My mom is 85 and recently moved in with my husband and myself. We were eating dinner the other night and a tooth from the bottom part of her jaw just fell out. She’s very embarrassed about it. At eighty five she doesn’t have a ton of money and neither do we. What is an affordable way that we can get help for her? We’ll want to replace that tooth for certain.

Lindsey

Dear Lindsey,

If your mother’s tooth just fell out, that means she is dealing with very advanced gum disease. This is serious and she is likely to lose more teeth.

In most cases, you would need to build up the bone in her lower jawbone and get dental implants for implant overdentures to prevent facial collapse. However, you asked for something affordable and that definitely is not. Plus, at her age, there is not much point of dealing with the facial collapse.

My suggestion is you save as many of her teeth as possible by getting her gum disease treated. She will likely need at least partial dentures if not complete dentures depending on how many teeth she loses. It will still be important to treat the gum disease either way, that includes if she gets complete dentures. Gum disease will have a negative impact on her overall health as well.

I am glad that she has you to take care of her. It is obvious you care about her and will do your best to get her the care she needs. If she’s been under the care of a dentist this whole time, I suggest you get her a new dentist. The one she has did not adequately care for her as he or she should have. In fact, I’d consider it malpractice.

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