Oral surgery

Oral Surgery as a dental speciality deals with various surgical procedures inside the oral cavity. Most oral surgical procedures can be performed by your general dentist.

Having a tooth extracted is a good example of this.

Tooth Extraction

Tooth extraction is one of the most common dental procedures. Healing of the resulting extraction socket normally occurs uneventfully. However, even with completely normal healing, there is often some reabsorption or melting away of surrounding bone. Resulting in less height and width than were present prior to tooth extraction. In addition, as bone resorbs, overlying gum tissue also tends to lose both volume and its normal anatomic form. These changes can occur anywhere in the mouth but the most severe loss of bone and gum tissue tends to occur following the removal of incisor teeth located in the front of the mouth.

The Importance of Bone Preservation

Loss of bone and gum tissue following tooth extraction often results in both functional and cosmetic defects: - An unsightly collapsed appearance, especially in the front of the mouth where proper maintenance of tissue health is critical to normal esthetics.

- It often compromises the dentist's ability to adequately replace the missing tooth or teeth with either conventional removable or fixed bridgework or with a dental implant supported restoration. Sometimes the loss of bone is so severe that additional surgical procedures are required prior to replacing missing teeth.