TOOTH REMOVAL

At Sun Dental Care, we believe in preserving the natural tooth structure as much as possible, and avoid having to extract a tooth unless it is unavoidable or has a poor long term prognosis. This is usually when:

• The tooth has broken extensively, and therefore not enough tooth structure is left to build a dental crown
• A root canal treatment has failed and the tooth is infected and second time root canal is not an option
• As an alternative solution to root canal treatment for an infected tooth with extensive decay and poor remaining tooth structure.

Tooth extractions at Sun Dental Care are carried out under local anaesthetic to make extractions as painless as possible. We use periotomes and luxators and a gentle extraction technique to preserve as much jaw bone as possible. This is important as this will ensure minimal post operative pain and swelling, and will also help bone retention for future implant work. Bone retention is also important aesthetically as it avoids the “sunken in appearance” that people with dental bone loss have.

Socket Preservation

After having a tooth extracted, there will be an empty “socket” where the tooth used to be. If the socket is not kept stimulated, the bone that used to support the tooth starts to resorb and becomes thin and shallow. This can cause a problem when we look at possible treatment to replace the gap with a partial denture, bridge or dental implant. Socket preservation is the act of minimizing bone shrinkage, and therefore preserving the bone’s depth and height to allow better outcome for a future denture, bridge or implant.