When you lose multiple teeth, this could impact more than how you eat or smile. As the jawbone degrades, this could lead to weakened bone structure. Which means receiving dental implants could be complicated. To make your smile dental implant-ready, your Santa Rosa, CA, oral surgeons could offer jawbone grafting.
How Losing Jawbone Structure Causes Implant Failure
When we lose our teeth, the body will take note of the lost roots and in response, suspend the flow of calcium and phosphorus to the jawbone around the missing root. Without regular doses of these nutrients, the bone tissue will begin to break down. The loss of mass and density could then lead to weakened structure, additional missing teeth, and an aged appearance. While dental implants could reverse this process, if you’re lost too much tissue to support your new teeth the result could be implant failure. You may first need to undergo treatment to rebuild your structure!
Strengthening Your Smile
Ridge augmentation involves building up the portions that have weakened in your smile making them ready to support dental implants. These new teeth then stimulate the growth of structure to keep them from breaking down again. Essentially, we will use tissue taken from the back of your jaw or possibly your hip, or in some cases a synthetic tissue is employed. We attach this to the jaw, and as the area heals this strengthens your smile and corrects the damage done by missing teeth. We use this procedure for the lower jaw, and for the upper one we could discuss a sinus lift to provide new structure to support a dental implant.
Sedation and Aftercare
We also administer a numbing agent and sedation to ensure you are calm and comfortable, and will have no memory of the procedure. A friend or family member can bring you home afterward as the effects wear off, and we will have detailed aftercare instructions, prescriptions, and follow-up visits to ensure everything heals properly and to start the next stage of the process, which is the replacement of your missing teeth with advanced and durable dental implants! If you have missing teeth, even if it’s a case of total tooth loss, then please let us know right away. We’re ready to help address these gaps, even if we need to essentially rebuild portions of your jaw first.
Have You Lost Natural Teeth?
Even if you have weakened jawbone structure, we can restore your smile’s strength with ridge augmentation. To learn more about how we address missing teeth and rebuild your smile, then schedule a consultation by calling Santa Rosa Oral Surgery in Santa Rosa, CA, today at 707-545-4625. You can once again smile with confidence!