What is a spring cantilever bridge?

[Sebastian]

Hello

I recently lost my front tooth and the dentist made me a denture that keeps falling out when I chew on it or try to play sports. I spoke to my dentist regarding the denture yesterday and he says that the neighbouring teeth are not good enough to hold a dental bridge and if I want to have a bridge, I should have a spring cantilever bridge. According to him, the spring cantilever relies on back teeth to hold it in place.

I would like to know if you think that a spring cantilever bridge would be a good replacement for my lost tooth? Would you recommend the bridge over a dental implant? If I decide to have a spring cantilever bridge, would I be able to eat and speak as normal again?

[Dr Vahid Motahar]

Hi,

Thank you for your question.

Spring cantilever bridge is an old fashion design for bridges. As you mention it uses one of the back teeth to use as the anchorage or the abutment of the bridge. Then the false tooth, or the bridged tooth and otherwise known as pontic, is attached to the abutment tooth be means of a long connection on the palate. These are very rare and these days know that we can do effective implants, these bridges are quite obsolete.

As a rule of thumb in 99.9% of the cases implants are far better than any form of bridges and beat them hands down at nay time.