THE CARE BEHIND A HEALTHY SMILE
Dental Extraction
- Patti Valentyne
5.0
Our dentists working together to achieve one goal – your perfect smile
Dental extraction is the removal of a tooth from its socket in the bone.
Reasons For Tooth Extraction
The most common reasons for tooth extraction are damage such as breakage or fracture. Some other possible reasons could be:
- Critical gum diseases which may affect supporting tissues and bone structures inside mouth
- Extreme tooth decay or infection
- For orthodontic treatment
- Insufficient space for wisdom teeth
- Receiving radiation to head and neck may require extraction in the field of radiation.
Extractions are often divided into two categories including “simple” or “surgical”. Simple extractions are performed on visible teeth, usually under local anesthesia and require only use of instruments to elevate and/or grasp the visible portion of tooth. Basically tooth is lifted using an elevator and subsequently using dental forceps, rocked back and forth until periodontal ligament has been sufficiently broken and supporting alveolar bone has been sufficiently widened to make tooth loose enough to remove. On the other hand, surgical extractions involve removal of teeth that is not easy to reach, either because they have broken under the gum line or because they have not arrived completely. In a surgical extraction dentist may elevate soft tissues covering the tooth and bone and may also remove some of the overlying and/or surrounding bone tissue with a drill or osteotome. Often, tooth may be split into several pieces for easy removal.
Problems With Dental Extractions
Dental extraction is one of the most common treatments, requested by people, at dental clinics and hospitals. However, root canal is a more effective option to relieve pain from an infected tooth, in most of the cases dental extraction is the only option left. Even though most extractions proceed without any difficulty, some can occur.