Dentistry: It's More Than Drilling and Filling

Tooth decay and damage can lead to severe oral health issues. You may not even consider some of these issues when you are dealing with decay or pain. A leading issue with decay is when it begins affecting your gums. Gum damage is bad enough, but it can also lead to a breakdown of bone. Normally, dental implants are suggested. With missing bone, this becomes next to impossible. In these situations, dental implants and bone grafting go hand in hand. Here are some key points to know about grafting and your implant surgery. 

Creating an Anchor Point

The first thing you need for a dental implant is an anchor point. When the bone breaks down or decays, you have no anchor point left. This is where bone grafting comes in. Bone tissue can regrow. It needs the proper space to grow and regenerate. Your dentist can take the tissue from another area of the body and place it along the area where the jaw bone has decayed. This will allow the area to regenerate and will allow for an anchor point to create for the dental implant. 

Building Dense Bone

The idea of bone grafting is to not only regrow your missing bone from bone tissue but to also grow dense bone. The dense bone is what your implants need to fully anchor to. This means the dental implants are anchored in place and made more durable by inserting them into the dense bone. In many ways, this is like placing a fence post. You can place the post into the ground, but if you want to strengthen the hold, you add concrete. In this case, the dense bone is that concrete. 

Fixing Jaw Deformity

If you have a tooth that succumbs to tooth decay, it can fall out. This leaves an area of the gum that has holes or has not healed properly. The unhealed or improperly healed area causes a jaw deformity. When this happens, you do not have an even anchor point for dental implants. When your dentist performs a bone graft, it helps to build the area and to fix the jaw deformity. With the grafting rebuilding the tissue and the dense bone and fixing the deformity, the dental implant has a solid anchor point. 

Pain is the first sign you are having oral health issues. If you begin having pain in your teeth and up through your gums, contact your dentist as soon as possible. The sooner you catch the issue, the smaller the chance of bone decay setting in. This means there is also a reduced chance of bone grafting before getting dental implants.

Contact your dentist for more information about the dental implant procedure.