An Overview Bone Grafting in Dentistry

In the world of medicine, different parts of your body can be used to repair and restore other parts thereof. Ideally, if bone tissues from one part of your body are damaged, a surgeon can take healthy bone tissue from a different part of your body to treat the ailing part. This concept applies in different specialties of medicine, including dentistry.

The bone tissue in your mouth is paramount for good oral health serving the role of holding your teeth in place and allowing optimal functionality of the mouth. When the bone tissues in your mouth are diseased, however, only bone grafting procedures can help restore your oral health.

What Is Bone Grafting?

It is a surgical dental procedure that is used to repair and rebuild diseased or damaged bone tissue in the oral cavity by using transplanted bone tissues. The transplanted bone tissues are called bone grafts. The dental bone grafts can be taken from a different part of your oral cavity and be used to restore the diseased area. However, some bone grafts can also be synthetic, which means they are created in a dental laboratory for treatment purposes.

What Does Bone Grafting Entail?

Bone grafting for teeth and the connective tissues in your mouth is necessary if you want to have excellent oral health. One of the primary facts you must get used to is that bone grafting procedures involve surgery.

The goal of bone grafting is to mitigate the deficiency of natural bones and restore health to your oral cavity. For dental bone grafting surgeries, the particular bone in question is the alveolar bone. It is responsible for holding teeth in place and offering the necessary support to keep teeth strong and functional.

In dentistry, there are different types of bone grafts used for these kinds of surgeries. The most common ones are:

1. Socket graft – it protects the sockets of your mouth, disallowing them from collapsing.
2. Lateral ridge preservation graft – it increases the lateral width of the jawbone, especially in preparation for a tooth replacement procedure.
3. Block bone graft – it is needed to correct large defects in the jawbone, as would be evident after a traumatic accident.

When Is Bone Grafting Necessary?

It is not always that bone grafting procedures in Ajax, ON are necessary. A dental surgeon will recommend this procedure for patients with any of the following problems:

1. Advanced infection of the gums – usually called periodontitis. This infection develops after a patient neglects to treat Gingivitis for a long time. As the infection spreads further in the oral cavity and worsens, it progresses into a different stage, that is, periodontitis. The danger with periodontitis is that it destroys the bone tissue of the jawbone. This is why the jawbone deteriorates as the gums recede. A dental bone graft is, therefore, used to restore the health of the bone tissue.
2. For dental implants – bone grafting procedures can be performed before implantation procedures. These are treatments that involve installing a dental implant in the jawbone of a patient. The dental implant features a titanium metal post that relies on a healthy jawbone to be stable. Therefore, if your bone tissue is not healthy enough, it may render you an unfit candidate to receive a dental implant. This is unless an Ajax dentist restores your bone tissue through a bone grafting procedure.
3. Dental injuries – a traumatic accident can cause significant damage to your face and jawbone. Such an injury can damage your jawbone tremendously so that teeth can no longer be stable. For such, bone grafting surgery can remedy the situation by restoring the lost bone tissue.
4. Tooth loss – did you know that losing your natural teeth eventually damages your jawbone? Even though your teeth depend on your jawbone for stability, the health of your jawbone depends on the presence of teeth. Therefore, when you lose your teeth and fail to replace them for a long time, it sabotaged the health of your jawbone. The empty gap left by the lost teeth leaves the jawbone inactive for a long time. This then results in bone degeneration, which is remedied through a grafting procedure.