My current dentition is the result of bad genes, poverty, grinding and
poor-quality dental work. Other than the four impacted wisdom teeth, one
was lost due to a fractured root (which should have a more spectacular
name to indicate how much it hurts); another a failed root canal (had I
been able to treat it sooner, it may have survived) and two were lost
after their fillings 'blew out.' Those fillings were placed by the same
dentist, and it's not my opinion that the work was badly done - it's the
opinion of the dentists and oral surgeons who later had to clean up the
mess!

I have a cleaning (etc) scheduled; since I just had #15 extracted, I
wanted to give my mouth a chance to settle a bit before being gone after
with the sharp pointy things.

Saving them in a jar eh ? ;-)

But seriously saving your remaining teeth is the first order of business.
Have you had a cleaning recently ? Gum disease is actually the
most common cause for tooth loss in adults. Of course your mileage
did vary. Don't have any hard statistics but would bet fractured roots
come in a close second.

Best wishes,

Thanks for the information. As I posted earlier, preserving the
remaining 24 is my  first priority, but it's nice to know there may be
options I can afford for replacing some of my missing teeth.

... well, they're not really missing; I have them in a drawer, but you
know what I mean ...

Sure, a partial can be made to fit almost any situation.

Can this sort of device be made to replace 2 and 4 when 3 is present (1
is gone as well)? I'm asking what are probably really dumb questions now
so I don't make the dentist laugh too hard while he's working on me.
(Implants aren't feasible, even if I were really well-off and
well-insured, and 3 is going to require pins, a crown and lot of luck).

Good questions.

The main thing is the anatomy of the area and the ammount of remanining
bone. It may or may not need to be grafted.

In the long term implants are probably your best solution but as you
said there is some expense. Get a consult with a surgeon, if you have
x-rays that you can post that would give us more to go on.

As an temporary measure if you cannot get implants right away
you may consider an interim partial denture (commonly called a 'flipper')
this would keep teeth from shifting while you saving up for the implants.

As far as #17 goes, would need to see a picture to even venture a guess.

Best wishes,

Teeth 18 and 19 both had root canals and crowns about 10 years ago.
Last year, 19 cracked below the gum line and had to be extracted (that
was fun).  Last month, 18 abcessed (even more fun) and was pulled as
well.  What to do now?
I've been told I have bone loss in that same area.  If bone is grafted,
do I have a pretty good chance of gaining enough strength to hold
implants?  If I leave the space empty, is 17 next?  My preference would
be to make the best choice, in terms of the long run, even if it means
greater expense.