Oral Surgery is needed for a variety of reasons. Removal of a single tooth, trauma, decay, periodontal disease, making room for adjacent teeth or for orthodontic procedures - all can be classified in dental terms as oral surgery. As a general rule of thumb, any time a tooth is removed or forcefully adjusted, it is considered a dental oral surgery procedure.
Almost everyone has a tooth removed at some point in their life, whether it's a primary or a permanent tooth. Most people experience the removal of their third molars - or wisdom teeth - in their teen years. Oral surgery is also commonly used to place dental implants, if your tooth has experienced a trauma or if gum disease has arrested some of your bone and tissues.
Forms of Oral Surgery
Bone Grafting
Bone Grafting isn’t as scary as you think despite how terrifying the term “bone graft” sounds. You need to understand that your jawbone holds your teeth in place the way they are. Your roots are surrounded by bone and attached by anatomical structures, but you don’t have to worry too much about that.
If you lose a tooth it’s okay and we have the solution. We remove the damaged tooth and preserve the bone in the area using a very easy bone grafting operation. A couple stitches will be put in to close the tooth socket and is very simple to do. There should not be much of a recovery time, as your bone will fill the tooth socket over the weeks following the procedure. Although, if you replace the missing tooth with a bridge, you will lose some of the bone level as time goes on.
Bone graft surgery is temporary but your beautiful smile lasts forever!
Impacted Wisdom Teeth
The third molars are the last of your teeth to develop and don't completely come in until your teenage years. Sometimes they will grow in without causing issue to the other teeth in your mouth. Most of the time, wisdom teeth either won't erupt, come in misaligned or crowd the mouth causing teeth to shift. Advancements in oral surgery have made removal of wisdom teeth a standard procedure. After x-rays and reviewing the position of the teeth, Delray Beach dentist Dr. McCauley can quickly develop a plan of strategy to extract your wisdom teeth quickly, painlessly and with minimal downtime.
Dental Implants
Dental Implants are a common oral surgery solution used to treat tooth loss. They are comprised of titanium anchors set in the jaw's bone to provide a stable foundation for permanent and temporary teeth. Highly noted for their consistency and reliability, dental implants are one of the most common dental surgery procedures performed in-office at McCauley Dental near you.
Jaw related Injuries or Diseases
Oral surgery to fix jaw disease or injury can be performed to make the upper, lower or both jaws more functional, balanced and healthy. Choosing to ignore an unusual growth, coloration or feel to your jaw can result in eating, breathing and swallowing problems or worse. Oral surgery is most often than not recommended in these cases to prevent the spread of disease or to adjust for growths or improper alignment. Bone grafting may be recommended when necessary to fill in areas where bone may have deteriorated.
IV Sedation Dentistry
At McCauley Dental in Delray Beach, we use IV Sedation during oral surgery to minimize the stress of the procedure. IV Sedation Dentistry relieves anxiety, decreases pain, and interferes with memory to help relax the patient through the length of their procedure. It's so effective, patients who undergo sedation believe their pain-free procedure only took 5 minutes, when in fact it was a complicated, 90-minute procedure. If you experience feelings of anxiety toward dental procedures of any sort, let Dr. McCauley know so that we might adjust our techniques to better suit your comfort.
For information on oral surgery please call our office at 561-272-8555.
