Socket Preservation: Oral Surgery That Can Save Your Smile

Perhaps you have just been told your badly damaged tooth needs to be pulled. Now you are worrying that the procedure could affect your smile. Luckily, today’s oral surgery utilizes advanced techniques to reduce discomfort and negative effects on your jawbone. Socket preservation is designed to prevent bone loss, a common occurrence after tooth loss or extraction. Once you receive socket preservation, you can get dental implants and if you opt for a traditional bridge, the restoration is still going to fit more securely. 

Why Get Socket Preservation

The roots of teeth don’t just hold your teeth but also help signal the jawbone to continue producing new bone cells. When you chew food or bite things, that activity stimulates your bone, helping prevent jawbone recession. Once a tooth is extracted, the jawbone starts receding rapidly. Additionally, the alveolar ridge found just beneath the gums starts to wear away. As a result, it may affect how a removable denture or bridge fits. It also impacts your candidacy for receiving dental implants because you have insufficient bone tissue that can support your restorations. Bone recession is also able to change your entire facial structure, often making it look sunken. Even missing a single tooth can present a dramatic and widespread impact on your smile. 

How Socket Preservation Is Done?

An Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon removes the damaged tooth and performs bone grafting immediately. This way, it helps prevent damage to the jawbone more effectively. The dental surgery specialist places a platelet-rich fibrin membrane within the tooth socket that helps stimulate the healing process. Then he or she places a small bone into the socket. The bone may be picked from your jaw, hard palate, or other bone. Sometimes, the specialist may utilize a synthetic material. Using small sutures or pins, the surgeon holds the bony tissue in place and closes the gums back up to cover the surgical area.  

Once the procedure is done, the new bony tissue integrates with the neighboring bone, a process that takes several months before you receive your new restorations. If you are going to have a tooth extraction, you may want to know more about socket preservation and how it can assist keep your bone structure and volume. To find out more about the procedure, contact our Oral & Maxillofacial team today.