When you think about having a nice smile, most likely the first thing that comes to your mind is straight, white teeth. There is much more to a nice smile than just the way that the teeth look. All of the parts of your mouth need to look nice for your smile to look its best.
If you have a tooth extracted, it could affect how your jawline looks. That is where ridge augmentation comes in.
Here at Placentia Oral Surgery, we want to make sure that your smile looks great and your mouth is healthy. That is why we will often include ridge augmentation after we have extracted a tooth.
What Is Ridge Augmentation?
When a tooth is extracted, it will leave a gap in your teeth, but it will also leave a hole in your jaw where the root of the tooth used to be. When a tooth is extracted, or when a tooth is missing, you will also immediately start to lose bone in your jaw where the tooth used to be, which is known as resorption. After tooth extraction the empty socket will be filled with bone grafting material to encourage bone growth.
Ridge Augmentation and Dental Implants
Ridge augmentation is often part of the process if we plan to replace an extracted tooth with a dental implant. This is because there needs to be enough bone in your jaw for the implant to hold. Often we will perform the ridge augmentation during the same visit as the tooth extraction. This is the first step to making sure that your jaw will have enough bone in it so that the implant will hold and will be successful.
Other Reasons for Ridge Augmentation
There are also other reasons why we might perform a ridge augmentation, even if you are not going to receive a dental implant. If there is a hole in your jaw where the tooth used to be, it will affect your other teeth.It could cause them to shift, which would throw off your bite, or could even cause more teeth to become loose. Essentially, a ridge augmentation will help the other teeth to stay in place.
Preserving Jawbone After Tooth Extraction
Contact Placentia Oral Surgery at (657) 216-1617 today to schedule your appointment with our expert Oral Surgeon.