If you have one or more missing teeth, you want to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. Depending on the circumstances surrounding your tooth loss, you may first need a dental bone graft. This scary-sounding procedure is actually quite simple and can be the first step towards restoring your smile.
Who Needs a Dental Bone Graft?
Your teeth and the jawbone that supports them have a symbiotic relationship, in a manner of speaking. Without the support of the jawbone, teeth are lost. Without teeth to hold in place, the jawbone begins to erode. This erosion of bone tissue can make it tricky to restore missing teeth, either through dental implant procedures or the use of a bridge. Patients with missing teeth often require some degree of bone grafting, especially if the teeth have been missing for a while.
What Does a Bone Graft Entail?
Small procedures involve little more than a small amount of sterilized, demineralized human bone granule material, a collagen membrane and a stitch or two. Over time, your own bone tissue will grow to fill the tooth socket, leaving tissue at just the right height for a dental implant. Use of an implant will preserve the bone graft indefinitely, where use of a bridge will mean loss of bone tissue over time.
More involved procedures may require a bit of your own bone in addition to sterilized granules, but a dental bone graft can be the procedure which makes new teeth possible for many patients. If you have missing teeth you want to restore, call us today. The expert care providers at Pearl Dentistry can help you explore all your options for restoring your smile.
