Bone Grafting: What It Is & How It Helps

One thing many overlook when thinking of a beautiful smile, is ALL that is involved with it! It isn’t just straight, white teeth that make a smile beautiful, a healthy mouth also plays a major factor. Healthy gums and a healthy jaw bone are just as important as healthy teeth to achieve a great smile.

Jaw bones hold our teeth where they need to be. If you have suffered tooth loss for any reason, and you haven’t replaced the missing teeth with any kind of procedure, the jaw bone begins to recede. After some time, if you do decide to replace missing teeth, your jaw bone has to be intact, not receded by any measure. This is where bone grafting comes in. This procedure is commonly done to reconstruct the bone in order to fill the extracted socket from the missing tooth.

Bone Grafting After an Extraction

If you are at the dentist’s office for an extraction, your general dentist can do a simple bone graft to the extraction site by packing the open socket with freeze-dried human bone. This is an incredibly simple solution to a problem before it becomes too big.

Bone Grafting After Mild Bone Loss

This procedure can be a bit more lengthy and serious, as your dentist will need to replace a larger bony defect. In such a case, a portion of the patient’s bone from another section of your mouth is taken with freeze-dried bone and placed into the site of the mouth that needs rebuilding.

Bone Grafting After Extensive Bone Loss

When you have had teeth missing for a long period of time, a larger bone graft is necessary. In this case, your dentist can build up the jaw bone using a variety of materials such as your own bone mass, freeze-dried bone from someone else, animal bone. or a synthetic bone substitute.

Benefits of Bone Grafting

By implementing a bone graft, your ensuring a healthier set of teeth, healthier gums, and a healthy jaw to get any necessary dental work done, such as implants or veneers.

If after reading this information, you think you may be the right person for bone grafting and want to talk about it with a dental professional, we at Distinctive Dental in Oswego, IL want to help! Give our office a call today to find out if bone grafting is right for you.