Rebuilding a Smile With Jaw Surgery and Grafting

March 15, 2022
Jaw Surgery

To make a smile ready for dental implant placement, or to correct symmetry and balance, you may need jaw surgery. This could include grafting, lifts, and more. In today’s blog, your Olathe, KS, dentists talk about how we provide a comfortable and effective surgery to improve your jaw’s balance and strength.

Tooth Loss and More

Sometimes issues with your jaw could occur as the smile grows and develops, leading to issues with symmetry and even misalignment and malocclusion. But problems could also occur due to tooth loss. When we lose one or more of our natural teeth, the body will respond by suspending the flow of calcium and phosphorus to the parts of the smile surrounding these missing roots. Without these nutrients, the bond tissue will lose mass and density, gradually breaking down and leading to worsening tooth loss and an aged appearance. At some point, your jaw will be too weak to receive dental implants! Fortunately, we can rebuild these weakened portions.

Grafting and Sinus Lifts

With grafting, we will take portions of bone from the back of your jaw, your hip, or from synthetic or donor sources. We use this to fortify and rebuild the weakened portions. As the area heals, this provides a new layer of tissue to support dental implants. Once the dental implants are in place, osseointegration bonds them to the smile and helps prevent the loss of mass and density. This is for the lower jaw, but for the upper one we could use sinus lifts, moving the sinus floor up to uncover new tissues to support new teeth.

Improving Symmetry

We could use surgery to boost overall symmetry and balance, which not only improves the beauty of your smile, but reduces your risk of disorders like TMD, and bruxism, factors that could cause painful symptoms in the head and face, and also impact how you eat and speak.

Ensuring Your Comfort

Every surgery starts with detailed digital x-trays and intraoral camera images, which allow us to plan the procedure with detail and avoid sinus cavities and nerve tissues too. We also administer a local anesthetic to the area receiving treatment. To ensure you remain calm and comfortable, especially if you have dental anxiety, we can discuss sedation. Dental sedation helps you enter a calm state with little to no memory of the procedure. The effects will wear off gradually, so a friend or family member can bring you home.

Ready to Improve Your Smile?

Our team is ready to help you smile with confidence again! Schedule an appointment today and learn more about correcting the balance and strength of your smile. You can also call E-Care Dentistry in Olathe, KS, today at 913-210-1701. Find our office at 15010 S Black Bob Road Olathe, KS 66062. We also proudly serve patients from Overland Park, Lenexa, and all surrounding communities.