Our oral and maxillofacial surgeons may recommend a tooth extraction to protect your smile from major complications if a tooth is severely infected or damaged. But we also want to prevent issues from arising due to a missing tooth or two. With ridge preservation, your Santa Rosa, CA, oral surgeons help prepare your smile for implant placement!
The Tooth Extraction: Why and How
When a tooth is severely damaged or decayed, or infected, then we may need to remove it to stop the spread of infection to other parts of your smile. The tooth itself could be loosened due to gum disease and require extraction. When we take out a tooth that is diseased or infected, this helps protect your overall oral health, at least initially. There is still the problem of a gap left behind. Unless treated, a gap in your smile is a recipe for misalignment, tooth decay, gum disease, and even jaw joint disorders like TMD and bruxism (chronic teeth grinding) due to changes to your bite’s fit and balance. Which means once we remove a tooth, we may need to discuss replacement.
Preserving the Extraction Site
When we lose a tooth, the body will take notice of the missing root. In response, the surrounding bone tissue will be denied regular doses of key nutrients. The jaw could resorb bone tissue and lose mass and density. The result is changes to the jawbone and further tooth loss! However, after we administer a numbing agent and sedation, we will remove the tooth and then administer a special material to the extraction site. The biocompatible material prevents the loss of bone density and the resorption of bone tissue. We could use donor tissues from other parts of your body, such as the back of your jaw or your hip. We also have a unique synthetic material available too!
Implant Placement and Care
The preservation process helps safeguard the integrity and strength of your jawbone. You then have plenty of healthy tissue to support a dental implant, which is inserted into the jawbone and acts like a new root. You then continue to enjoy a complete smile, one that looks great and will last for decades to come. If you have any questions about how we address missing teeth, or about the extraction and ridge preservation process, then contact our team today.
Ready to Give Dental Implants a Try?
Our team wants to help you enjoy a complete smile, even if you need to have one or more teeth extracted to address oral health issues. To learn more about preserving ridges and addressing missing teeth, then schedule a consultation by calling Santa Rosa Oral Surgery in Santa Rosa, CA, today at 707-545-4625.