Hi #williamsburg 👋🏼 Dr. Stephanie Dadoun here Oral Surgeon at GSD.
When a tooth is extracted, the procedure leaves a hole where the tooth used to be. If left alone, the area can be initially very sensitive, and can also cause some of the remaining bone to resorb (melt away) over time. This would be problematic if you ultimately wanted to replace that missing tooth with an implant.
There is a solution! 👉🏼Socket preservation is a procedure whereby bone is placed in the tooth socket (hole) at the time of extraction, thereby rectifying the void and preventing further bone loss in the area. Here are a few reasons why this should be done:
- Decreased initial sensitivity and chance of dry socket
- Increased amounts of vertical and horizontal bone, which is necessary to screw in a solid implant and replace that missing tooth!
- Decreased chance of losing bone around adjacent teeth, leading to mobility of those teeth, gum recession and possible increased sensitivity.
- Avoidance of a more costly bone augmentation procedure down the line.
I look forward to meeting you and I’m here to help you through wisdom tooth removal, implant placements, biopsies and bone grafts!