Bone grafting might sound like a complicated and difficult procedure, but it is actually one of the most common treatments that our expert oral surgeon performs. Dental bone grafting can provide a number of benefits to patients with different needs. Brookfield Oral Surgery can help with all of your bone grafting needs.
What is a bone graft?
A bone graft is a normal treatment for restoring lost bone volume in older patients, and is often performed as a prerequisite for other dental procedures, such as dental implants. It takes graft material made from bone or artificial bone that encourages the growth of new bone.
Types and materials of bone grafts
There are many different types of bone grafts, and almost as many different materials that the graft might be made from, but we will go over a few of the most common ones here. Socket grafts are a type of bone graft frequently performed as part of a tooth extraction, and are used to prevent bone shrinkage. A sinus lift, or sinus augmentation, adds bone mass to your upper jaw by lifting the membrane of your sinuses.
All of these types of grafts can be performed using different materials for the graft itself. Often, the bone will actually be taken from your own body, though this necessitates an additional procedure. The bone may also be taken from another person or even an animal. Other times the material is entirely synthetic.
Are you a good candidate for a bone graft?
Bone grafts may be performed for a variety of reasons. One of the most common reasons is to prepare a patient for a dental implant. Dental implants are the new standard for replacement teeth, and are miniature titanium posts placed in the jawbone itself. Because implants go in the bone, they need sufficient bone mass to act as an adequate anchor. Bone grafts cannot only add that bone mass to make a patient into a viable candidate for implants, they can also help prevent that bone loss from ever happening in the first place, as with a socket graft.
You may also benefit from bone grafting if you have lost a tooth or suffered from gum disease. Both of these conditions can result in the loss of bone mass. In the case of tooth loss, in the first year alone after losing the tooth you can experience an up to 25% reduction in bone volume! This can have drastic consequences for your physical appearance as your facial features, no longer supported by underlying bone, begin to collapse.
What you can expect during a bone graft
Bone grafts usually do not take too long. You can expect to be in our office under two hours while the procedure is performed. The initial healing is fairly quick, but a full recovery can take many months as the graft stimulates new bone growth. We will likely ask you to come back into our office for periodic check ups so we can ensure that your new bone is developing properly.