When you require a tooth replacement for an extracted or missing tooth, a dental implant is a perfect option to help you restore your smile. However, dental implants need a sufficient amount of jawbone for successful implantation. Luckily, bone augmentation procedures such as bone grafting can help restore your jawbone’s density and volume required for dental implants. Jochen Pechak, DDS, MSD, at Perio & Implant Center of Monterey Bay and the Silicon Valley, assesses your jawbone before recommending dental implants. If you have insufficient bone, he will perform a bone graft to enable you to get an implant. For Monterey bone grafting, call or schedule an appointment online today.
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What is Bone Grafting?
This is a procedure that enhances the quality and quantity of bone in your jaw. During bone grafting, the dentist does a bone matrix transplant from a sterilized donor bank into your jawbone. Your jawbone incorporates the donated bone to form a more substantial and stronger jawbone that can effectively support a dental implant.
Are You the Right Candidate for Bone Grafting?
With age, the jawbone degenerates and is resorbed. This is more particularly if you have missing teeth. Although you might want to have a dental implant as a perfect and convenient replacement for a missing tooth, you might not qualify for the procedure if you lack the jawbone’s required quality and quantity. Bone grafting offers you a solution by resulting in a sturdier and stronger jawbone that can firmly hold a dental implant’s titanium post. However, you should keep in mind that other tooth restorations such as dentures, crowns, and bridges do not need bone grafting, but on the other hand, they don’t give you the longevity of implants.
What Should You Expect During A Bone Grafting Procedure?
After you and your doctor agree that bone grafting is the correct procedure for you, you will be offered a local anesthetic to numb the zone getting the bone graft. Dr. Pechak uses a sterile human bone bank combined with your own blood plasma and effectively grafts it to your jawbone. You will then go home for several months to recover. During this period, the bone graft integrates with your natural jaw bone, developing a new strong bone that can support a dental implant.
What is the Bone Grafting Recovery Like?
After the bone grafting procedure, you will experience some bruising, swelling, and minor bleeding in the treatment area. Hence, you will be required to take only liquids and soft foods in the first few days as you recover from the surgery. With every graft, the doctor injects platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) to enhance the success rate and speed up the healing. PRF is a new generation of platelet-rich plasma derived from your own blood. It is rich in healing factors that improve the wound recovery rate and tissue growth.
To sum up, even if you have been told you have insufficient jawbone to support your dental implants, you still have an option. Expert bone grafting at Perio & Implant Center of Monterey Bay and Silicon Valley can help you restore a healthy jaw bone to enable you to get dental implants. Call or schedule an appointment online today.