Sometimes, a tooth cannot be treated with a filling or crown, and staying in place actually threatens oral health. To save the smile and preserve it, our team may recommend a tooth extraction. In today’s blog, your Newhall, CA, dentist talks about how we use tooth extraction to save a smile and prevent complications.
When a Tooth Needs to Be Removed
Why do we sometimes suggest removing a tooth completely? Well, we could suggest this if a tooth is too decayed, infected, or damaged to be repaired with a crown or bonding procedure, as staying in place could allow infection to reach other parts of the smile. Extraction also helps prevent wisdom tooth impaction, which harms the appearance, function, and beauty of your smile. These additional molars erupt in our late teens and early 20s, and we want to take them out before they erupt at all! Our team could use this to also address teeth loosened by gum disease, or to make room for orthodontic treatment. For some, this could also improve bite balance and chewing function too.
The Extraction Process
We want you to feel comfortable throughout the process. To begin, we will gather detailed digital x-rays to identify the position of the tooth and plan the treatment with precision, avoiding sinus cavities and nerve tissues. We then numb the smile and for anxious patients, we could offer sedation to help them enter a calm and relaxed state. Next, we will gently remove the tooth with a pair of forceps and will then suture the area closed. The sedation takes time to wear off completely, so a friend or family member can bring you home, and we will send detailed instructions for aftercare, and prescriptions for medication to facilitate a complication-free healing period.
What Happens Next?
For the first day, you will need to rest, avoid straw use, eat soft foods, and be very gentle when you brush and floss. We will remove sutures in a follow-up visit. If a wisdom tooth is removed, no further action is needed. But if you lose a tooth to other factors this could leave behind a gap that negatively impacts smile beauty and leads to complications down the road. For these, we could offer replacement with bridges and partial dentures, or possibly even implant dentistry. If you have any questions about how we remove a tooth comfortably, or about possible replacement options, then contact our team today to learn more.
Talk To Your Newhall, CA Dentist About Tooth Removal
Our team wants to help protect and preserve smiles by removing teeth that endanger oral health. If you would like to find out more about how we can treat smiles with oral surgery, then contact your Newhall, CA, dentist, Dr. Tajik, by calling (661) 259-7760.