Bone Graft: Purpose & Procedure

If you have missing teeth, a dental implant offers a permanent solution to the problem. A completely natural-looking “tooth” is place atop an implant which emulates the root of the tooth to be replaced. To do this, it must be firmly settled in the jawbone – but bone-loss is commonly associated with tooth loss – especially when getting a replacement has been delayed. And in some cases, the jawbone is simply too thin or too weak to support the implant. Bone graft surgery can solve the problem.

Bone Grafts Explained

If gum disease, tooth loss, or some trauma to the jaw has weakened the bone, it can be repaired with the help of a bone graft. The surgeon will use bone from your body, from a donor, or more often in recent times, synthetic bone to strengthen the jawbone so that it is ready to receive the implant.

Calcium sulphate is the most commonly used material in modern bone grafting procedures. It stimulates bone regrowth and is gradually absorbed into the body as natural bone replaces it. That means you don’t have to have two surgery sites – one where the bone is taken for the graft and another for the bone grafting procedure itself.

Size and shape are important, and the surgeon must take both functionality and aesthetics into account. After all, your jawbone forms part of your face’s structure. The bone graft stimulates healing in the jawbone, and acts as a scaffold structure around which your body can rebuild lost bone.

Since bone grafting is a surgical procedure, your physical health is thoroughly checked before the time.

After Bone Graft Surgery

It takes about three months for the bone graft to settle down and for the jaw’s structure to regenerate. But, from your perspective, it isn’t long before the stiches are removed, and you feel perfectly normal. In most instances, you’ll need no more than two weeks before external healing has taken place. It’s important to follow your oral hygiene routine, and if you need to adjust this in any way, your surgeon will explain what you need to do.

In many instances, it is impossible to perform the implant procedure until the bone graft has settled down. As a result, you may have to wait a few months before you get your replacement tooth.

Is Bone Grafting a Major Surgery?

Not too many decades ago, dental implants were unheard-of and bone grafting was primarily done to address “disuse atrophy,” a situation in which the jawbone degenerates because it no longer receives the stimulus to repair itself.

Dentures don’t prevent disuse atrophy and badly weakened jawbones were common as a result. The dentist would therefore need to rebuild the jawbone to provide a strong and stable enough platform for dentures and, quite often, the surgery was extensive.

However, these days such major bone grafting procedures are rarely needed. It’s usually just a matter of a small volume of bone and can be done as an outpatient procedure.

And remember – not all implants require a bone graft, in fact, most of them don’t. So, before you begin to worry about bone grafting, go and see your dentist. You might find that it isn’t necessary at all.