If treatment like root canals, gum disease treatment, and restorative dentistry are ineffective, damaged, infected, and failing teeth, should be removed to protect your dental health and even systemic health. Unless they’re wisdom teeth or extra teeth that are causing overcrowding in your mouth, most teeth should be replaced after removal. Apart from the ways tooth loss can decrease your quality of life, it can also trigger a sort of “domino effect” in your health. Without natural tooth roots stimulating healthy bone growth, your bone will begin to deteriorate beneath the empty tooth socket. This will spread and can even lead to additional tooth loss in adjacent teeth. Replacing your tooth before extensive bone loss can occur will help prevent unnecessary additional harm as well as the need for bone grafting procedures. If your bone is stable enough or has received bone reconstructive treatment, you’ll have the option between dental bridges, dentures, and dental implants for your new, complete smile.

Your tooth roots are firmly embedded in your jaws and help keep the bone healthy through the ongoing stimulation of chewing. Without those roots, the jaw loses its function and can begin to deteriorate in areas where teeth are no longer present. Tooth loss due to decay or oral trauma is a common reason for this. If you have dentures, while they give you back most of your dental function (your diet may be somewhat limited), they don’t replace the tooth roots you’ve lost. Dentures don’t provide protection for your jaws. Advanced gum disease, or periodontitis, is another common cause of bone loss, and occurs when the bacteria eat away at the jawbone underneath the gums.

Bone grafting treatments make jawbone loss reversible. With bone grafting we take bone material samples from you or from a donor source and place them in areas of recession. These materials eventually bond with the existing bone to reestablish strong, full bone volume. With ridge augmentation and ridge preservation we can use bone graft material to rebuild and reshape your jawbone, returning it to an earlier, healthier state. We can then help you regain your dental function and aesthetics with dental implants in Norwich & Branford, CT.

If your jawbone isn’t wide enough to support dental implants, ridge splitting, or dividing of the jawbone with surgical instruments, can be effective. After separating the jaw’s bony ridge, we can add bone graft material in the middle. Once this material fuses with the existing bone, you end up with a wider, deeper jaw ridge that can hold dental implants securely. Dental implants will not only protect your jawbone from future recession, they’ll vastly improve your confidence and your overall quality of life, enabling you to eat, speak, and smile comfortably again.

The most common solution for failing dental implants is a total replacement of the implant itself. We will determine this after an evaluation and x-rays. But in most cases where the implant(s) hasn’t responded to either nonsurgical or surgical intervention (peri-implantitis treatment and bone grafts), this is the best option for your health and function.

In general, there are two techniques for removing a failing dental implant from your bone. One is to cut a small portion of bone, sometimes with a piezo-electric device, around the implant edge so it can easily be removed. Another technique is to “reverse torque” the implant out of the bone. In all instances, our goal is to preserve as much of your natural bone as possible for more predictable and lasting implant success in the future.

A failed dental implant doesn’t disqualify you from being a candidate for one in the future. It simply means it’s critical that you receive treatment from a qualified clinician with the skill to do it correctly. Our oral surgeon is part of the only dental specialty to achieve the highest level of education and training in surgery, including dental implants. We also use state-of-the-art surgical technology and materials scientifically proven to withstand the forces of biting and chewing.

Our oral surgeon offers fully guided implant surgery to remove virtually all room for error, with exact and consistent results. Working closely with your restorative dentist, we can deliver a personalized treatment and a new smile that provides long-term function and aesthetics. You can have a smile that lasts—and it begins with the expertise of our surgical team in Norwich & Branford, CT!

There are multiple paths to a secure smile in Norwich & Branford, CT, and they have one element in common: dental implants. Implant supported dentures combine some features of dentures and dental implants in a single dental appliance. With this solution you have dental implants inserted into your jaw and then a full-arch denture attached to it. The implants stop your denture from shifting during meals and other daily activities, enable you to eat a wider, more satisfying variety of foods, and prevent the bone loss that can happen with traditional dentures due to lack of a root structure.

The next option is full mouth or full arch dental implants. This solution is widely considered to be the best overall choice for tooth replacement today. Created to last many years, with regular maintenance may provide up to a lifetime of dependable function and lifelike beauty. Anchored firmly in your jaw, dental implants are strong enough to allow you to eat all your favorite foods with confidence—hard, chewy, and crunchy foods. Dental implants don’t develop decay or infection and their restorations won’t stain. They can truly change your life!

By having your impacted canine exposed and then aligned, the tooth will be placed correctly in the gum and further damage will be prevented. Not only will your appearance be improved but you will be able to bite and chew without discomfort.

Any dental patient with a tooth that does not emerge through the gum may have an impacted tooth. This occurs most of the time with canine teeth. If this is the case, the impacted canine should be treated. Failure to do so may affect teeth nearby and cysts or infections may occur.