Posts Tagged ‘bone loss’

How to Preserve Your Bone after Tooth Loss or Extraction

Posted on: June 13th, 2018 by freshadmin No Comments

A serious concern of people that have lost a tooth, or had to have one extracted, is how to preserve the bone. It is well-known by now that after an extraction or tooth loss, one also experiences facial bone loss, with devastating, complex consequences that affect several aspects of their life. It is a significant issue that is not given the proper attention for various reasons that belong to another discussion.

In traditional dentistry, the replacement of the missing tooth focused on restoring the missing tooth with bridges or dentures. However, this was an approach that did not include or address the bone loss, which would mathematically occur in the future. Fortunately, modern dentists have options that help preserve the bone after a lost tooth, such as Socket Grafting.

What Happens Inside the Mouth After Tooth Loss?

It is a way to preserve the bone after extractions. Allow us to explain a few basics, so you get a better idea of what we are talking about here…

When you lose a tooth, the bone around it (the socket) starts to deplete, in both height and width. After the tooth is removed, most patients fall under one of the following 2 categories: (1) have a dental implant within the first 6-8 weeks after tooth loss or extraction, or (2) place an implant much later, which could be more than 6 months to a year after tooth loss.

At this point, it is imperative to understand that the sooner we replace the missing tooth/teeth, the better we help preserve the bone around that area. Delaying placing an implant allows the bone to shrink. This means patients that postpone the placement of an implant run the risk of requiring a bit of bone grafting, when their implant is finally placed. This, of course, adds to the cost.

Introducing Socket Grafting

So, if you want a dental implant in the future (let’s say 1-2 years down the line), then you may want to consider Socket Grafting (or Ridge Preservation), a procedure we, at Same Day Teeth Suite offer. In short, Socket Grafting is a procedure that allows the dentist to graft artificial bone into the socket, straight after the extraction. With Socket Grafting, we are able to maintain a good volume of bone for quite a while, before we place a dental implant there.
With a simple procedure such as this, you can maintain a good bone volume and have an implant 6-12 months after you have lost a tooth. It is definitely a money saving technique that prevents major grafting in the future, ideal for patients that do not want to or can’t have a dental implant right away.

If you have similar concerns, don’t hesitate at all. Contact us or call us on 01509 323420 and let’s book your first appointment with no financial commitments whatsoever. To us, your oral health and to have every reason to smile after you leave our clinics is our biggest reward!

The bone graft procedure in Loughborough

Posted on: October 7th, 2014 by freshadmin No Comments

Occasionally, when we do dental implants, we may be required to do a minor bone graft. This is identified when we do the planning of a case. For example, when a patient comes in asking for an implant, we take a CT scan. A CT scan is a 3D image of the jaw, allowing the dentist to see the bone in three dimensions to accurately predict how much bone the patient has in width and in length.

If the patient has a small defect in the bone, then we may be required to do a procedure called a minor bone graft. In order to demonstrate this, Dr Bohara, usually, use this example: “if I put a nail into the wall and I wanted to cover that nail, I would put some Poly-Filler to cover it. For a small bone graft, we use different types of bones. This can be either a man-made bone, prosthetic bone or it can be bovine bone. This is placed over the implant which matures into human bone.”

The other type of bone, which may be required in a very few cases, is a block graft. A block graft is indicated when a patient has a substantial amount of bone loss. A block graft, if required, is taken either from the chin or the back of the lower jaw. This is not placed at the time of implantation, therefore, if a patient had quite significant bone loss, we would do the block graft initially and allow that to heal for six months. Then we would place the implant after healing and allow that to heal for three months.

Like mentioned before, in very small amounts of cases, we may require either a minor bone graft or a block graft. This is crucial because this would allow us to have a stable implant which will last a very long time. When we do these procedures, many of the procedures are done under local anesthetic. That way the patient will not feel anything at all. In some cases, we have very nervous patients, and in these cases, IV sedation may be indicated to make the procedure as relaxing as possible for the patient.

The final bone graft procedure which may be required is in the upper jaw, and that is called a sinus lift. In the upper jaw’s posterior part, there are some instances where the patient may not have enough vertical height of bone for implantation. In these cases, we may have to use artificial bone or bovine bone and place it in the sinus to allow us to increase the height of bone, to allow us to place the implants.

If you are not sure whether or not you have enough bone structure to hold and implant and replace a missing tooth book your free consultation at our Loughborough clinic and learn your options.