Oral Surgery

Oral Surgery InstrumentYou'e been told you need a tooth removed. Many questions pop into your head as to why, who should perform this procedure, what do I do to replace the tooth and how will it affect my remaining teeth and current function?

Removing teeth is definitely an art and there are different approaches to their removal. If done incorrectly, there can be irreversible damage to the underlying bone and adjacent teeth.

As a periodontist, our goal is to conserve the structures that surround the teeth including the bone. Research shows that when removing a tooth, up to 60% of the bone can be removed/wear away. This is very difficult to recover. If bone is lost in a vertical dimension, it is even more difficult/if not impossible to regenerate. In the esthetic zone, this can have very dire consequences. Once you lose the bone, the tissue in-between your teeth (called papilla) will not regenerate. This has a dramatic effect on the natural look and feel of your teeth.

We can remove teeth without bone grafting, but we prefer not to. The best time to preserve the jawbone and soft tissue is at the time of the extraction. Our goal is to perform this extraction in the most atraumatic way possible, with minimal soft tissue manipulation and bone removal. This will pay dividends in the future when the tooth is replaced with an implant or fixed restoration and the tooth replacement looks and feels like a natural tooth.

To aid in this process, we use the Piezosurgery® system which uses precisely controlled, three-dimensional ultrasonic vibrations to cut bone without damaging the surrounding tissues. This is redefining the state of the art in several surgical fields including neurosurgery, otolaryngological surgery, minute orthopedic surgery, plastic/reconstructive surgery, and in our case, oral and maxillofacial surgery.

This Piezosurgery® system is supported by more research than all of the other systems combined. The advantages to using this during bone surgeries and extractions include:

  • faster healing time, with less swelling and post-operative pain
  • fewer return visits to address post-operative complications
  • greater patient comfort
  • less trauma to the bone than conventional methods

We have asked patients to describe their experience with the unit and they have noted that the procedure seemed less traumatic than without its use. Of course every individual is different, but our goal is to minimize any damage to the underlying structures.

We work closely with your restorative dentist to make this transition as seamless as possible with using transitional/temporary prosthesis in the meantime if needed.

If you have any questions on our methods for removing teeth, please don't hesitate to ask. You get one chance to do this procedure correctly and we take pride in performing this procedure meticulously.