. Only severe resorption in specific sites makes implants genuinely unrealistic, and even then anchored options may remain available.
Victoria patients
What Victoria patients say about the assessment
★★★★★4.9· 118 reviews on Google
★★★★★
Tooth missing since my twenties. Seeing on the scan how thin the ridge had become explained everything.
F. Rahimi
Long standing gap, Victoria
★★★★★
The width was the problem, not the height. I would never have known from a normal X-ray.
A. Farhadi
Saw the cross section, Langford
★★★★★
Three relines in six years. Finally understood it was my jaw changing, not the denture.
V. Ahonen
Denture relines, Colwood
★★★★
Got the implant within the year rather than waiting. No grafting needed as a result.
W. Bassey
Acted early, Saanich
From the blog
Victoria implant guides: bone loss, grafting and cost
Have the ridge measured in Victoria before bone loss decides
General patterns only go so far. A scan shows the width and height of your site in cross section, which is the difference between a plan that needs grafting and one that does not.
