What is a Dental Bone Graft & Ridge Augmentation?
Let’s face it: It’s never ideal to be missing bone tissue anywhere in your body, much less in the oral cavity areas, where lack of bone or bone structural abnormality can thus lead to other types of issues. And that’s why adding and maintaining the right amount of tissue in the places it needs it most is ideal. And practices like Times Square Dental, and countless others, do offer services to meet that need. But furthermore, let’s talk for a bit on what these services are and why you might need them, especially in the long run.
Bone Grafting
A dentist may employ the use of a bone graft1 with the end goal in mind of saving, or extracting, certain teeth, as well give a dental the best possible conditions for success. And in the case of dental implants alone, getting a bone graft can even help in the following scenario. So, let’s say it all starts with your front tooth being lost, for instance; then what follows next?
Well, you begin to gradually experience bone loss in that area, leading to insufficient bone. But if a bone graft is placed right there where the tooth had been, along with the proper suturing to follow up, you’ll begin to experience a world of healing and relief right where the initial tooth was lost. The Boise dentist can likewise place an implant there, too.
Patients can usually get one of two types of bone grafts, an allograft or an autograft. An allograft employs bone that has come by means of a donor tissue that has been properly treated. An autograft comes from within your own body, arising from areas like your wrist, hips, pelvis or ribs. It uses the bone that’s already in these areas of your body for the grafting.
Ridge Augmenting
Now, this particular surgical procedure has more to do with improving upon your alveolar ridge’s shape and size. It prepares the ridge area to better receive and likewise retain any form of dental prosthesis to be added there. When proceeding, the dental expert may either incorporate the entire ridge or may just localize the procedure to within a certain area. It all depends on multiple factors that must be assessed prior.
In addition, you’ll find that the alveolar ridge itself is that special jaw bone that surrounds your teeth’s roots. And when any tooth or teeth get removed, this leaves an empty socket in your alveolar ridge bone, which can heal on its own quite well -in most circumstances. That is when it’s filled with the proper bone and tissue. Yet the socket’s weight and height, interestingly enough, can actually deteriorate quite drastically over time. This is due to no tooth remaining in place within the socket, thus removing further bone maintenance stimulation of any form leading to bone loss.
Though it’s not always medically required that the alveolar ridge’s initial weight and height be restored or rebuilt, doing so may still be highly beneficial - and is some cases, required - for aesthetic or dental implant placement purposes. Remember that dental implants will always require bone in order to support their structures, and when the sufficient amount of bone lacks, then implants may not get placed successfully. But a ridge augmentation can be greatly useful for helping to first rebuild this bone in order to then accommodate the implant that follows.
Other Points to Consider
Many also call this last procedure grafting or socket grafting. And it’s usually done where there’s a missing tooth, as a means to recreate the gums’ natural contour, as well as that of the jaw’s, which may or may not have resulted from bone loss due to an extraction. So as you can see, this falls in line with the need for a dental bone graft, as well, and both types of services we’ve just mentioned here are essential to healing and restoring the internal areas suffering from bone loss.
And when unchecked, and not properly treated through a bone graft and/or a ridge augmentation, symptoms will arise without question ---- symptoms such as significant pain that will not leave, nagging soreness, canker sores, and even infection, which could spread to other areas of the body, through the mouth. This, in turn, may even lead to ulcers and much more, so we can see why it’s important to have your regular checkup with the dentist and to follow their advice, especially if they say you need to undergo such a vital procedure. Listen to your dental professional and do not hesitate to make your next appointment.
And if you’re looking for your next evaluation for a potential bone graft & ridge augmentation, and in you’re in or near Boise, ID, then look no more. Times Square Dental is right here to meet your needs. Pick up the phone and call 208-314-1901.
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Contributed by DentalROI
DentalROI provides relevant dental content to help providers educate patients. The statements, services, and products referenced in this article have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and they are not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your dental provider with any questions or issues you may have. Specific recommendations may vary in different circumstances, so individual consultation is important.
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