One of the most common side effects of severe tooth or gum disease is the loss of bone tissue in your jaw. Not only can this cause complications for your overall health and the functionality of your smile, but it can also make restoration efforts more difficult. This is especially true when considering dental implants. Dental implants utilize metal posts implanted into your jawbone to act as a new tooth root; without a strong jawbone, we may not be able to offer dental implants as a choice of tooth restoration. A bone graft replaces space in your bone so there is enough to hold a dental implant in place. To remedy this situation and help you restore both the health and appearance of your smile, we offer multiple bone graft procedures in our Great Lakes Dentistry office in Royal Oak, MI. Read our recent post on bone grafts.

Bone Graft and Socket Preservation

If a tooth is getting extracted, a specific type of bone graft called a socket preservation graft will be needed to replace the empty space where the tooth once was. Once you take a tooth out you’re left with a hole that needs to be filled in. A socket preservation graft will fill that hole.

Socket preservation is one type of bone graft for a dental implant. If you need a dental implant to replace an upper tooth, there may not be enough bone because the sinuses, the spaces above your upper jaw, are too large, leaving too small an area of bone to put an implant in. In that case a different type of bone graft will be necessary.

Sinus Lift Bone Graft

The type of bone graft to add more bone to the upper jaw is called a sinus lift bone graft. The procedure “lifts” the bottom of the sinus so there is sufficient room and bone for a dental implant. After the sinus is lifted, bone graft material is packed into the space. Once healing has occurred, the patient is ready for a dental implant to be placed in the area.

As you can see, a dental implant would not have enough bone to be stabilized without the grafted bone in the sinus lift.

If you need a dental implant in the lower jaw, a sinus lift bone graft is not possible. We don’t have sinuses in our lower jaws! So, another type of bone graft is needed to add bone to the lower jaw to stabilize dental implants.

If socket preservation grafts and small amounts of particulate bone grafts are not enough to add enough bone to the lower jaw, a larger bone graft will be needed. Large pieces of bone, not small particles, added, or grafted, to the lower jaw are called block grafts. Block grafts are larger blocks of bone that are physically attached to the jaw bone. After healing, the block graft becomes integrated to the patient’s own jaw bone. Usually, block grafts for dental implants are required when there is a large amount of bone missing and several teeth have been missing for a long time.

More Bone Graft Questions and Answers

At Great Lakes Dentistry in Royal Oak, Michigan, our dentists place dental implants using socket preservation and bone grafts to place dental implants. Our dentists also performs sinus lift procedures to help stabilize dental implants. If you have questions about dental implants or bone grafts, call our office at (248) 435-8880 and ask for a free consultation.

A bone graft in Royal Oak is the process by which one of our knowledgeable dentists adds natural or synthetic bone tissue to your shrinking bone tissue to strengthen it and promote growth. A surgical treatment, bone grafting acts as a long-lasting solution to bone loss. If you would like more information on bone grafting, how it is completed, and what it can do for the future of your smile, please do not hesitate to call our friendly dental team at Great Lakes Dentistry today. Our goal is to help educate you about all of your treatment options so you can feel more confident in your dental healthcare decisions.