If you live in Costa Mesa and lost a molar a while ago, you may have decided the gap was not worth fixing because nobody can see it. That is an understandable call — chewing simply shifts to the other side and life goes on. The trouble is that a missing back tooth rarely stays a harmless blank space.
Teeth hold one another in place. Once a molar is gone, the tooth behind it can tip forward into the opening, and the tooth in the opposite jaw can drift toward it because nothing meets it anymore. Those small movements create food traps and change how the remaining teeth come together when you bite. Underneath, the jawbone that once surrounded the root no longer receives chewing pressure, and it tends to shrink over time — so the longer the space sits empty, the more likely a bone graft joins the plan.
An implant replaces the root as well as the visible tooth, carrying chewing force into the bone much as the original did, and it does so without reshaping the healthy teeth on either side, which a traditional bridge needs as anchors. Our guide to replacing a missing molar walks through every option, including the cases where a bridge or partial still makes sense.
On cost: Our $699 dental implant offer covers the titanium implant post, the implant consultation exam, and X-rays; the CT scan, abutment, crown, and sedation are priced separately. A molar takes heavy biting load, so the abutment and crown deserve as much attention as the post; what a single-tooth implant costs breaks down each of those lines. Costa Mesa patients are seen at our Huntington Beach office on Main Street, where a single-tooth implant evaluation begins with an exam and imaging of the empty space itself.
