When Do Bone Grafts Become Necessary for Dental Implants?

Dental bone grafts become necessary if you have incurred jawbone deterioration because of tooth loss. Bone grafts are generally performed before dental implant placement or even when bone loss adversely affects the adjacent teeth.

Explaining a Dental Bone Graft

Dental bone grafts help augment density and volume to your jaw where jawbone resorption has occurred. The material for the grafting might come from your body, animal tissue, or synthetic material.

How Do Dental Bone Grafts Function?

After getting a bone graft placed, the material holds space for your body to repair itself. You can consider dental bone grafts a scaffold helping your bone tissue to regenerate and develop. Dental bone grafts are sometimes combined with platelet-rich plasma taken from a blood sample to promote healing and tissue regeneration.

When Do Bone Grafts Become Necessary?

If you have bone loss in your jaw that impairs you from receiving dental implants, you might require a dental bone graft. The dentist near you recommends this procedure if you have teeth extracted, plan replacement solutions with dental implants, need jaw rebuilding to get dentures or have jawbone deterioration because of periodontal disease.

Are Dental Bone Grafts Routine?

Dental bone grafts are incredibly common. People with conditions described above and seeking replacement solutions for missing teeth routinely need bone grafts before getting the teeth replacements.

What Kind of Bone Graft Can You Receive?

Dentists, periodontists, and oral surgeons perform four types of bone grafts. They are:

• Socket Preservation: Alternatively called ridge preservation, you receive the grafting material in the tooth socket soon after extraction. Socket preservation helps fill the gap left by the missing tooth to prevent its sides from caving towards the opening.
• Ridge Augmentation: if your teeth are missing for some time, the supporting jawbone might be thinner than earlier. The width and volume of the jaw receive help from ridge augmentation to provide a stable foundation to receive dental implants in Oak Lawn to replace missing teeth.
• Sinus Lifts: Your maxillary sinuses are located just above your upper molars. If you have upper molars missing the sinuses and lower down to enter the space occupied by your tooth roots. In such cases, placing dental implants near you in the upper tooth socket becomes challenging because the implant would penetrate the sinus membrane. However, if you receive sinus lifts by having a dental bone graft placed under the sinus, it helps create a stable base for receiving dental implants later.
• Periodontal Bone Graft: the jawbone supporting your teeth can erode from periodontal disease. The weakening causes your teeth to become loose. You can have a periodontal bone graft around your existing tooth to provide additional support while reducing mobility.

In most cases, dental bone grafts for implants must heal entirely before you can receive dental implants in your jawbone. However, recovery times can vary between patients because everyone is unique. Rarely do dentists place a bone graft and implants simultaneously. However, the decision can vary according to exceptional cases.

The Bone Grafting Procedure

If you need to augment bone prior to getting implants, your dentist will examine your oral cavity besides the health of your teeth, gums, and jaw. They take x-rays and CT scans to determine the severity of the bone loss. Finally, the dentist will discuss treatment options before creating a personalized treatment plan for your needs. During bone grafting, you receive anesthesia in your mouth while the dental professional makes a tiny incision in your gums. Next, your gums are moved back to make your jawbone visible. After cleaning and disinfecting the area of jawbone loss, your dentist adds the grafting material to fix the defect. They might even add a membrane to cover the bone graft for additional protection. Finally, the gum tissue is moved back, and the incision is closed with sutures.

What Happens after Dental Bone Grafts?

After receiving a dental bone graft, you might experience pain, swelling, and bruising. The side effects are expected and subside in a few days. You can manage the symptoms using pain relievers prescribed by your dentist besides antibiotics to prevent infections.

How Discomforting Are Bone Grafts?

Most patients receiving dental bone grafts do not experience severe pain but report minor discomfort. If you take the medications in a timely fashion and follow the post-operative instructions from your dentist 60453, you should recover from the procedure in three to six months, depending on the severity of the bone loss you experience. If you are experiencing problems with missing teeth and considering dental implants, Forrest Tower DDS can determine your suitability for the treatment by assessing your jawbone. They also recommend dental bone grafts; if you have a deficient jawbone, hold the dental implants securely after placement. Therefore if you intend to receive implants, please contact this dental practice to understand whether you have sufficient jawbone or need dental bone grafts from them to augment bone in your jaw.