Your dental health in our hands
Oral surgery involves the treatment of deformities, injuries and disease related to the mouth, teeth and facial regions. Surgery may be needed when a curved root or impacted wisdom tooth complicates an extraction or to reconstruct part of a jaw to provide more bone mass for future dental procedures.
BONE GRAFT SURGERY
Your jaw bone helps to anchor your teeth. When you have bone loss in your jaw, a bone graft is a procedure that helps to stimulate the bone growth needed to reshape your jaw and prepare it for the dental implants that will be used to hold replacement teeth.
Anyone with bone loss in their jaw will require bone graft surgery. Bone loss could be due to a number of factors including gum disease or having a tooth knocked out and some of the jaw bone with it, or other facial trauma. If you don’t have enough bone in your jaws to hold your natural teeth or dental implants for replacement teeth, your dentist will recommend bone graft surgery to promote bone growth in the affected area.
You may also need bone graft surgery if you need bone growth in the upper jaw to support a sinus or ridge augmentation or to support your jaw after a tooth extraction.
Maintaining the bone structure in your jaw is very important. Many dental procedures require sufficient bone to obtain optimal results in dental restoration surgeries. Your jaw bone also supports the facial skin and muscles. Without the right support of the jaw, the cosmetic appearance of your face will be affected and you will look older than your years.
EXTRACTIONS
A tooth extraction is the removal of a natural tooth.
There are a number of reasons your dentist may recommend one or more of your teeth to be extracted.
- Your teeth may be severely decayed or have broken away in a manner that is beyond restoration.
- You may have advanced gum disease and the affected teeth cannot be saved.
- Your teeth may be impacted or poorly positioned.
- Your erupting wisdom teeth may be causing pain or pushing your other teeth forward or out of alignment.
- Your mouth may be over-crowded, and teeth need to be removed in preparation for braces.
In cases of decay, your dentist will choose to save the tooth with restorative work if this is possible as removing a tooth can lead to complications such as difficulty in eating, problems with your jaw joint and movement of your other teeth over time. Your dentist will discuss with you the need to remove your tooth and recommend tooth replacement to avoid future dental health complications.
Your dentist will numb the areas with local anaesthesia so you shouldn’t be able to feel any pain, but you will feel a lot of pressure as your dentist rocks the tooth back and forth to widen the socket for removal. If you do feel any pain during the procedure, let your dentist know immediately.
It is very common for a tooth to be so firmly anchored or for the root to be curved so that the socket can’t be expanded enough to remove the tooth. When this happens, your dentist will section the tooth. This means that the tooth is cut into sections and each section is removed one at a time.
For the healing process to begin, a blood clot needs to form. Your dentist will ask you to bite on a gauze pad for half an hour or so immediately after extraction. You may need to repeat this several times until the bleeding has completely stopped. Avoid disturbing the clot for the next 72 hours. This means avoiding any sucking motion such as smoking or drinking with a straw, and refrain from drinking alcohol or brushing your teeth.
There will be some pain and swelling for a few days after the extraction. Treat this with an ice pack and any pain medication your dentist prescribes to you. Take any antibiotics as instructed even after the swelling goes down, and finish the course.
Drink lots of fluids and eat nutritious, soft food on the day of the extraction. You can eat normally as soon as you are comfortable.
Avoid doing any strenuous exercise for the next 24 hours as this increases blood pressure and may cause more bleeding from the extraction site. After 24 hours, you can resume your normal dental routine at least once a day to keep the mouth clean. After a few days you should be back to normal.
In the rare circumstance that you have a reaction to the medication, or you experience heavy bleeding or severe pain, or if the swelling does not go down after three days, come back and see us.
WISDOM TOOTH SURGERY
A wisdom tooth is one of the four molars at the back of your mouth that erupt when you are between 18-21 years of age.
No, if your wisdom teeth are not causing you any discomfort and there is room for them to grow without affecting the alignment of the rest of your teeth, you can leave your wisdom teeth be. If they need to be removed, most procedures can be carried out as a normal extraction.
If your wisdom teeth are impacted or prove difficult to remove, your dentist will perform wisdom tooth surgery. This involves making an incision to expose the bone and tooth and may be done under local or general anaesthesia. In some cases, part of the jaw bone may have to be removed or the tooth sectioned to make removal possible. Your dentist will irrigate and cleanse the site once the tooth is removed and assess whether stitches (sutures) are required.