Bone Grafting

Deciding to treat your missing teeth with dental implants doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be able to move straight into the implant procedure. In fact, some patients are not able to move forward with implant treatment because their jawbone or gums have deteriorated to the point where they can no longer provide the foundation needed for dental implants to succeed. Fortunately for these patients, we can perform a supplementary procedure that will restore the deficient areas of their jaw structure back to a point where they can handle dental implants. Using these procedures, our dental implant providers can restore dental implant candidacy for North Riverside area patients.

Why do I need a bone graft?

What makes dental implants work the way they do is a process called osseointegration. During the healing period, osseointegration works to see your implant fixture assimilated into your jaw structure. As a result of this process, your dental implants are recognized by your body as being no different from any of your natural teeth. Naturally, in order for osseointegration to work properly, your jawbone must be strong enough to handle the implant procedure and then be able to heal around your new implant fixture.

However, what many people don’t realize about the jawbone is that it is just like a muscle in the way that it requires constant exercise in order to stay healthy and intact. This exercise typically comes from vibrations that happen every time you chew food. These vibrations then travel down your tooth roots and into your jawbone. But, when you lose a tooth, the area of the jawbone that tooth was connected to is no longer getting the exercise it needs to stay healthy. As a result, the affected area of the jawbone will begin to deteriorate.

What supplemental procedures are available?

For our patients suffering from jawbone deterioration, we can treat them using a procedure called bone grafting. Bone grafting is a treatment that uses bone samples taken from another source and grafts these tissue to the deficient area of your jawbone. As they heal, they will integrate into the rest of your jawbone, restoring strength and density to your jawbone.

There are three main types of bone grafting we can provide our patients with. These are:

• Allografting: An allograft is a type of bone grafting that uses bone samples taken from a special medical warehouse. These samples are either donated by other people or are taken from certain animals.
• Synthetic Tissue: For some patients, we can use synthetic bone tissue that has been made from hydroxyapatite or another biocompatible material.
• Autologous Bone Grafting: The last type of bone grafting we can perform is an autologous bone graft, which uses bone tissue taken from your own body. This tissue is typically taken from your hipbone.

For our patients suffering from gum recession, we can perform a similar procedure called soft tissue augmentation. This procedure takes gum tissue from another part of your body, usually the palate, and grafts it to the areas of your gums that need it.

Restore Your Jaw Structure for Dental Implants

We highly recommend dental implants for any of our patients suffering from one or more missing teeth. Thanks to both bone grafting and soft tissue augmentation, there is no reason to let jawbone deterioration or gum recession stop you from getting the care you need. If you would like to learn more about these supplemental procedures or would like to find out whether or not you might need them, we encourage you to contact us and schedule a no-obligation consultation with our dental implant provider, Dr. Benjamin Baptist today.