Bone Graft

What Is a Bone Graft?

A bone graft involves placing bone or an artificial material into areas where the jawbone is deficient.

Once in place, the bone graft acts like a matrix, providing a framework on which your body can deposit new bone growth. Over time, the bone graft is eventually replaced with your own bone.

How Can Bone Loss Occur?

Several situations may cause dental bone loss, including:

• Trauma.
• Wearing a denture for many years.
• Jawbone resorption after tooth loss.
• Jawbone destruction due to gum disease.

Sometimes jawbone loss is due to trauma or infection, but if you have worn a denture for many years, it’s likely your jawbone will have diminished. The pressure of the denture resting on your gums and jawbone causes it to resorb.

Resorption also occurs naturally after tooth loss. This is because your tooth roots stimulate the bone around them, ensuring it remains strong and healthy, and that old and dying bone cells are continually replaced. After tooth loss, without stimulation, bone resorption is inevitable.

Gum disease is an infectious condition that gradually destroys the gum and bone around teeth. Eventually, these teeth become loose.

When Is Bone Grafting Necessary?

There are several situations in which we might recommend dental bone graft surgery, including the following:

Preparing Your Jaw for Dental Implants

Often, we recommend a bone graft when preparing the jaw for dental implants, especially if the ridge of bone that once supported natural teeth has diminished and narrowed. This can occur if you have worn dentures for many years or if you have had periodontal disease that has destroyed your jawbone.

Dental bone grafting is frequently needed when restoring the back teeth in your upper jaw. These are the teeth closest to the sinus cavities, where the bone is naturally weaker and thinner, and must be increased before we can carry out a dental implant surgery successfully.

Preparing Your Jawbone for Dentures

Sometimes, bone grafting is recommended to shape the jawbone in preparation for dentures. This helps ensure that they fit more securely and comfortably.

Stabilizing loose teeth

We can also use dental bone grafting to stabilize loose teeth and help prevent their loss. We may advise using this technique if you have teeth loosened due to periodontal disease, and where we think they can be saved.

Bone Grafting Techniques

There are various types of bone grafts, including:

• Socket preservation.
• Sinus augmentation.
• Ridge augmentation.

Socket Preservation

Socket preservation is a minimally invasive procedure in which we pack the empty tooth socket with bone grafting material after removing a failing tooth. The purpose of this technique is to help protect and preserve the shape of the socket and to ensure there is enough bone for a dental implant. Sometimes we can place the implant simultaneously.

Sinus Augmentation

A sinus augmentation is a delicate procedure that lifts the sinus membrane between your sinus cavities and upper jawbone, creating enough space for new dental bone graft material to be inserted, increasing the height of the jawbone available for implants.

Ridge Augmentation

During a ridge augmentation, we can increase the width and height of your jawbone. This is accomplished by adding new blocks of bone to the jawbone that are then secured in place.

Deciding Which Type of Bone Grafting Material Is Appropriate

Several types of bone grafting material can be used, including:

1. Autograft

An autograft is a bone graft taken from another part of your body, often your hip. The graft can be carefully shaped or ground up before being placed in your jawbone.

The major advantage of using your own bone is that the risk of rejection is eliminated, but you do need an additional procedure to remove the bone graft.

2. Xenograft

A xenograft is made from donor bone from an animal, usually a cow or pig. The dental bone is sterilized and thoroughly tested to ensure it is safe for use.

3. Allograft

This is another form of donor bone, taken from a human donor and sterilized and tested to ensure it is entirely safe for use.

4. Alloplast

An alloplast is an artificial bone graft. It is made from various materials designed to encourage new bone growth and provide a good matrix for it to grow.

Identifying When a Bone Graft is Needed.

We identify if a bone graft is required by carrying out a cone beam CT scan, a 3-D scan of your jawbone, and any existing teeth. This allows us to quantify the amount of bone available for implant placement and assess any deficiencies that must be addressed.

What to Expect If You Need a Dental Bone Graft?

It’s important to stress that dental bone graft surgery is a common procedure and that it will be entirely painless. If needed, we can use sedation dentistry.

We will make sure your jawbone is thoroughly numb before making a small incision in the gum to expose the jawbone so we can place the new bone graft beneath your gum.

The bone graft will be covered with a membrane to help it heal more quickly and to prevent gum tissue from growing into the bone graft material. The gum is then replaced over the dental bone graft and stitched in place.

Dental Bone Graft Recovery

It may take a week for your bone graft to begin healing, but you can expect it to be several months before it is completely healed and integrated with your jawbone.

After your dental bone graft surgery, we provide clear, easy-to-follow instructions for caring for your mouth. This includes advice on oral hygiene and dietary advice.

Dental bone graft complications are very rare, but you may find your mouth feels slightly tender, with some minor bruising and swelling. If we have prescribed antibiotics, please take them until you complete the course, as this will help reduce the risk of complications such as infection.

Over-the-counter medications should be adequate to control any discomfort or pain, but we can always prescribe pain relief if needed.

It’s not unusual to see some grains of bone graft emerge from the surgery site. These look like small grains of sand, and generally, they are nothing to be concerned about.

When to Get in Touch with Us

Our friendly and compassionate dental team at Dental Pearl is always available to discuss any concerns you may have.

Get in touch with us if you notice any of the following symptoms, including:

• Excessive bone grafting material emerging from the surgery site.
• Increasing pain.
• Pus buildup.

This is a low-risk procedure, but there is always a small chance of problems. We take every precaution to reduce these risks during the planning phase and will fully discuss any risk factors with you, including medical issues or smoking.