When you suffer from tooth loss, dental implants can offer replacement that look and function like natural teeth. However, if you’ve lost jawbone density due to missing teeth, then you may have trouble supporting these new teeth. Fortunately, our oral surgery and dental implant clinics in Berks County, PA, can strengthen your smile with jawbone grafting and sinus lift procedures.
The Loss of Mass and Density In Your Jaw
When we lose our natural teeth, the body will take note and in response, suspend the flow of calcium and phosphorus to the jaw around the missing root. Without these nutrients, the jawbone structure begins to lose mass and density, gradually shrinking to cause further tooth loss and over time, a prematurely aged appearance. Which means you may not have enough structure to support dental implants. However! Our team can conduct a ridge augmentation, also known as a jawbone grafting procedure, to rebuild these weakened areas so they can support dental implants.
Minor and Major Bone Grafts
When the body begins bone resorption, this can reduce the width and height of your jawbone. Grafting enables us to correct this! With a minor graft, we can address smaller defects, using synthetic tissues, a bone-growing membrane, and donor tissues. We apply these new structures and they are resorbed with time and new bone structure grows in its place. We can even provide a unique protein to encourage bone growth! For cases that require more substantial growth, we could take bone structure from your own body to apply to the larger areas. This again enables your jaw to be strengthened and able to handle the placement of one or more dental implants.
Sinus Lift Procedures
The procedures we discussed above are recommended for the lower arch of your smile. But what about the upper jaw? When you have lost structure in the upper portion of your smile, we could conduct a sinus lift. Our team will surgically raise the sinus membrane and insert bone grafting material into the floor of the sinuses. New bone then forms as the area heals, and provides structure in the upper portion that can handle the placement of dental implants.
If you have any questions about how we rebuild weakened jawbone structure to support dental implants, or about our tooth replacement options, then please contact our team today to learn more. We want to help you smile with confidence and maintain your youthful facial features and jawbone structure for years to come!
SCHEDULE A VISIT TO PREPARE YOUR SMILE FOR NEW TEETH
We want to strengthen the weakened portions of your smile so they can support replacement teeth. For more information on ridge augmentations and sinus lift procedures, give us a call at Berks Oral Surgery in Berks County, PA at (610) 374-4093 today!