The beauty of a dental implant is that you don't need to touch any of your other teeth in order to replace a missing tooth. That's why it's an ideal tooth replacement. If for whatever reason you can't or won't have an implant, there are two alternatives. The first, is a conventional three tooth bridge. The two teeth next to the space have to be prepared in order to have this bridge. That's how we did it prior to implants being as predictable as they are. The other alternative is to do what's called a Maryland bridge. The replacement tooth gets chemically and mechanically bonded to the neighboring teeth thereby giving you a new tooth. This procedure is more conservative of your own tooth structure, but there are factors that need to be considered in order for it to be effective long term.
